August 14
One item I forgot to mention from last week is that I also figured out how far the prototype could go on a tank of water and a load of wood. Based on the results, I'm adding three additional wood sheds and another water tower on the run from Blackhawk to Forks Staging.
I added wiper mounts to all the engines (made from notched 1/32" PCB ties cut to size and soldered to the edges of the frame. Wipers were made from phosphor bronze - I made all 18 from a single 1" x 1.5" sheet included in the Tomar wiper kit package, cutting them with a very sharp hobby knife. The wipers are generally T shaped to allow me to contact both multiple tires with a single wiper and then soldered to the top of the PCB tie.
Finally, I hooked up one of the CT decoders to what will be engine #1 and programmed it. Used a 1" by 14mm brass strip to support the decoder, more electrical tape to isolate it, and double sided tape to mount it. The track leads are soldered to the mounting pads and then the motor is re-attached and the motor leads soldered to it.
Right now the weight distribution is all on the back, so when running forward, the engine wants to crawl over the front axle. I'm not going to worry until after I add the brass detail parts to the front (cylinder, saddle tank/boiler front, stack, and oil lantern) and *then* I'll worry about weight distribution.
My plans are to add decoders to the other five engines this week and then start working on the detail items (and more track work).
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