So Long mark

From my perspective, Mark Dance burst onto the Vancouver model railway scene fully-formed. There were no years of showing up at meets and sitting at the back of clinics, no decades of collecting whatever struck his fancy at train shows, no screeds explaining the superiority of his one-day layout. No, my introduction to Mark was […]

Coal Car Test Truck

I refined the truck design a little over the holidays, and assembled a couple of test prints. The mechanical aspects are fairly good now, and as you can see it equalizes quite nicely. I just have to improve the supports a little so I don’t lose any more brake beams!

Coal Car Trucks

I’m taking a little break from Percy as I wait for some slightly larger, more powerful motors that I ordered earlier this week. I cast about for another project to pick up for a week or two and alighted on the coal cars. They’ve been waiting for a resolution to the weight problem, and they […]

Percy’s Programming Problems

Next time I’ll know. Next time I won’t trust that setting the max and min output voltage CVs will properly govern the max and min output voltages. Next time, I’ll take my meter and check. Yes, another motor has been turned into a molten mess, or maybe a tangle. I don’t know, I’m not going […]

Percy Together Again

After a couple more gear box prints, Percy went back together again. Brimming with anticipation, I put the chassis on the rails to see if it would run on the straight DC available from my ancient power pack. It sort of did, but not even as well as remember it running before I started on […]

Percy’s Wheels are Mounted

The second set of wheels went onto the axles substantially better than the first. I recalled that it was a good idea to get the axle about halfway into the wheel, and then take it out of the press to inspect how axle was lining up with the key. The inside of the key is […]

Percy’s New Wheels

There is a little progress each evening toward re-wheeling and re-motoring Percy. The old wheels proved remarkably robust when it came time to disassemble them. Assembled with one of the red LocTites, the only way to get them apart was to break the plastic centres. It was a savage evening! I printed new centres, and […]

Gear Spacing

One of the things I love about sharing my modelling progress is the opportunity to learn from my friends. At the North Shore Model Railroaders virtual meeting this Wednesday, I shared the pitiful progress I’ve made on Percy in the last two months, culminating in the photo of the half-assembled gearbox. I commented that I […]

Percy Gear Fitting

I finally gathered sufficient courage to put all of Percy’s new gears onto their shafts. I was avoiding it because I only had one of each of the two spur gears and one lay shaft. If it went wrong, I would have to get more gears, and who knows when those would arrive through the […]

New Turnings for Percy

It’s been over a year since the lathe last graced the workbench in the heavy shop. Honestly, I was surprised I remembered how to turn it on! It took only one attempt to make this brass bearing, and two attempts for the new insulated axle. I’ll take the win!