The Blackhawk and Central City Blog

November 20

This last week, I got all drops installed on the layout with the exception of the reversing section of the wye in Central City. Rather than pull bus wires, I spent the rest of the time on engine work and some more stamp mill research.

I worked on #6 some more and at this point, it's running as good as I can get it. The crosshead subassemblies consist of a PSC cast crosshead, a "long" coach bushing from Alan Gibson workshops and a main rod. Drill out the cast bolt on the crosshead with a #64 bit in a pin vise, install the main rod on the bushing, the bushing into the crosshead and a small drop of solder to pin it all together.

Thanks for all the information on the stamp mill - I should have said that I want to build an animated mill. I'm getting a better idea of how to do it and if anybody has done this and knows of a source of HO scale parts, I'm interested. Otherwise, I'll start looking into fabricating parts as something to do when I need a change of pace.

For those that celebrate the holiday this week - have a good one. I expect my next update will be early to mid December.

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