It's been quite a ride, as you can see in all of the previous posts, from delivery, to teardown, to sandwiching all that gear under the hood, to trying to get everything to function, this little engine has turned into a BIG project. But, even with the external detail changes being somewhat small, the difference is noteworthy, I think:
Before
After
While I still have some more weathering to do, and an antenna issue to work on, this is pretty much what the locomotive will look like from now on. For such a small locomotive, the hours it took to change everything were more than I ever would have guessed... here's a list of "projects" that went into this tiny unit:
a.) Removed factory electronics, and installed RCS radio control, Phoenix P5 sound, P5T interface, and 12 Ni-CD batteries under the hood, the radio under the rear frame, the speaker under the front frame, and the charge jack in the rear wall of the cab.
b.) Removed the Bachmann supplied seat, raised the control stand, and reworked its controls. Added a gear shift lever, clutch, and a new "fold down" style seat in the cab, as well as a pull and valve for the air horns. Also built and added a "sand box" on the fireman's side to match up with the sand fill cover made to cover up the charging jack in the back wall of the cab.
c.) Added the sand fill cover, air horns, and bell, and bell rope. Added the headlight in the rear wall of the cab, and wiring. Also removed the factory stack, and built a replacement one, and replaced the front headlight with a smaller one that looked more the right size for a loco this size. (The one that comes on it is the same as the electric headlight on the 2-8-0!) And, I rebuilt the front end of the locomotive, covering the radiator with HO scale aluminum siding so that the radiator fins would all be horizontal, and removed the handrail supports from the radiator. I made a new grill from brass angle and rod, and added bolts, and a screen to finish it up (the screen was actually some kind of brass decking in HO scale, I think, but it was available in sheets from the LHS!) Oh, and I'm particularly proud of the smokestack; after drawing out what I wanted to do with the front end several times, I was having trouble finding something that "looked right." I looked at toys and truck models, and nothing looked quite right... then I looked at the pen I was drawing with, and realized, if I cut it down, and pulled out the rubber grip....
d.) Finally a set of Slate Creek decals, and some weather treatment to take off the "shine" ... though I'm planning to do more in the weather department in the future.
I'm very pleased with how it came out, particularly since it's my first total conversion/bash/detail project. It will be interesting to see what's next!
I'll sign off with a couple of other photos...
