Heljan 1320. An interloper round 2

As this is not an area of my expertise it would appear that yesterday I bought the wrong loco. (See previous post)

Putting things to rights I have made a swap. I thought the "GWR" livery was right for 1934/1936 not the case. It should be the "shirtbutton" Monograme emblem. Introduced from 1934 and lasting through the war years. Note to self: stick to what you know.

A quick trip to Model Railway Solutions and the swap was made, no fuss, no dramas. Although he has his doubts that GWR should be ok, all depends when they were repainted, who knows. If anyone can provide a photo of one in 1934 them I shall eat my dinner!

So, here she is.

And a nice bag of bits, actually Two, even includes the bell for running on Weymouth Quay.

The usual process with all new Heljan gear, is to clean off the blackening agent from the wheels with a cotton bud and a small amount of thinners, not forgetting the backs of the wheels as well. Its no good cleaning wheels and not cleaning the parts the pick-ups rest against, it wont work, and of course, bending the pick-ups out so they actually touch the wheels.

Anyone buying the previous model, this has already been done for you.

An interloper.

We have an interloper on Exton Quay.

I bought one of Heljans' 1370 GWR tanks. Could it be used on "Easten" should it ever get built ? I couldn't resist. It's a stunning looking model and runs so sweetly.

Adams G6 Part 2

This kit is going together rather well. We now have a painted chassis. Another first for me, I have painted the inside of the chassis a stone which would appear what happened in the early days.

The body has also been started. The footplate has had its valances attached and it's buffer beams. The tank and cab sides, the front and rear of the cab has also been soldered in.

Plenty still to do. The boiler will be challenging.

Adams G6

We have Adams 02s, B4s, Radials, the "Bug" a couple of terriers and a Beattie well tank. In the cupboard for a few years has been sat an Alan Gibson G6 kit, thinking it's high time I got on with it, well, work has begun.

With an etch nickel chassis and a brass body it should be a nice kit to build. One concern, this is the first time I have used Gibson wheels as Romford/Markitts no longer supply 19mm, 16 spoke, short crank wheels, Doh! As you may be aware, Gibson wheels tend to be one use, ie: put em on, dont take em off again. I built and set up this chassis on my jig, I have not tested it yet, let's pray that it's ok, eek.

The chassis only has 2 spacers one at each end on the top of the chassis, I have added an "L" shape piece to the centre in a bid to stop the chassis folding in on its self, this also gives something for the motor to perch itself on, the brake hangers also help in this.

Also for me, a first, as it's having "beam" suspension on the 2 front axle. It will be driven from the rear axle using one of Chris Gibbons' High level Lo-loader compact+ Gearboxs and a 1420 Mashima motor, is it just me but the smaller motors seem to be better (quieter and more powerful) than there bigger brother.

All ready to be etch primed. The red tube is some heatshrink pushed into the bearings as a mask from the paint. Pick-up PCBs have been soldered in. I use double sided PCB for this, slightly tapered and gapped on one side, using the top side to solder to the side frames again, giving a more rigid chassis. Some masking tape will be attached to the gapped side ready to attach pick-ups after painting.

An hour ago, it was etch primed. I use Precision paints Q023 two pack etch primer, it's sticks to anything but be careful with it as it's evil stuff, a well ventilated room or better, in the garage and don't mix it up in a plastic pot, it will melt it, I won't say anymore.

All done, will leave for 24hours before the top coat goes on.

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Thanks for looking.

Hornby Sentinel Part 3 Sound

Wouldn't it be great to have sound in the Hornby Sentinel.

After searching through plenty of Youtube videos and various forums, i found plenty that had done exactly this. Nobody is very forthcoming as to explaining how to actually do it.

Lets buy all the bits and see how we can do this. Im not saying this is the only way but it worked for me.

What do you need.

A phone call to Digitrains, 

i have to say are extremely helpful.

https://www.digitrains.co.uk/

1x Zimo MX648R Sentinel sound file. 

1x Rail exclusive SP12x8x8 speaker.

1x Zimo SACC16 stay alive.

1x Zimo Tantx4 Caps

We all like photos, so here are some.

The first thing you will need to do is to cut these bits out that are circled in red. You will also so need to make the slot slightly higher in the back of the Sentinel body, of witch i forgot to take a photo of.

No, i did take a photo. You will notice i have also cut out one of the windows, i thought this might get the sound out a bit better.

Taking the decoder, you will need to very carefully solder a wire on to the chip where i have circled red, this is for the "Ground -" Negative wire for the stay alive. for the "Positive+" wire, use the Blue wire.     

Carefully solder the extra Tantalum capacitors to the Sacc16 Stayalive PCB, make sure you solder them on the right way round. You can then shorten the wires from the Decoder and solder the Blue + comon from the Decoder and the Wire that you soldered on to the Decoder to the negative- of the Stayalive PCB. 

Make sure you get these right.

i am not responsible for any failures.

You can solder the Two Purple wires to the Speaker.

The Two photos below shows how it all goes together.

Its a tight fit but it will go in, Just! 

 I have left the Aux wires intact incase of adding lighting at a later date.

Pop your dashboard on top and put the whole thing back together.

Actually you might want to test it out before doing so.

Hopefully it should sound like this.