New Super-Layout - Masborough in Emmadale

[richard carr]

Replacement gears are out of stock at Gaugemaster but I found a spare pack from an earlier fix to another loco. So it was time to take 37031 apart and fit the new gears.



yes it looks a mess but it isn't too difficult, the new gear is the third on the left, the other gear (next to the right) hasn't split so I left that one in.
It will probably split next week now.



Now for the other end, both the gears had split here so this one now only has 1 powered axle for now.




The replacement etched steps are a big improvement over the plastic ones, I need to get some more.

It all went back together easily and runs fine now. The only real problem is that this has a loksound XLv3.5 that has no stay alive but it really needs one, so a new decoder is required.

 

[Buntobox]

Hi Richard
I've just been watching your thread. I just love your trackwork. You're one of the few I've seen glueing your track onto Templot printouts. What do you use to fix them to the baseboard. It's a method I'd really like to use but I've always been concerned they would wrinkle if glued down or worse, come adrift from the board once the track was down!

Alan
Edinburgh

 

[3 LINK]

I stick the sleepers down onto the template using double sided tape, and then once built I just use wood glue to stick the paper template to the track bed. Hardly ever a wrinkle, and if there is, it’s always been between the sleepers and you just trim it off with a craft knife.



Martyn.

 

[Purple-haze]

Alan, my mate Rob (King John of this parish) laid all the templot prints using 3m spray mount. Worked like a charm.

regards Rog

 

[martin_wynne]

Hi Richard
I've just been watching your thread. I just love your trackwork. You're one of the few I've seen glueing your track onto Templot printouts. What do you use to fix them to the baseboard. It's a method I'd really like to use but I've always been concerned they would wrinkle if glued down or worse, come adrift from the board once the track was down!

Hi Alan,

After sticking them down, stab holes in the template with a spike tool of some sort into the cork underlay. When you add the ballast, the glue will seep through and lock the track in position. But it's hardly necessary in most cases.

cheers,

Martin.

 

[richard carr]

Father Christmas finally arrived just after 7pm yesterday and delivered a few of these.



A heljan MK2 or 2a, the MK2 is the original vacuum braked version, the 2a was the early air brake only version.

It's a very nice model




Mine will be 2as, so they need the folding end doors, I've fitted mine, the gangway connector pulls off and you can slip the doors in.

The buckeyes fold down so you can hook up a loco.



Of course for S7 the key question is how hard is it to convert them, well the answer is extremely easily, it took me 5 minutes once I had worked out which replacement wheels to use. I've used slaters 3 foot 1 inch 3 hole disc. I really need to add some covers to go over the holes, but as you can see above, even if you don't you can't really see the holes. The original wheels just pull out and the slaters can just be dropped in to replace them, a 2 minute job per bogie.

The roof is held in place with magnets and just pulls off with a finger nail under the ends











It's pretty well detailed inside.

They also come with a bag of detailing parts so you can make it a 2 or a 2a. Unfortunately there are no instructions in the box, you need to go to the Heljan website to download them. If you are using Microsoft Edge the dropbox link doesn't work (it didn't for me) but it worked fine with Chrome.

 

[paulc]

Replacement gears are out of stock at Gaugemaster but I found a spare pack from an earlier fix to another loco. So it was time to take 37031 apart and fit the new gears.

View attachment 228127

yes it looks a mess but it isn't too difficult, the new gear is the third on the left, the other gear (next to the right) hasn't split so I left that one in.
It will probably split next week now.

View attachment 228128

Now for the other end, both the gears had split here so this one now only has 1 powered axle for now.


View attachment 228129

The replacement etched steps are a big improvement over the plastic ones, I need to get some more.

It all went back together easily and runs fine now. The only real problem is that this has a loksound XLv3.5 that has no stay alive but it really needs one, so a new decoder is required.

Hi Richard , those photos are so familiar after having to replace gears but i went down the brass route . My Heljan 37 plus my two 20s all only run with one motor and unless you want to run really long trains i cant see the need for two . Actually my Heljan 20 donated one of its motors to my second unit which is a DJH Tower kit so both have the same motor gearbox bogie setup for consist purposes. The kit in turn donated one of its bogies back to the Heljan . These are fitted with Heljan bogie sides from Gaugemaster so everything matches .

 

[richard carr]

Just recently I have been working on some 37s for the layout. There is 37044 a Heljan split box 37 in dutch transrail livery, a BR blue split box Heljan 37 and a JLTRT 37/4 in InterCity livery.



The 2 split box 37s are recent additions to the fleet, both have been fitted with Zimo decoders one has a MX696 and the other a new MS950

I have been weathering the nose areas with oil washes, I start by adding some paint that looks like this.



but once you remove most of it with some enamel thinners it looks like this



The same technique on this one too.



