Autosol - Make Your Wheels Shine

I have a friend who loves to refurbish and repair old bikes and other stuff. He often use a polishing compound called Autosol with is generally used to clean tarnished metals such as chrome, brass and others. It’s easy to use, the results are almost instantaneous and you only need and old rag.

 

Yesterday, I decided to file down the old counterweight on my Mantua 4-6-0 drivers. They are to modern and they had to partially go before I could apply new ones. When everything was removed, I look at the wheel threads which had been cleaned with SuperClean in my ultrasonic bath and thought it wasn’t looking good. Still a lot of tarnish, excessive wear, discoloration and, on the blind drivers, a serious amount of nickel plating having flaked off. Suffice to say this model had quite the good life back in the days.

 

Autosol is a polishing compound found in the aut parts department

Often online, you see people restoring old wheels using destructive or inefficient methods. They start with solvent, use Brite Boy, brass wire polishing wheels, sandpaper and all kind of unproductive techniques that make a mess and yield mixed results. What if I could simply put some Autosol on a rag, wipe and polish the metal wheels until all the oxidation and micro abrasion was gone.

 

Left wheel polished with Autosol, right one altered, scratches and missing plating

Sure I did and it worked much better than I thought. Very little product was used. The nickel plating started to shine bright again and the pitted spots disappeared. Even the blind drivers started to look more than decent. I decided to continue on the backside to polish the surface where I intend to had some pickups in the future. Once again, it worked perfectly. Then, I moved on the axles themselves and made them shine so they would turn freely in the brass bearings.

 

Brand new like the day the left the factory

Honestly, it was fast, safe and yielded excellent results. My fear is the wheels may be too shiny which could reduce traction. However, for any other use like car wheels, it’s impressive. I’m surprised to have never heard about that product used in model railroading. I will see if it impact traction, but otherwise, I see a bright (pun intended) future in this method to restore old wheels.

It must be noted that being a polishing compound, you need to clean thorougly the wheels after you have finish your job because it leaves an oily residue. In my case, I dropped the driver into the ultrasoni bath with isopropyl alcohol to remove all the residue that could have been left on the wheels. So Autosol is excellent but in these cases when you dismantle or restore a locomotive.

The Joy of DC

For a long time, I never cared about mechanics or wiring. It was something I couldn’t be bothered with and I always subcontracted it to my brother when I was a kid and friends later on. When something didn’t work properly, I would sideline it on the shelves and not care anymore. That approach gave me the leisure to focus my efforts on model building, scenery and planning. Sure, an attractive proposition. However, comes a time when friends aren’t there, or you need things to work right now or worse, the said friends won’t have the dedication to work on some weird proposition.

Since I’ve been working on Monk yard and other modules, I’ve had to become better at soldering and wiring. I’m not very good, but at least, I’ve reached a decent level where my work is passable and reliable. And if I mess something up, I know why and how to fix it.

The same wasn’t always true with locomotives. I would bash them, mess the electrical stuff accidently and get a poor running engine out of what used to be a decent model. Not a promising proposition when you wish to have good-looking custom locomotives to play with. Over the last few years, I’ve been watching a lot of people online that thinker with very old models, clean them, lube them, tune them and make them run better. Most of these people, including Darth Santa Fe, generally prefer to work with DC models. I use to laugh a little bit at that, thinking they did so since they were more interested in mechanical stuff than operation. But the reality is that you need to know that mechanical stuff first before dabbling with DCC.

And there is another aspect to that: the sheer simplicity of just having to lube a model, run it and have fun. DCC has become a real pain in the rear. Dealing with dirty track, poor sound, cutoffs and programming is extremely frustrating. This is something for which I currently have no patience. Also, as I often mentioned, I have a lot of old models that are DC and since they are oddballs, it makes no sense dumping $200 dollars of electronics in them. For this reason, I have embarked in fine tuning my DC stuff and the 4’ x 8’ layout is perfect for that.

On Sunday, I decided to work on a very old project. My pair of custom detailed Athearn blue box SW1200. I purchased the models back in high school around 1999 to replicate Chemin de fer Charlevoix switchers. However, this project never went nowhere and soon, as a teenager, I custom painted them in CN colors. During the pandemic, I dug out these poorly painted models, stripped them to their bare plastic and completely rebuilt them. It was a highly satisfying project, but I knew the drive was good… or so I thought.

