elite194

I scored 1 nice item at the train show in Albert Lea MN. I made my annual expedition to a far away land to attend a 2 day train show. Also, I need your suggestions for this year's Holiday Special Total Locomotive Rebuild. We'll also take a look at an ancient Atlas/Roco high nose GP38, Bachmann GP40 and Bachmann 44 ton locomotive.

The first of the TROLLER Autopulse Twin Momentum 5 units is now operational with new knobs, brighter power indicator and power vented case.

We've fabricated some replacement knobs for the Troller Autopulse Twin Momentum 5.

We're going to turn some acrylic control knobs made from layers of lasercut acrylic circles and get a nice edge that feels smooth. These knobs are for the Troller Autopulse Twin 5. If you're an experienced lathe operator, leave me tips since I'm just a beginner that is starting to really like this machine a lot!

The control knobs on the TROLLER Autopulse Twin Momentum 5 are extremely difficult to remove because they are glued on. Let's breach this obstacle.

Here's todays plan for upgrading the first TROLLER. We haven't got the parts to rebuild this TROLLER Autopulse Twin Momentum 5 yet, but it is going into service in 2 days so we've got to make some upgrades. One of the upgrades is making it so you can access the inside by using screws instead of rivets. Also we want to add some cooling fans and an air filter. Finally we need an extra bright special on off light just in case...

This is an Athearn Blue Box SW1500 and we are going to install the REV 1 motor and silicone drive shafts. Then we'll hard wire it and put in a work platform. This one is for a friend and he'll have to do the rest of the work after we make it totally DCC ready.

Athearn Blue Box Alco PA-1 with a Mighty 280 motor and Digitrax DH126D using silicone hose drive shafts vs. the Spaghetti Bowl. Time to get spaghetti bowl qualified!

Let's put a 280 motor into this Athearn Blue Box Alco PA-1 and install a Digitrax DH126D. We'll be using silicone drive shafts as usual. So let's have a first look at the setup.

We scrapped 6 waffle side boxcars, rebuilt them, painted them by hand without masking, made our own decals, finished them off and now they are ready to go into service.

We're going to do an aluminum roof on this set of boxcars. Mr Metal is a coating that can be polished when dry and makes a sweet roof.

Now we're going to use Citadel Moot Green Layer paint to paint the outstanding edges on top of the Formula P3 Wurm Green. The layer will have a subtle special effect to make these boxcars really look good.

Freezing totally worked - after the 2nd freezing all the glued parts just came apart. Now we've got them in primer and we are going to paint them by hand using the old recipe of base paint followed by layers. We're using Formula P3 Wurm Green.

We've got some boxcars to rebuild where 2 of them are glued together with a lot of very strong glue. We're going to freeze them and see if we can break them free.

Here's the final reveal on the Atlas U36C where we installed the new REV1 motor and a Digitrax DH126D decoder.

The AHM U25C by Rivarossi is finally fully operational and in service. This was one of the most difficult rebuilds we've ever done. We installed a Mabuchi 266 FACE RIPPER Motor and a Digitrax DH126D decoder.

We've got the AHM U25C wiring, lighting and drive system solved. We also learned to reset the Digitrax DH126D after it has gone into safe mode. Now we can get ready for a final reveal.

You must resist the urge to rebuild the AHM U25C by Rivarossi. This locomotive will consume all your time and tons of supplies. Even if you succeed, you still have extreme pizza cutters to deal with. While it is possible to buy replacement wheels, those wheels cost 5x what you spend to buy this locomotive.

How we're going to get power pickup from both sides of each truck. If this is successful, it will also be applied to the Krauss Maffei ML4000.

We have created a whole bunch of operational but Unnecessarily Complex Wiring.

This how the green SMD lights are installed and wired for constant lighting for either DC or DCC.

How to wire SMD lights to a piece of copper clad circuit board.

That's pretty much a wrap on our paint and decals. A few more special effects have been added and now we can start doing wiring.

We've made it past decals and into matte finish on the Atlas U36C and the AHM U25C. We still have to dry brush a bit, but these guys are looking good.

We've made it to gloss coating for decals, but first we're going to use some Agrax Earthshade Gloss aka Liquid Talent.