Strange paint effect

The parts for 622 received a coat of old Polly Scale steam power black, and despite the love-hate relationship I maintain with my old Pasche, it went mostly okay. The one part that came out strangely is the tender tank. This turned out with something akin to a salt stain. My best guess is it […]

Yuletide riveting

It’s a busy time of year for certain, but it turns out that installing Archer rivets doesn’t take that long. This is the last step before things get black.

Tender side sill details

As I mentioned, the tender side sills were looking a little barren. So, I scurried over to the reference material to see what should be there. Interestingly, this is a point where 622 differs from its stable-mates. The details were straightforward to put together with strips of brass and some Grandt Line nut-bolt-washer castings. Now […]

Tender details

I thought this post was going to be called “Tender final details” until I looked at the photos. Don’t the side sills look plain? That’s what I thought too, and it sent me scurrying to the reference material. So, there’ll be another post tomorrow. It turns out the handrails and lift bars are only the […]

Tender coupling

622’s tender coupling is a sandwich of phosphor bronze and styrene. The two layers of bronze carry track power from the two sides of the engine to the two sides of the tender through a mind-bending arrangement of layers and folds. Seriously, it is such a puzzle that I wasn’t certain I would have the […]

Tender coupling tests

I recall a story about a cab ride where the engine backed around a tight corner, and the writer had act quickly to avoid losing their thumb between the cab and the tender. Photos of 622 and her sisters confirm the tender should be startlingly close to the cab. However, it would be a bit […]

Tender lowered

Arguably, I should have built a whole new end beam, but replacing only the visible portion of the draft gear saved me from positioning eight bolts in two perfectly-aligned squares. It was a bit of a pyrrhic victory, however: assembling the shambles of shims and the mammoth metal plate that support the repositioned coupler and […]

Slow modelling to the rescue

I’ve decided that the tender was indeed too high, making the 3D-printed body bolsters and end beam superfluous. Having rediscovered that photo of 624 wrecked at St Polycarpe, I know the body bolsters were the wrong shape anyway, so no great loss there. The end beam, however, needs reconfiguration to keep the coupler at the […]

Tender chassis

The tender chassis went together quite quickly with all the 3D printed parts. Upon reflection and further measurement, the rear coupler was .01” too high. I shaved the bolsters down, and then everything looked pretty good – apart from the temporary coarse-scale wheels! The trucks are Kadee HTC caboose trucks, which are a reasonable facsimile. […]

Locomotive coupling level?

I just got the tender up onto its temporary wheels and checked the coupler height at each end. The rear looks okay, but the front is perhaps .010” too high. I’m wondering if a slight joggle in this coupling is okay, or will that have a tendency to lift the tender?