I have had the INterCity one for time, in fact I made it for a friend but it has never run that well.
I eventually came to the conclusion that the Loksound 4 decoder was not capable of powering the speaker, the motor is a single ABC gearbox and 6w maxon motor, so I decided to remove that and replace it with a Zimo MX696. This has cured the problem and it now runs beautifully.

It may of course just been a dodgy decoder int he first place.

 

[mickoo]

You can never have enough 37's

 

[richard carr]

This weekend it's all about class 26s. I've had this dutch liveried one hanging about for quite a while.







This is a nice model, the air tanks are well done, there is a bag of detailing parts for the cab roof radio pods, curved steps if your chosen loco has them and a few other bits and pieces, including snowploughs.

The first thing was to reprofile the wheels to turn make it S7, that didn't take long at all. Then the real fun started, I had decided on 26040, it has snow ploughs, so it's time to fit them. The instructions are useless, they refer to a different type of snowplough that needs to be screwed in place.
These clip in behind the buffer beam, it's one those ideas that looks good on paper, but wait until you try and do it!

I decided to remove the body to make it easier. The body is held on with 4 screws that can be easily accessed through the bogies and removed easily. Be very careful taking the body off it is very easy to damage the multiple working cable.

The first thing is to prise the buffer beam off the chassis, I've managed to do it here without taking the coupling out, but on the first go I did take the coupling out, that's probably not going to be a good idea, getting it back in is going to be tricky.









Here you can see how the plough clips into the back of the buffer beam, there are couple of with matching holes in the plough, the plough holes are not big enough and need a 1mm drill running through them. I glued the plough in place with some plastic magic liquid cement.

The buffer beam was held in place with some glue, you will need to clean this off with a craft knife before you refit the buffer beam. I glued it back in place with some super glue. The air pipes and vac pipe both get in the way of the plough but eventually the glue dries with it in a reasonable position. The bogie can swing enough to go round curves without fouling the plough.
It was a real pain to fit the snow ploughs, but they do look good.

Then it was time to fit a decoder. The loco is designed to use a Loksound V5Xl, these should just plug in and work once you have removed the blanking plate.
I wasn't going to take the easy route, I have a few Zimo ADAPLU boards, these are designed to take a PLUX22 decoder. Zimo now offer the MS range of decoders with 16 bit CD quality sound (the same as a Loksound 5) , together these give 2.5amps continuous current more than enough to run this loco. This needs to be hard wired in and some deft soldering is required to get everything on the ADAPLU board.

 

[richard carr]

Finally 26040 is back together.







The fan turned out to be a step too far. I had it wired up but it was running at a crazy speed and then everything stopped working !
I did a reset of the decoder on Decoder Pro, this though was a mistake as it sets CV8 to zero, which is a factory reset. The sound wouldn't work after this and I was beginning to think I had messed up another one. Then I read in the Zimo instructions that a factory reset is generally a bad idea, so I put the loco on the track and did a CV8=8 reset, this thankfully worked and with a bit of reprogramming it's working perfectly, except the fan which is too fast and far too loud, it's all you can hear, so that has gone.

I also got the BR arrows and depot plate from Fox transfer, very nice they are and fixed those in place a little bit of liquid plastic cement.

 

[Ressaldar]

Hi Richard,

that is a great looking 26, well done.

I have had similar issues with roof fans and one way was to adjust the potentiometer on the fan PCB to slow it down and reduce the noise, the other was a call to John Gymer at YouChoos to check what CVs had been allocated to FA3 with the resulting answer bringing speed and noise down. Unfortunately, I cannot find the email reply from John containing the information, if I come across it, I'll let you know.

kind regards

Mike

 

[richard carr]

Thanks Mike

I turned down the potentiometer on the board but that didn't slow down the fan enough. I then added FA3 into the swiss mapping and had the output dimmed to level 4. This did slow down the fan but it was still very noisy. At that point I gave up.

But yes if you did find those CV changes I would be interested to see them.

Yes the latest Heljan 26s are very nice models, a big improvement on the first batches.

Thanks

Richard

 

[richard carr]

So with no WT to distract me I got on with finishing the blue 26

All the decoder bits went together fine and I even managed to fit a big Tang Band in the roof.
Then it was on to the weathering

Here the roof has been blackened and dirt ont he frames. I've just added the dirty black oils to the front






It looks terrible but once most of it is removed you get this



There's still quite a bit more to do lot's of dry brushing to bring out the detail.

 

[richard carr]

The first thing I wanted to point out is the windows in the above photos look like I have painted them out, thankfully they don't look like that in real life ! They are still nice and clear.

Last night I gave both the 26s a good dry brushing so they are finished for for now.