Just Between You, Me, and the Bingo Card: Life Lessons from the Assisted Living Facility

Printed a load of wood for the tender.


this would look better with a 2 tone wood filament. I think I can dry brush some stain on it to bring the grain out. Or i may just leave it.

There have been some changes. I redid the tender top to raise the toolbox's and add the vertical braces.
Had a whole lineup of cars and realized I missed the mark by 10mm. All the Bachmann stuff is at 100mm wide. I did 110mm. Fortunately I only printed a few, and it helped me to correct some other mistakes, like body mounted coupler height and a few other things.
I need to get these close to NMRA specs before posting on Printables or else the rivet counters will roast my ass.
So I have redesigned the whole lineup. The flat car will be made longer (260mm from 220mm) and a low sided gondola will be in the lineup as well. Steps, stirrups and bracing were all added. Redid the entire caboose and it turned out much better second time around. No pics until it's complete, need to build suspense.

 

Caboose is done for design and printing. Ready to publish. Typical for a 2 axle "bobber" style. Steps, and some under frame detail were added so it's not just a plank underneath.


The tender coupler is truck mounted, the caboose is body mounted. Got the height where I wanted it. It sits slightly low because the wheels are only 28mm. I have some 31mm that will be here tomorrow that will level the deck and add some much needed weight down low. It follows fine, but pushed it tends to jump the rails at high speed.

Compared to the Aristocraft trucks and couplers, big difference. But it stays hooked up.

I know there are a few people watching this, if you have a smoke unit, get this from Amazon.
It's like $11.00 compared to the small bottle for $14.00. Same stuff. Smokes fine.


Redoing the base for the tender to give it some steps and a little support underneath as it flexed a bit.

 

Gave it a shot to see how close I could get it. Just needs some refinements.

Not gonna pay $100 a pair for a set of trucks. 4 axles is only $28.

 

Designed a speaker/PCB/POT mount for the "chuff" card so it's not just rattling around in there.
I swear I have had to re-solder every wire connection as they all broke one by one during handling. It's only 30 years old or so.

 

Did a swap last night. These are the trucks that came with the original tender that was robbed of parts. They look just like the rest of the freight trucks on all the rolling stock. Bachmann hasn't changed them since day one.

These are Aristocraft trucks. Some die-cast along with plastic and they are sprung. Much nicer machining on the wheels. They are the ones that the couplers sit way high on. Supposed to be for the 1:29 scale trains. I'm doing 1:22 here. They look much more at home on the tender and are heavier which helped to steady it out. The center caps spin too, which is way cool.

As a bonus, the axles are spaced another 4mm apart, which closed the center gap a touch and extended them fore and aft as well. Basically it centered them out nicely under the body.
The engine coupler was easy, just screwed it on. It pulled the two closer together which is more prototypical than a large gap between them. Someone had to jump that gap to get wood or shovel coal.

To the left you can see the difference in size/scale between the Bachmann/Aristocraft couplers.
I printed a widget to drop it to level at the top, you can just see it tucked back in there.


And finally, in previous pics you saw the stack the engine had, looked fine. But didn't produce much smoke. It doesn't "pump" out of there, but more builds in volume and escapes thru the top.
So I printed a new stack similar to the other engine and that's the ticket. It builds inside that bulb and comes out more like a pro vape user.

Ordered a new printer, needed a bigger plate.

 

coming together nicely

 

New printer, faster, larger bed, little better quality.
Final tender base. Thicker steps, more undercarriage, added a ladder.

and a new design for me, 300mm flat car. Printed with no supports and it came out perfect. It's got stirrups and body support.

Post processing time was very minimal. I am very happy with this new machine.
Pretty sure I am going to reprint almost every part over again.

 

The P.E.T.G. Short line.

New gondola. I really like this look and will prolly make one more to replace the stubby flat car.

Painted the donkey.

Should look pretty good when the pansies come up next spring.

 

very impressive!

 

Why did I read this in ProjectFarm's voice?

 

Small update and an excuse to post pics because the light was pretty good.
Flat car was outfitted with a storage/catch all box. Loaded with a bit of cable and a pickle barrel. Loaded up with the steam donkey.

Crate and barrel load on one gondola. The barrels are legit wood wrapped with lead. Can't remember where I got those. Printed a cradle to hold them in place. Everything is double sided taped to the surface.

A bunk of fresh cut, straight lumber, prolly not destined for Home Depot.

Pretty sure the locomotive will be painted black over the winter. Or maybe this weekend.

Some personal thoughts on 3D printing for this particular modeling medium.
I almost feel like it's cheating.
I say that because I'm old and have been doing this a long time with wood and styrene sheets, bits of wire.
The personal gratification is just not quite the same as hands on time spent with a saw, file and sandpaper. Maybe a touch of stain. Transforming an idea into reality is more personal that way.
The end result with 3D printing looks great. But has that plastic, toy-like, store bought appearance to it. I'm not knocking it. Just feels like it removes some of the hands on skill. But it is still fun to create a working model and I will continue to do so, honing a new set of skills.

That being said, it's quicker, weather resistant, kids can play with it and parts are easy to replicate if needed.