Rebuilding my Athearn SW1200 electric motor

Fast forward a few years ago when I purchased replacement motors from Ebay. These were nice can motors that ran very well and relatively silently. I tried to replace a motor in one of the SW1200, but the surgery didn’t turn great when I grafted the flywheels. They weren’t balanced at all and made the drive jerky.

Last Sunday, I decided to simply rebuild the original drives and improve them. The original Athearn motor was broken into parts. I couldn’t reassemble it because the magnets touched the rotor. After some verification, I found out two plastic tabs that kept the magnets at the right distance were broken. Some styrene replacement tabs were glued in place and the motor was reassembled. Testing proved it was running as good as the untouched motor of the second unit. I was extremely proud to have salved a motor. After cleaning the commutator, adjusting the brush and oiling the bearings, it was back in action.

Cleaned, lubed and tuned trucks ready for reassembly

I then turned my attention to the trucks. Many sideframes had broken pins. I glued them back, inserted a phosphore bronze pin in them and put a nice coat of flat black on them. When I opened the gear tower and truck assembly, I discovered these parts had never been lubed, except for oil in the wrong place. No wonder they sounded like a coffee grinder! So everything went to the ultrasonic bath for degreasing and cleaning. I had purchased new Athearn nickel plated wheels years ago, so I proceeded to replace the sintered wheel with these new set. The trucks were lubed and assembled, making them running much smoother than ever before.

A coat of satin black on the frame really makes a difference

The last step was too degrease and repaint the metal chassis with satin black paint. I used professional grade paint and let it cure for at least 24 hours. At this point, I have refurbished trucks, well-maintained motors and a nice chassis. Everything will need to be reassembled and new LED lighting installed. These locomotives will probably never get a DCC decoders, but at least now they will finally run on a layout after being shelf queens for over 27 years. They may no longer be state of the art models, but this is not the point.

I’m getting more confident in my work and this is what matters. Developing mechanical skills is as important as the rest. I too often neglected that side of the hobby and paid the price. There is a lot of satisfaction tinkering with an older model and bringing it to its best condition. I’m discovering a new facet to this hobby and it’s much more relaxing and enjoyable that I ever thought. Somewhat, DC is really relaxing in a world were electronics, sound and complicated stuff is no longer a novelty or making any sense.

Fighting The Curve - How To Mess Up Your Turnouts

I hate mechanical stuff. It’s a well-known truth among my closest friends and relatives. I get the general principles, fail at implementing them and have no patience with troubleshooting when it last for too long and doesn’t provide immediate results. A good solution is to delegate these tasks to others, but most of the time, you are alone with your model railroading problems. So, I have to learn the skills, to work a little bit against my nature and be disciplined.

When I built the Merkiomen replica layout and laid the Monk Subdivision staging yard, I met a lot of issues with commercial turnouts. A lot… Many locomotives weren’t happy at all and I got frustrated and trashed a lot of turnouts, wasting time, material and money. I had no patience to deal with them and fix the issues.

With Vince Valley, I knew I didn’t want to relive that frustrating experiment. Track had to be 100% reliable. “Make it run like a dream” once said the guy editing a web magazine. He sounded quite patronizing and promised heaven, but in hindsight, Mr. Fugate was absolutely right. No amount of aesthetics wizardry and compelling track planning will ever compensate the gut-wrenching feelings of poor running. It pops the immersion bubble completely, unilaterally and irremediably. Curing track issue when the scenery is done is never an exciting endeavour.

I have a collection of random steamers of all size and I sure want them to run flawlessly on the layout and enjoy them, not get frustrated. And if I have to discard a locomotive because it’s unreliable when moving through a turnout, maybe it’s the turnout or track geometry that needs to be addressed and not the model to be shelved.

 

When track laying Vince Valley, I was a little bit cowboy with my turnouts. Most of them started as Peco code 83 Unifrog #6 for their electrical reliability, but I curved them to suit my needs. Curving the rails beyond the frog is generally safe. Curving them in the points area is starting to mess with the geometry. You play with the devil and he won’t forgive you. I know, I made that Faustian pact with him.

 

Curving turnouts is a risky business

I mentioned recently I had a success ration of 50%. It went down to 0% after trying to improve things. Twisted plastic throwbars started to fail, the solid rail points were sitting higher than the stock rail, causing steam locomotives drivers to climb on them and derail. I also observed that curving the turnout affected sometimes the horizontally of some rails, particularly right before the points. It was a mess. I filed some rails here and there and made things worst. Then, I got fed up, picked up new turnouts in my collection and messed with them, getting the same horrible results. I tested them on the benchwork before replacing anything.

