Just like the scene from the various Frankenstein films, Its alive! And whilst parts of the Lima Class 117 DMU may look a bit Frankensteinish at the moment it is most certainly alive!
Coupled and connected together the two cars moved off. I had to adjust the picks ups on the trailing car as the motor car was slipping on the track but after that it ran a treat!
To cut a long story short was, amongst other things, a hit for that new romantics group from the 80s Sopandau Ballet and you can view the video here. However in my case, rather that ramble on about how I put all the things wrong identified in yesterdays post about the ongoing rebuild of the Lima Class 117 DMU I will cut a long story short by posting this photo which shows it all corrected and everything wired up and a new DCC chip fitted.
Now all I have to do is get it on the track to test it! Hopefully that will be a short story with a happy ending!
Those famous last words from yesterdays post - With all that done the powered car should be an easy win to finish!
After the satisfaction of getting much of the unpowered car together I turned my attention to the Easy Win. It took a few seconds of looking at the parts and holding them together to realise I had done everything back to front! The coupling I added is on the bogie that goes to the front of the car where no coupling should be! The motor bogie should have had a substantial amount of the old coupling left in place to attach the new one t. Instead I cut the lot off! And finally, the buffer beam detail is at the wrong end! Brilliant, Woody! The WMD swear jar is now a bit better off but my level of satisfaction is not!
I am at the stage of putting the Lima Class 117 DMU back together which is a satisfying process given the carnage I have inflicted on it over the past week or so!
First off, the pickup wires from the bogies on the unpowered car were soldered onto the phosphor bronze wipers. A piece of heat shrink tube was glued to the bogie and the wires fed through it before applying heat so that the wires were held securely in place.
To avoid the visual glare of red wires being seen I painted the exposed red wire black.
With the bogies refitted to the chassis and the wires from them and the plug carrying power to the power car, the wires were secured in place with a dab of superglue and then soldered together. The exposed joints were covered with heat shrink tube to stop any short circuits. I was amazed at myself for remembering to thread the tube in place before soldering the wires together! All in all it looks a neatish job which again amazed me!
With that done I could reinstate the interior moulding which looks good now it has been painted. Most satisfying!
With all that done the powered car should be an easy win to finish!
The rabbit hole of the Lima Class 117 DMU deepens! Originally I was just going to remove the somewhat oversized and toy like couplers from each front end of the unit and keep the central couplings. However I thought that I could close the gap between the two cars by replacing the Lima couplings. I had purchased some suitable couplings at the Spalding Model Railway Show so I had what I needed.
Some hacksawing and gluing saw the old couplings removed (old one bottom left of picture) and new couplings fitted (example bottom right of picture).
I think it looks a lot better - but I would!
Some jobs at the Rocks By Rail Museum are constructive and produce superb results such as the repainting of Elizabeth which Mick has been doing over the last few weeks.
Mick still has one side to paint but Elizabeth looks fantastic!
Other jobs, which usually involve me, are less constructive, even destructive in nature! Take for example my latest escapades in clearing the undergrowth in the. as I have termed it. 'Boneyard'.I did make a failed attempt at clearing out his jungle last Winter but hopefully this year will see more progress but it is all very destructive. Sammy Strimmer is my weapon of choice along with cutters.
In that lot there are some interesting artefacts to be discovered!
Fitted to he front of the Lima DMU, the additional details look a bit strange. Xxx
This project is becoming a bit like a rabbit hole! I was just going to do a quickish (remember this is Woody) update on the Lima Class 117 DMU and I find myself drawn into adding more details. Still, so far the cost has been minimal so Mrs. woody cannot complain!
The latest thing to do is to add so front end detail to the buffer beam. Having cut the couplings off the front end will look a bit bare and in real life there are some additional details that Lima did not add. These are the vacuum pipes for the braking system when these units worked in multiple setups as well as the electrical couplings. Fiddly to replicate but worth the couple of hours it took.
As always, WMD Stores had some suitable materials in stock, so a piece of square strip was a starting point into which some suitably bent brass rod was attached through some holes drilled in the strip. These represent the vacuum brake pipes. The electrical connections were represented by some 5amp fuse wire. The connectors were just slivers of plastic card and rod.
The lens is a bit cruel as to my workmanship but once mounted on the chassis and painted it should all look OK!
Having painted up those details on the chassis of the Lima Class 117 DMU, I have now dirtied them up! A bit of dirty brown paint by Ammo was airbrushed and the chassis does actually look a lot more realistic - well I think so anyway! I need to add some more detail to the front end so hopefully I will be able to post abou that tomorrow.
In the meantime I am pleased with my dirt!
Time to think about doing some detailing on the chassis of the Lima Class 117 DMU. I am not doing anything too fancy, just making the best of what is already there. To be fair, there is a fair amount of detail with various air tanks, lockers, pipework and so on but being all moulded in black plastic means that the detail just disappears.
It already looks a bit more interesting and whilst the colours are all very bright, I am going to weather the whole chassis so that will all tone down. That is a job for once the paint dries though.
