Installing Turnout Controls

Awaiting a custom set of N-scale Grand Trunk decals from Black Cat, I have had to put Percy aside for a week or so. Meanwhile, I’ve been honing the approach to installing turnout controls. These controls had to satisfy the following design criteria. They need to behave like a real switch stand. I want to […]

Percy and the mega-print

With Percy now coated in primer, it is easier to see and comment about how that single big print went. Truthfully, it was two prints because the first one had the cylinders too high. While I wouldn’t consider it a failure, the single big print was not the best decision. I knew I was in […]

Percy gets ready for the paint shop

I had the day off yesterday so I could take the kids for a VR game on their last day of March Break. The game itself only took a couple of hours including travel time, which left the rest of the day for play time for me! I spent it on good old-fashioned modelling. I […]

3D printed handrail stanchions

Rarely my ideas work out on the first try. If it weren’t for a spare shell, due to cylinders that were too high, this one might not have. The spare shell allowed for practice before committing to the real shell. Handrail stanchions for #622 took a fair amount of lathe work to bore out and […]

Percy’s new Body

I’m as surprised as anyone that the single-big-print approach worked for Percy’s body. It looks pretty darn nice considering how much work didn’t go into it. I’m especially impressed by the hand-holds beside the cab door and the handrail stanchions atop the tank. I had a few failures, which I blame on dirt I noticed […]

Percy and the Myriad Supports

Now that I’ve added all the supports onto the body shell for 2543, I wonder if it was such a good idea to try to print the whole thing in one big piece? Probably not, but won’t it be fun if it works out?

Percy and the Broken Promise

When I started this project, the great thing about Percy was that I could work on the engine without being tempted to turn it into a Canada Atlantic prototype. Well, now that I have a working engine, it seems a shame not to put it to work! But, even I can’t imagine Percy banging Troublesome […]

Percy and the couplers

Excited by the prospect of having a working engine, even if it doesn’t look like anything that ran on the Canada Atlantic, I printed a copy of Percy’s original running board, and mated it up with some Accumate Coupler lids from my folder of standard 3D designs. Bachmann had glued the cylinders on with CA, […]

Percy’s new main rods

Percy’s new main rods follow the same pattern as the connecting rods, with keys holding the rods in place, rather than nuts. I re-used the original crossheads. These have a plain plate to hold the rod in place on its pin and also to keep the crosshead on its guides. Filing off the end of […]

Percy crosses the chasm

That gap. It doesn’t look so dangerous, but once I installed phosphor-bronze wipers to pick up current, the fine wire would find the tiny gap between rail heads and launch poor under-weight Percy into the sky. Sometimes with disastrous effect. Finally, with Percy’s split chassis assembled, and a few sharp corners filed away so they […]