Graham Radish

Oh awesome thanks!

Replace the motor, replace the wheels, replace the buffers, replace the couplings, replace the wiring and then some, what you end up with is great expense and the models originality and value is gone, we have to remember these like smokey joe were toys meant for children and were built to be rugged/strong, i'd just get it working as good as you can with the stock parts and tidy up the bodywork etc

In my tunnel areas i will be using code 100 set track 2nd radius curves and coming out of them will be using code 75 concrete sleeper flextrack, is there an easy way of connecting the two together, is there anything i should know about doing this? Cheers.

Modelling today's modern era is what i chose because getting high res images of rolling stock and track work etc. to work from is easy and in general i love all the modern stuff, i'm doing 2010 to present day. A present day TMD would be a great place to start. Here's a picture of Newton Heath TMD

Wondering if there was anyone who did custom metal loco name plates in OO gauge?

Now the bodywork, This is the first time I've ever fitted waterslide transfers to a loco so here goes, i'm halfway through doing one side, the Bachmann printed decals came off with my fingernail really easy as expected. Just done the 'Colas' and 'Rail' decals nearly done one side then on to the other, i've applied them with an 80/20 mix of water and PVA to strengthen the bond to make sure this never happens again. Once all the decals have been done the main body will be getting a coat of gloss varnish and any areas like windows that need to be m

Well back on to the lighting, i thought it was all done but there's an annoying issue with the directional marker lights, they're too bright! and were overpowering the main high beam, so i removed both ends of the body and rectified the problem. Here you will need to replace 2x 0805 SMD resistors at either end, i have marked the image i took to show you which ones to replace, the factory fitted ones were only 1.5K Ohm this results in the marker lights being blindingly bright and this is not prototypical at all, the main white beam supposed to be much brighter, anyway the problem is

Right I've changed one side of the cab, more appropriate now i think.

No andi i'm glad you told me this! My driver is fitted to the side where the fan is, i take it then this side is where the engine door compartment should be? Thanks for letting me know, a great help. i think i have some satin baby blue acrylic in stock.

Cool, wonder if the colas interior would be this colour at the back?

Here you can see that I've also fitted a piece of this PC fan filter mesh to the top of the speaker, these speaker drivers are delicate and this prevents any damage to them, the silicone i used was a tube left over from when i did some work on my bathroom. its "Bond It WP70" it doesn't smell or make a mess like the old silicone sealant, in fact it smells quite pleasant - it's amazing stuff for metals and plastics and you can get it in about 8 different colours. Of course i could have used black tack but i wanted a more permanent solution. The sound from the loco now is great, very

I've already done all the lighting, now it's on to the sound. As i mentioned the square enclosure type sugar cube speakers sound amazing for their size, Roads and Rails sell these pretty cheap and they are guaranteed to fit all Bachmann 37's without cutting up your model, however there is a simple mod you can do to this speaker to make it sound even better and gives a few more Hz in the bass response, this is simply done by taking the back off the speaker carefully, then fit the speaker to its designed area with silicone sealant, the surface area of the back of the speaker is now greatly incr

The lettering on Bachmann stuff can be removed with a cocktail stick, i think this is going to be the last Bachmann i buy, in future i think its gonna be hattons stuff i buy, im sick and tired of this.

Isn't that convenient for them.

The 2019 release of the DCC sound fitted version i have is a beautiful model it really is, as usual with Bachmann the weight is excellent and so is the body's detail including the wheelset area. But I need to make people aware of one problem that seems to be affecting a lot of both the modern N scale and OO Bachmann models, its the lettering/logos, they are very fragile, on my 37 i took the shell off to do some wiring upon picking up the body shell with bare fingers i started noticing pieces of the text were missing, i really couldn't believe it! i thought the OO scale variants wer