Really tiny LED

Somewhere between here and the other Vancouver, a package of gubbins from NGineering has been waiting for almost a month. The package contains some solder strippable magnet wire, the recommended flux and a handy-looking tool for holding the wire together with the tiny surface-mount LEDs that are available today. Tim Anderson of NGineering sent the […]

Cab roof for 622

More styrene has found its way into 622 with the addition of the cab roof. I formed this by heating some .015″ styrene in boiling water and fixing it to the outside of a can of Green Giant Niblets with rubber bands and some scraps of card. The Cricut made the carlines (the transverse members […]

Cab insulation

As with every other part of 622, the cab needs to be electrically split down the middle. So, the front and back of the cab are made of two layers – the inner phosphor bronze and the outer styrene. Before I could add the styrene, I had to correct the cab sides, however. The etching […]

Potion from Embro, Ontario

I think I have finally found my replacement for Mek Pak. I became addicted to that styrene cement whilst living in Henley on Thames (Nine miles from Reading for ardent CBC fans). “Addicted” in the sense of strong preference as opposed to plastic-bag-solvent-abuse-self-harm. Unfortunately, my stockpile has run out or evaporated, and I’ve been chasing […]

Tender tank details

I’m way out of practice, but even so, the evening and morning spent assembling the tool boxes and other details that adorn the tender tank was the most fun I’ve had in a while. I actually do have what normal people call “a life,” but normal people don’t understand how forgiving and quick it is […]

Lowering the carriage factory

Rob Kirkham suggested getting a boxcar into the scene to compare with the carriage factory. The cars in the prototype photo look like 36 footers, and I don’t have any that large. I did have a 34′ V&PL car at hand, and dropping it into the scene, we can see that the 80′ factory is […]

Balancing the carriage factory

The temporary massing models have lasted much longer than I expected, and I’ve always felt the carriage factory was too small and the station looked too tall. So, with a little spare time and foam core, I built a new carriage factory, and with my knife I lopped off four feet from the bottom of […]

Where are all the rivets?

Over three years ago, I started work on the tender shell for 622. I went through a lot of pain and sandpaper trying to preserve the rivets, while making the shortening scar invisible. After all, conventional wisdom says that tenders are full of rivets, and the ones on Bachmann’s casting were too nice to just […]

Tender frame for 622

I seem to be in a bit of a holding pattern as I wait for some electronics parts. They’re going to need a place to sit anyway, and so, I’ve returned to work on the tender. #10’s tender frame is fully represented, but it’s very difficult to see, and forced me to cram weight into […]

Really tiny connectors!

I was feeling pretty smug about having thought to include a wiring channel along the top of the boiler to make room for marker and headlight wires. Then I started to think about how to get the electricity from the decoder to those wires, and how to make it so that everything can come apart, […]