Richard's Diesel Work Bench 37273 and 46037 and a DJH Class 31

richard carr

Western Thunderer
Some more progress on D206

I have been adding a few more details, the first thing is the tail light lenses, these have been made from 1.5mm fibre optic cable ( a few pounds on Ebay for a lifetimes supply), you can cut it with a hot knife. I then file the end up to slide it into position and then paint the inside red.

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Then you can see that the lenses look red and have a glass like look to them too.

The next thing is the fuel tank gauges, these are transfers from Railtec and really do make a difference to just painting it white !

You do need to paint the gauge white as the transfer is the gauge markings on a clear background.

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Weathering is now under way too, so it won't be long before this is fully finished.

Richard
 

richard carr

Western Thunderer
I have also been continuing with 37273.

Here's the chassis

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As you can see it has a whopping great speaker powered by an ESU Loksound 3.5 XL.

This is quite an old decoder now and unfortunately it isn't possible to fit a stay alive to it and for the best running and the best sound you do really need one.

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It also needs a replacement guard iron, I have some spares somewhere so that won't be a problem.

This is the replacement electronics.

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So the Loksound decoder has been replaced by a Zimo MX645 P22, this has been fitted to a ADAPLU adaptor board. The ADAPLU is a nice way to wire everything up to, but it also boosts the maximum continous power of the MX645 P22 from 1.2 amps to 1.8 amps.
Of course you can fit a stay alive to this, so here I have fitted a 4700 micro farad capacitor, it is wired directly to the ADAPLU, no other components are needed as they are already on the decoder.

I hadn't intended to fit a new speaker but once this was up and running it was evident that the old speaker was rattling inside it's box, so I decided to just fit a new one rather than try and fix it.

I'm pleased to say that it all works just fine, and sounds great. The capacitor is more than enough to keep everything going, and these capacitors are cheap, you can easily buy one for £5, and even better ones are available for the same money.

I just need to find that guard iron now.

Richard
 

richard carr

Western Thunderer
Ian

I'm sure you can get them cheaper than £5 especially if you buy 10 at once. I'm just trying to work out which is the best one toget.
I have a 25volt 10000 micro farad one to try with a Heljan 33 next.

Richard
 

richard carr

Western Thunderer
I stripped the paint of 37273 yesterday here it is waiting to go into the ultra sonic cleaner

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The paint came off fairly easily but look at the cab windows and doors it's a total disaster !

Who said IPA is benign to the resin !

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Perhaps it not a complete disaster as I spoke to Laurie at MM1 this morning and he is going to get me 2 more cab ends to replace these, I'm wondering if there has been some reaction with the cyano as that is where everything has distorted and the cab ends have easily come apart from the body.

Richard
 
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richard carr

Western Thunderer
Simon

Yes it was dunked and probably left too long, but miracles happen !

Laurie once told me to straighten a coach side by immersing it in boiling, so I thought what the hell nothing to lose trying and you know what it has worked.
The rubber window surrounds are a bit dodgy but it is now straight and useable, but I will wait for the new ones and compare before I put it back together.

Richard


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Steph Dale

Western Thunderer
Who said IPA is benign to the resin !

Me, I think. And it is...

Richard, you refer to an ultrasonic cleaner in the post; you didn't fill it with IPA and put the whole model in did you? I could believe an ultrasonic cleaner might do that distortion due to local heating effects and a bit of gravity, it would also break down superglue. It looks as though the surface detail on the parts is still OK, so the IPA is not to blame.

Ultrasonic cleaners can rip apart whitemetal castings, so I'm not surprised you've got some effect on a resin model.

Steph
 

richard carr

Western Thunderer
Yes Steph I put the whole model in, that was someone else's advice !

Never mind I've learned my lesson and won't be doing that again when it comes to Simon's 46 which needs a repaint too.

Richard
 

MarkR

Western Thunderer
Does anyone use car brake fluid to remove paint?
I know this used to be a "dodge", but seem to remember reading that modern brake fluids do not behave in the same way.
Thank you
Mark
 

Eastsidepilot

Western Thunderer
Does anyone use car brake fluid to remove paint?
I know this used to be a "dodge", but seem to remember reading that modern brake fluids do not behave in the same way.
Thank you
Mark

Yes, it was used usually on some ones car if they'd p****d you off big time ! :D

But it was used on painted plastic but I believe the chemical make up is different now and wont work.

