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!

Percy TEsts the Fit

3D models are all very well and good, but there are practical aspects to fitting a gear train inside an existing model. In particular, Percy received a bunch of weight in the boiler and saddle tanks. Who knows if the theoretical drive will actually fit? In about 20 minutes, the filament printer made rough approximations […]

622 under power

Honestly, I don’t know how America ever became great in the first place, having invented the Phillips head screw! The things strip too easily, and even when they’re not stripped, they don’t hold onto your screwdriver and you have to press down to make them work. The reassembly of 622 had to wait until I […]

Disaster on the rolling road

I was about to declare victory. 622’s chassis was finally rolling reasonably smoothly, or at least more smoothly than #10, and I was giving it a fast run on the rolling road. Suddenly, the left rear crankpin screw unwound and the connecting rod flew off. The chassis dropped off the rollers, and when I went […]

Edging closer to smooth

Now that 622 has a motor, I hooked up some alligator clips to see how it behaves. There is a hesitancy at the quarters, which makes me believe there is a slight quartering issue, despite my efforts to limit it. It’s unsurprising because I could feel some stiffness when rolling the chassis by hand. Really […]

Motor installed in 622

November is one of those months when life gets in the way of model railroading around here. Even though the weather is perfect for modelling, little gets done on the trains in this month. I had hoped to get 622 running in October, but when I first installed the motor, I found that the idler […]

Torque arm for 622

I puzzled until my puzzler was sore about how to affix a torque arm to the NWSL 28:1 gearbox. #10 taught me that we want the arm to be as beefy as possible. But these little 4-4-0s don’t allow us to be profligate with space. In particular, there is no extra space on top of […]

Flywheel and worm for 622

A plumbing emergency this weekend derailed my plans to get much done on 622. However, I did manage to marry the motor with the flywheel and worm. I don’t know about other people, but I find pushing on the end of a motor axle very stressful. A little too much pressure and you’ll be buying […]