Hello in the cold [:D]
I took the opportunity while I’m still snowed in to address a couple of projects I have been keeping on the shelf.
The first is my Shay locomotive. It is a H0 scale, 3 truck 80-ton Shay from Bachmann and their Spectrum series.
The locomotive has led to many concerns, repairs and other headaches…
The first thing that happened was that the Tsunami sound decoder that I ordered did not fit …
So I had to build a new tender shell from brass to make it: fit:
Then the drive gears on the side rod cracked one by one … :? .
Luckily, NWSL makes new gears made of steel instead of the originals that are in plastic!
Then the locomotive worked “good”, except that it was not possible to back up through a switch, because then the middle boogie would derail guaranteed.
I was doing all sorts of adjustments and fine-tuning without much success.
Then I thought: :-Aha! I can rebuild it.!
I had already mounted the sound decoder in another of my locomotives (that happens …),
and I had just bought a Lenz Gold decoder, the foundation for the project was laid.
I’ve alw
Quite a nice project.
I do know some have squeezed in the Micro Tsunami. Don’t remember what size speaker though.
This will inspire some. The new gears will be a good bit of info.
Rich
Nice work, looks great!!!
Very nice! That’s a terrific project, thanks for posting it and for the photos. I’m with you, I like the two-truck shays a lot better. The three-truck versions are interesting and I’m glad I have one, but that’s all I really want. Now that I’ve seen what you did I think I’ll convert my other one the same way. I already have all the right parts even!
Thanks!
John
Thank´s for the replies.
I hoped that I could inspire someone to make the conversion as well.
It isn´t SO hard, but rather more a matter of: “measure twice, cut once”…
It runs so well now that I have thoughts about buying a Loksound micro for it…It should fit in the tender now and the speaker in the Cab roof or maybe in the boiler backend.
Sure, it won´t pull as much now, but I don´t have any inclines on my layout so that isn´t much of an issue for me. As long as it will pull 8 cars on the level I´m happy.
Very cool! I had a friend that did the same conversion and he also regauged his to Sn3.
Good job!
Graffen
Excellent job, I having been planning to do this as well, thanks for the post!
GS
Graffen
Thank you for the inspiration, My new 2 truck is out for a test run. [8D]
Obviously I still need to cut down the tender shell and finish adding the details.
Go to a gun shop and get some bird shot. Works quite well.
Rich
Why would he want to “shoot” his engine???
Mark