 

I cut the webbing on the outside radius

Then, I thought I should just removed the curved turnouts, replace them with straight ones and call it a day… sacrificing my easements in the process, which were of utter importance for larger steamers. All that would be a lot of work and I felt I had to try something else before committing to that “solution”. I took my worst turnout and carefully looked at it. For some reason, I had discovered an older Electrofrog turnout with hinged points didn’t have the issue of catching wheels. While I hate that design, I had to admit the point ends were much finer and were a snug fit against the stock rail. In comparison, the solid rail points of Unifrogs were thicker and protruding, even on brand new turnouts. That seemed to be a design/manufacturing issue that was just made more noticeable when messing up the turnout geometry.

 

More webbing cutting, except under the frog

Since the turnout was deemed busted, I took a small file and reworked the point ends, making then much finer and removing material that was sitting higher than the stock rail. Wheels stopped hitting the points and no longer climbed and derailed. However, the geometry wasn’t perfect and I could see the transition from the straight track to the curved points was not smooth at all. Again, with my file, I reworked the point a little bit over a length of ½” to 3/4” and got rid of that issue. Even my Rivarossi Casey Jones, a temperamental engine like its prototype, liked the fixed turnout. The throwbar would be replaced with a nice custom PCB one soldered on the points.

 

That left me with the yard entrance turnout that was still defective. There, the locomotives truly “kicked” the points, making a strong noise and making them shake quite a bit. It was unacceptable to have a yard throat compromised in such a way. It was visually taking you out of the experience and worst, a serious liability for operation. Since I had decided that turnout was to be replaced and probably a lost cause, I took my files and worked the points. This time, I knew what I was doing and where material needed to be removed or reshaped. It took less than two minutes. Using a long metal framed Atlas container flat, I tested the geometry and didn’t notice any weird motion, noise or brutal kick in the wheels. Could I have solved the problem? I took my Bachmann 0-6-0T, which is an excellent runner, but prone to showing easily geometry issues due to its short wheelbase. It would be a good judge. It worked flawlessly! Now was the time to put Illinois Central 382 to the task and well… it ran smoothly over the turnout.

 

Yard throat with custom turnouts... we shall see!

Not only I had saved my turnouts but proved the curved geometry I foolishly imposed upon them was working. I have still a few apprehensions and won’t glue or ballast anything until operations have been carried on for a much longer time, but I have troubleshooted my turnout problems and acquired new skills. I always shunned away from custom track work, but at the end of the day, it’s not that hard when you have the right mindset. Running out of turnouts to trash forced me to understand and repair what I had in hand. It would have been stupid to get rid of well-built turnouts which were only unreliable because I messed up the points. Repairing them was no different than working on a hand laid turnout, so I look at what the folks do when custom-building tracks and implemented their techniques. It worked. And I may be tempted to replace a few compromised Peco plastic throwbars in the future.

That said, in the yard, I had made a few cutoms turnouts and they are much more reliable than my first attempt, but the yard geometry is a little bit wonky and could cause some issues when switching and coupling cars. I'm never a fan of having a curve, then a small section of straight track then another curve. It's visually ugly and mechanically unreliable. Hence, I may be tempted to use 2 Peco Electrofron curved #7. They fit, have the right curvature, don't reduce storage space and are reliable once jumpers are soldered to the hinged points. Sure, laying turnouts was a steep learning curve even for an experienced modeller like me, but the learning was totally worth it. I feel I'm more in control of the result instead of just slapping components on an uneven roadbed and wishing for the best. Even small steps such as sandind the cork roadbed to make it perfectly level are things I didn't do and which have a tremendous impact on reliability and appearance. As I said to a friend, it's two steps forward, one step back... not bad if you ask me!

Vince Valley Layout and Joyful Models!

The new layout is progressing well with its mainline loop completed and the switching lead almost done. As I probably already mentioned, this is an experiment in better track laying, wiring, control and scenery. Some kind of general repetition before Monk is done. And many things are already learned.

I had the misfortune to learn Midwest cork roadbed was no longer produce while half the layout was done. Stuck with this bad news, I discovered cork tiles sold at my local Walmart have the same thickness, so I decided to slice it in 2 inches wide strips and cut them at an angle on the table saw like Midwest cork. Worked wonders and I was able to finish the layout. It means Monk will need to be done in the same way since already a few parts got their cork.

