I’ve wanted a Garrett ever since the first time I saw one. After alot of looking, I’ve come to the conclusion that the only way I’ll ever get one is to build it. Three to four thousand dollars for one loco is way to rich for my blood.
This is my first scratch built loco. Almost everything I’ve ever attempted has usually turned out to be an initiation by fire, so why should this be any different?
No little, simple loco for me. That would be too easy.[:D]
I bought the Buddy L before I had read anything about them, just because it was cheap. The thing turned out to be a piece of junk as far as I’m concerned. It had trouble pulling even one car around my track. Derailed constantly, and turned over everytime I went around a curve at more than a dead crawl. So, it went into storage, figuring that maybe someday I could use the parts to scratch something. Well, the day has come.
I bought a couple of LGB 2-6-0 powered steam trucks. Got the Buddy L out of storage, got out the tools, made a big mess all over the RV ,and proceeded to see what I could build.
I guess the hardest part was disassembling, and starting to cut on, something that I’d paid a hundred plus bucks for. It took awhile to figure out how to build the bend in the middle part. I ended up sliceing some sections off a pvc pipe fitting. Cut some short lenghts of pvc pipe than fit in the slices off the pipefitting. With the pipe length glued to the motor block and the fitting section glued to the bottom of the cab I had one joint. Basicly did the same to the front of the boiler.
The fuel tender is the tender from the Buddy L. I shortened it till I got the lenght I wanted and screwed it to one of the motor blocks. The water tank is the piece from the tender that I cut out to shorten it. This was screwed to the other motor block and built onto with styrene and pvc pipe.
It still has along way to go, but it’s running, so I thought I’d throw a couple or three pict
Well done captain!
The key to scratchbuilding (for me anyway) is to look at absolutely everything and see if it has a use.The only thing I buy are the trucks.(apart from the wood and plastic for the windows).Everything else is built from wood and ‘bits’.A lot of people buy from Ozark but all these are just cast pieces.A bit of wood/card and a few track pins (and a lot of imagination) work wonders.
I’ve done alittle bit more work on the Garrett. Just recieved a Digitrax DS 583S decoder for it. Haven’t installed it yet. That’s one of the projects for today.
Squirted a little paint on it yesterday. I’m a crappy painter! lol
I’m going tyo put handrail around the top of the water tender. Probably use brass gas welding rods.
I coated the windows with oil before painting. Didn’t work. The Krylon Vinyl paint didn’t care that there was oil on the windows. It stuck like crazy so I’m going to have to replace the windows. Lot’s of details still to add.
I do have a question for anyone out there that knows. I’m wondering how much wieght the LGB 65019 2-6-0 power trucks can handle without damaging the gears. I have about 4 pounds of lead spread out over the loco. I pulls very well as it is. Pulls harder than any other loco I have. It will pull more than my LGB Mikado.
I’ve built it to handle R1 curves, which it does very well, even better than my Hiesler.
I’ve gotten a couple of emails from individuals asking how I made the articulation.
I used pvc pipe and fittings. Due to the fact that this thing is so long(32"), I made the joints so that the loco is in three pieces. I was afraid to make it all permenantly hooked together. I was afraid I would end up breaking one of the joints. The wiring for the decoder, and drives, is going to be plug in, and the boiler and cab just set on the drives. It has worked really well in tests so far.
