per was loose. I soldered the tank wrapper, mostly from the inside, through the holes I had made. Backwoods Miniatures pro- vides screws and pre-etched holes to locate tank and cab relative to each other. But I couldn’t find nuts to match the furnished screws, so soldered 1-72 screws into the back of the tanks and threaded on nuts in the cabs; now both assem- blies are solidly connected. (Yes, the nuts show if you look hard — sorry about that.) On both kits, the instructions suggest attaching the cab to the Bachmann frame
with screws down through the cab floor, in one case under the backhead. That’s a bit permanent if the roof is glued or soldered. In- stead, the Bachmann frame has a bottom cover plate held with two screws; I drilled out the threads for the rear screw and up into the cab, and then soldered a 1-72 nut on the cab floor. Now, the entire cab/tank assembly of each engine may be removed at any time by loosening two screws. The front screw drills and taps into the cast white-metal smokebox. Af- ter removing the front screw way
too many times, the threads are almost ruined; I’ll have to find a way to include a brass nut in the smokebox. For models with leading and/ or trailing trucks: Backwoods Miniatures’ attachment meth- od is to use Bachmann screws. The front pivots from the screw, which passes up through the cyl- inder saddle and into the smoke- box, and the rear pivots from the rear screw of the bottom cover. The problem is, if either of these is tightened enough to hold their respective parts together (and not back out during track operation), the trucks will not swivel. I add- ed bushings (a very short piece of brass tube) under the screw heads; the trucks pivot on the bushings. That put the rear screw head too close to rail height, and the locomotive stuttered on turnouts and crossings. I moved the pivot point rearward, with a drilled-and-tapped hole in the next (toward the rear) horizontal surface. So far, the locomotive has had no operational problems. The 2-6-2 seemed long for a
switcher, so I made the 0-6-0 as short as possible; I slid the cab forward six scale inches and re- cessed the short smokebox back into the saddle tank 14 scale inches. This then re- quired the mechanism chassis be shortened on the back end, and I shortened the front deck just for good measure. There’s no space for the cylinder drain cocks. (Did you miss them?) I added sheet lead in several places: coal bin and both sides of the saddle tank in the 0-6- 0; the 2-6-2 got lead un- der the cab, in both side tanks and under the pi- lot. The complete donor engine weighed a little less than five ounces; now the 2-6-2 with per- manently attached ten- der weighs 18.8 ounces,
Weighty On the saddle tank model, a speaker enclo- sure was made of sheet lead. This method added weight and provided the locati on for the speaker.
The Guts A rather small DC motor powers the drive. Some DCC manufacturers sug- gest removing the ce- ramic capacitors from between the brushes. Wiring should be done with care because the enti re body is conducti ve, and an open electrical joint could render the lo- comoti ve unusable or at least troublesome.
JULY 2015 43
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