I made this a couple decades ago. On30 scale. Every board, piece of trim, was cut and placed by me.
The wire grab bars (piano wire) were all hand bent in a jig I made, to keep them consistent.

I installed glass in the windows, made the doors. The ladders and the underframe work are the only pieces that were used from another kit.

Wired for light too.

In the right setting, it actually looks legit.
I would be crushed if this were ever damaged.

 

I have been cutting the tips off my fingers for years now using the same set of crappy hobby knives. Sliced 3 of them the last week alone.
No more of that. Picked up an OLFA hobby knife, finally. I've seen them before but was always deterred by the plastic handle. Foolish me, it's not about the handle, it's about the chuck.

It holds both sizes of blades, so the metal ones are now retired.


I was constantly gripping the chuck in an attempt to keep the blade from moving which ended with loss of skin and blood. Fuck that.
This one grips from the edges as opposed to the flat sides. Solid blade.

Tamiya sells the same knife, branded with their name for more than double the price, so watch for that.
Also, this knife has two different part numbers. The 157B is Japanese branded, get that one.
The AK-4 is the exact same knife, branded for America and costs more.

 

The short line had a profitable first week and decided to upgrade the caboose for the hard working crew. A newish 4 axle, complete with plush interior.


I made the trucks for this one since it's a different type of rolling stock. And I didn't have any more of the Bachmann ones. These have triple springs on the corners.
Added the air tank and a tool box on the other side.

 

Found this on fleabay, non-running but looked clean. So I took the chance and it should be here next week. LGB Model 20212. 0-4-0 "Stainz" #2

Could be several things wrong with it, but hoping it's something simple. The pics showed almost no wear on the wheels or the skid pickups. This particular model was made back in the 80's I think and should come with a smoke generator and sound.

Description read:
"Placed on powered track and nothing happened, selling for parts or repair"
A lot of times these come from estate sales and the buyers don't spend much time if any diagnosing things.
If the motor spins, It's a win even if it doesn't make sound or smoke. This one will be set up for RC as all my G scale track is dead rail now. I paid less for this than the non running Z engines I revived, so I justified it that way.
If nothing else, it's small enough to grace a shelf.

And, working on a plow...

Files stolen from here and remixed the blade portion.
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:6365730
Going to have it clip to the end of an existing gondola and fill it with rock. It may be ambitious.
This is another option that should mount to the engine above.
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:5811532

 

fuck!! now i want it to snow so i can see this in action!

 

I think the smaller one on the left might work better, and I can stretch it taller.

 

awww yeah!

 

It turned out ok for a first attempt. This gondola will be committed to the plow. I had originally intended to have the blade clip to the front and then be removed for the other 364 days of the year.
However, after fitting it on, and it's a nice tight snap fit, I decided to leave it for strength. plus this car was destined for the bin anyway as changes were made to the final models, so why not make it a dedicated plow. Also, there is the problem of coupling it to the front of a steam engine that has a wide beam in the curves (the nose swings waaaay outside of the track in a curve). So this car will have to have something special done to it for that to happen. Otherwise it'll just be shoved along. Not ideal for backing and getting a run at it.

Safety Orange. If it moves snow, I'll print another in sliver and do any fine tuning at that time.

There is about 3mm of space off the rails. I'll run it around the track tomorrow and if it clears consistently, I'll lower it a bit. My track is pretty consistent after redoing it earlier this year, so might be able to drop another 2mm.

Should be late November/December before we get to try it out.

 

The little loco showed up today.
Best ever packing. There was paper all around, then this. Like a mattress slip cover for a crib. It was clean too\.

Clean unit.


Set it on the track. Used a battery to hit the rails. It did nothing. Searched around and found a 3 position switch in the cab. It was turned off.
1st setting sent it off nice and quiet, really smooth. Front and rear directional lights and a lighted cab.
2nd setting has sound and supposedly smoke.
Asking price was $85. I talked down to $65.
Going rate for clean unit with the smoke and sound, $350ish.
It has a little "multi use" port in the back. I need to research what it does and it may be as simple as using it to send power via an esc. I would prefer to NOT cut any holes in this one as it is such a sweet find.

 

Designing a tender to carry the electronics and look like it might go with the engine. This has been a very long process for this one tiny part. I got super OCD about size, color, coupler height. I think I got it close enough to move on. The first was too much of a copy of the previous. The 2nd and 3rd were too tall after looking at pics of the real thing.
Then there was the color selection that wasn't the greatest. Pics online are much different than the product in your hand.


Turns out it was as simple as bringing power to that rear port and it works like a charm. Absolutely no modifications to the engine and still runs just fine on track power. Turns out this little guy has DCC on board. Too bad I'll never get to utilize it..


The progression of mistakes and reiterations. The brown was a top contender, and the green was as close as possible to the color of the cab, just too much sheen on the surface.

Final designs of the flatcar and gondola. Made them thicker, lined up the things that were off a bit, did them in dark brown, There was way too much black happening.


Takes a bit of voltage to get it to smoke. A 3S battery was just barely enough, 4S is where it's at.