Another brass loco project - repairs and painting.

[ACL1504]

Tom,
Your photos make me wonder from what height that locomotive fell from? Doesn't look as if it fell on a carpet, either.

Chip,

I don't think this one fell very far. It appears to be more of a careless mishandling vs. a fall. Definitely not a carpet job here.

Tom

[ACL1504]

Hi tom,

I am enjoying your post on Frank's locomotive paint project and this.  Could you show us some of your soldering techniques you use on the brass locomotives?

Thanks

Steve

Steve,

Thank you, much appreciated. Wow, showing different soldering techniques here may be a little difficult.

I mainly use three different soldering methods. Resistance soldering, mini-torch soldering and just plain old Weller soldering gun. Of course the method I choose depends on the complexity of the needed repair.

I'll try to go into more detail on soldering in future posts.

Thanks for following along.

Tom

[ACL1504]

It appears the small issues are endless on this locomotive. One of the major issues was a very sloppy repair on the front right steps. In the below photo you can see a glob of solder at the front of the running board where it is soldered to the  steps.

I'll go into some extra detail on this repair per Steve's request.



Once the boiler was off the frame, I attached power to the draw bar and motor. The motor ran very well. However, it could run a little better. The motor is a factory installed Canon can motor. I'll replace this motor with a NWSL Sagami motor which is a much better can motor.



Notice in the upper photo, the rear bracket on the frame is bent. This bracket has two threaded holes on each side. Two small screws go into the holes to hold the cab on the back of the frame. I used small pliers to gently bend the bracket back into position.

Continued in a few.

[ACL1504]

The motor to gear housing is supported by a universal joint assembly. This is very quiet and much more reliable than the rubber coupling used on most motors to gear boxes/housings.



I then removed the motor and gear housing from the loco frame.



In the next posting I'll cover the front step repair.

Tom

[donatode]

Awaiting the next "installment" ...


(this is better than the Soap Opera my wife forces me to watch with her)

[ACL1504]

Awaiting the next "installment" ...


(this is better than the Soap Opera my wife forces me to watch with her)

Wait no longer, I'm about to add a little more.  My wife doesn't force me to do anything. That is unless I let her.   Just so you know, I'm the boss of my house-------------when she lets me.


Tom

[ACL1504]

I unsoldered the front right step and cleaned the area of all the old glob solder and the manufacturers solder. I used a file to fine tune the removal. It was relatively easy to do. During the process the entire running board broke off the smoke box. While it was off, I resoldered the step to the underside of the running board.








Steve asked me explain how I did this.  Sorry, but I didn't take any photos of the process.

Once the old solder was removed, I used a round wire Dremel brush to thoroughly clean the area. I then "tinned" both pieces with a little solder. I used a pair of small neddle nose pliers and clamped the two pieces in the position I wanted to solder them. I used a rubber band on the handle of the pliers to hold them closed.

I then used the small Micro-torch from Micro Mark and heated the two pieces. The "tinned" solder melted and the two pieces were soldered.

Continued in a few.

[ACL1504]

I have a theory as to why the steps broke off the boiler. It appears the previous owner or someone attempted this repair in the past. I based this on what I could see of where the running board bracket was soldered to the boiler. It was a very poor job and the brackets were not in the position they should be. It appears they were bent back and forth several time and this weakened the bracket straps.

I'll admit here that I used a short cut to make the repair. This is something I never, can't say that anymore, do on a repair.

The proper repair would have been to unsolder the old straps pieces, make new ones and solder these into position under the running boards and onto the boiler. I used the old existing straps.

I used the round wire Dremel brush , cleaned the brass and polished the area of repair. A brass loco has a clear coat on it and polishing the brass will give you a better soldering base. Simply stated, the solder will not adhere to the model with the clear coat and or brass colored paint on the loco.





You can see the difference in the brass and the highly polished brass.

Continued in a few.

[ACL1504]

I then applied a little solder rosin to the ends of the broken straps and to the boiler side where the straps came off. The rosin lets the solder flow easier to the cleaned areas.

I then used a pencil soldering iron and "tinned" the strap ends and the spot of solder on the boiler. The soldering pencil is a Micro-Mark product. In the next photo, the repair appears much worse than it actually is. It appears to be a large glob of solder. However, the solder you see covers both pieces and is the bridge that holds the parts together. This is why I "tinned" both the traps and the side of the boiler. When the iron was applied to the pieces, the solder flowed together making for a very strong joint. Not the kind of joint you smoke.



You can see the steps now sit on the front pilot in the proper position.

And the photo below shows how it looks from the front.




Tomorrow, I'll cover the cutting in of the speaker for the DCC sound.

Thanks for following.

Tom

[sdrees]

Tom,

Thanks for taking the extra time to explain your soldering techniques.  They are very helpful.

Steve

[ACL1504]

Tom,

Thanks for taking the extra time to explain your soldering techniques.  They are very helpful.

Steve

Steve,


You are very welcome. Stay tuned as in the next few days I'll be sharing how I made a modification to the tender using the small micro torch from Micro-Mark.

Tom

[ACL1504]

Moving on to the tender I was happy to find nothing broken, bent or otherwise damaged. I plan on installing DCC sound in this loco and also planned on installing the Tsunami DCC sound. Now, I'll be installing the TCS WOW sound instead.

I will use the 1 1/2" 8 ohm speaker from PBL/PFM. I bought 18 of these speakers 15 years ago so I'd have them at times like this. These speakers have a rich tonal quality and sound wonderful in the brass tenders.

I test fit the speaker in the tender and was happy to see that it fit rather nicely. However, the speaker cone was just a little to high to fit flush on the tender deck once it is reattached.



The front portion of the tender coal bunker now needs to be modified to hold the speaker. To do this I needed to remove a portion of the coal bunker. Using a Dremel tool and cut off disk, I started to cut out the center of the coal bunker.



Continued in a few.

[ACL1504]

Fast forward and the coal bunker cutting is now complete and ready to hold the large speaker.




Once the hole was cut for the speaker, I used a small file to clean the edges of the coal bunker.

The speaker now fits very well in the coal bunker of the tender.




Continued in a few.

[ACL1504]

I drilled two holes in the front of the tender to allow the DCC wires an easier path to the loco.




Continued in a few.

[ACL1504]

I next marked on the tender deck the location of the speaker. I'll drill holes inside the circle on the tender for the sound.



Bottom side of the tender deck.



One other small repair was to the piping on the right side of the locomotive under the running board.

This was an easy fix. The pipes were still on the brackets and all I needed to do was to solder the brackets to the running boards. I used the Weller soldering iron (the one with a trigger and looks like a gun) with a brass tip to reheat and re-solder the brackets.



Tomorrow, I'll cover the tender modification and the soldering technique I used.