Col.
 

richard carr

Western Thunderer
So while I wait for 2 new class 37 cabs to arrive I have been adding a decoder to a Heljan 33

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Here I have used a Zimo MX645P22 decoder on a ADAPLU adaptor board, together these cost about £125. The stay alive is a 10000 micro farad 25 volt capacitor available from Farnell for about £2.50 each. The heljan wires have just been soldered direct to the ADAPLU, I probably should have shortened them a fair bit to make it tidier.


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The speaker is a tang bang it measures 63 x 28 x 11 mm, it is stuck to the chassis with black tack inside the fuel tank.

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To finish it off I have put the heljan board back in place as I want to use the potentiometer on the board to power the fan, so function output 7 of the decoder is connected to the track inputs of the heljan board and the fan connects in as normal.


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I have tested this on a rolling road at full speed and the decoder doesn't even get warm, now it's been converted to S7 it will get a run out on the layout this afternoon hauling 24 HAA wagons just to check all is ok.
 

S-Club-7

Western Thunderer
View attachment 129787

The speaker is a tang bang it measures 63 x 28 x 11 mm, it is stuck to the chassis with black tack inside the fuel tank.

... now it's been converted to S7 it will get a run out on the layout this afternoon hauling 24 HAA wagons just to check all is ok.

Richard,

I can't hear it from here (2.84 miles away as the crow flies). Haven't you got it turned up as loud as you usually do? :)

Dave
 

richard carr

Western Thunderer
Dave you should have heard it this evening as it was going flat out with 24 HAA wagons !

Having tested it with a heavy load there is no problem with the decoder, at least in a 33 the maximum current draw was 1.6 amps and that was brief, typically the current draw was only 1 amp.

The problem though was the stay alive, it was inadequate on really dirty track, this had not been cleaned for a few months, and the loco just stuttered and stalled completely. As I now have plenty of the capacitors, I am going to add 2 more and see how that performs.

The other interesting point is that the dapol HAA wagons perform perfectly, not one derailed even when going flat out at a scale speed well in excess of their normal real speed of 45 mph.

One other point to make is that the Youchoos tweak and drive software only allows you to set function outputs 1 to 6 in their swiss mapping window, so avoid using Fo 7 and 8 if you can.


Richard
 

Jordan

Mid-Western Thunderer
Does anyone use car brake fluid to remove paint?
I know this used to be a "dodge", but seem to remember reading that modern brake fluids do not behave in the same way.
Thank you
Mark
Yes; it has to be DOT4 brake fluid. I forget why, but apparently DOT5 doesn't work.
Then again, I've had some models where DOT4 hasn't worked either, but they were American outline, either Atlas or Kato, which is totally irrelevant to this thread....
 

DougT

Western Thunderer
Don’t know whether this is going to get gasps of horror or a shrug of the ‘been there done that’ shoulders, however I’ve been stripping down a JLTRT 57xx brass/resin pannier tank recently from a fairly shocking state involving different types of topcoat paint. In the last week or so it’s been dunked in Dettol (excellent for easing the top coat off), lightly brushed with Wickes paint stripper to get to those hard to reach places (not the resin, mind), and lastly caressed with nail varnish remover on a cotton bud to clear the remaining streaks and smears. So far so good, and it’s come up beautifully with no side effects or damage to resin, brass or whitemetal other than it stinks of dettol now (as does the kitchen, front room and office :confused:)
 

richard carr

Western Thunderer
The new cabs have arrived for 37273, so those have been fitted an the noses have been detailed. As it is going to be D6973 there are a few detail differences. The main one is that the only lamp irons the Western Region 37s had were the western region style lamp irons. I struggled to find some of these, I hadn't any spare from building 6 JLTRT 37s but eventually found some spare in a Heljan 37/0 box. Does anyone know of any other source for these ?

So here it is in grey primer, there is still quite a bit of filling to do that will be the next task.

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I also acquired 46037 from Simon, this is going to be BR Blue but was a bit too heavily weathered for my taste, so this has been stripped too, with no ill effects this time. It is S7 to begin with but will benefit from some new electronics.

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and just to finish here's a shot of 33009 hauling HAA wagons.

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