Monday, March 8, 2010

The past two weeks have been busy getting some color on the rock face of the mountain as well as getting the bridges installed and spending time at Bryan's helping with his layout. Also was sick with a sinus infection but feeling much better now.

All the bridges are installed and working very well. Just need to do some detailing and finish adding some paint to the rocks, ground cover, ballast and some trees.

Started installing a can motor in my 4-6-2 steam loco. I used the rotor of the old motor so I could use the drive gear. I decided to use parts of the old motor frame to hold the shaft and and gear at the correct angle so they would mesh correctly.

I dismantled the windings and just used the front motor mount/bearing assembly to hold the gear at the proper angle.
I then used a wire butt splice that I cut to the correct length and soldered the motor shaft to the old motor shaft/gear. This is the new can motor and gear/shaft mounting assembly clamped waiting for the Gorilla glue to dry. Once it's set up the motor gear assembly will be ready to install into to frame.
Then the Digital Sound Decoder (DSD) will be installed and wired to allow for DCC control of the loco. I have a speaker to install as well which will give this steam locomotive life. This is a Tsunami TSU-1000 medium steam service decoder. So by the end of the week should have an operating steam loco video to post.