Custom made cork roadbed

Another thing I did was to curve some Peco Unifrog turnouts to fit my contrived geometry. One of my top quality control objectives was that all turnouts would be Unifrog (powered frog) with solid rail points. No hinges, not pieces that go out of alignment and cause all kinds of unwarranted  wobbling and derailing.

Sure, I was a little bit brutal with my experiments! I found out cutting the web on the outside of the desired curve worked best. As such, I would say that curving the turnout beyond the frog is quite easy and safe. I was often able to get a curve similar to a Peco #7 curved turnouts and it really helped with the geometry. However, I also went overboard trying to curve the points area… It can be done, but very gently. If you overdo it, certain locomotives won’t like it and you can get misalignments where the curved point touch the stock rail. Honestly, it’s a 50-50 gamble. I broke two turnouts out of 4 that way. The good news is they can be repaired with new soldered throwbars and by removing the curve. But keep in mind this is messing out the point geometry. I was lucky to get away with it on one mainline turnout, but the yard entrance didn’t work. I wanted to merge the turnout with the easement of the curve, but it didn’t work. Since it’s just a yard, I will use a standard unmodified #6 there and reduce the length of the easement. It’s not a big issue there since large steamers won’t run there.

Foreground curved turnout is busted, but the two others are perfect

With the main loop done, I also had the pleasure to run a few small steamers to test how things went. In my collection, I have a lot of orphan locomotives purchased long ago with specific projects in mind that never came to fruition or simply failed later on or stopped catching my attention. I kept them and some never really ran because they “did fit” my current locale and era. That’s something I want to break with that generic layout. It’s there for fun, to run trains, switch a little bit, enjoy them as they are. No need to find a new paint scheme. Just bring them to their best. Those that work flawlessly, I call them “Joyful Models”. They bring marvelment and joy by their sheer presence on the rail. In this regard, I must admit the curved track along the river has provided, even in its current state, a lot of pleasure. It breaks apart the roundy-roundy 4’ x 8’ nature and gives a purpose to the loop.

A joyful little engine basking in the morning sun

Among the Joyful Models, I’ve been really impressed by a little Spectrum 0-6-0T that sat in its box for 20 years. I had never ran it since purchase. I expected the worst, turned the knob and there, it was crawling flawlessly on the rails. I played with it for many minutes and it was clear it would be a star in the future yard. Small, cute, well-designed, beautifully detailed and performing greatly. I love that one!

The Bachmann low drivers 4-6-0 was also a pleasing surprise. It has old time charm, performs well and is overall nice. I’m not a big fan of its boiler because it’s a later model with details molded on. However, I have ordered a detailed boiler for UP from Bachmann Parts store. I will probably swap them and the boiler will probably find a new life as kitbashing material one day.

Another joyful model is the Tyco/Mantua 4-6-0. I remember buying an old one on Ebay maybe 15 years ago when I was following the progress of a freelanced lumber railway layout called the Highlander on an obscure HTML webpage. It was whimsical, but I liked it a lot and one of the engine was the mighty 4-6-0. It resembled a QRL&PCo locomotive and thus, I got one for a custom project. I modified the cab sides, repainted it black and let it sat in a box because I felt the drive was old and the motor a coffee grinder. Several times, I repainted and weathered it, swapping the tender for a better Bachmann one. But later on, I reunited it with its original one. Two weeks ago, as you may know, I made custom 3D parts for it. Having seen how Michael Ramsey from the Red Oak Railway YouTube channel fame had remotored one to make it run smoothly, I decided to take the frame apart, clean it into an ultrasonic bath of SuperClean and install a Sagami can motor.

Well, I felt the conversion would be complicated, so I just thought about restoring the motor and seeing how it would perform. It was a horrible motor. Jerky and noisy. I cleaned the commutator, cleaned the brushes, removed dust and dirt from every little nook and cranny, then powered it. It was still sounding like a coffee grinder, but the performance was surprisingly good, even at slow speed with little cogging. It was time to lube the rotor bushings, and it did the trick. No longer it sounded bad. The running became even smoother. Then I lubricated the driver wheel brass bushings and all the rods. A little bit of grease was added to the worm. It was truly a miracle. What used to be a poor running model became a solid performer, even with its old Pitman-style open frame motor. That realization coalesced with my recent thought about not upgrading to DCC my locomotives that run well in DC.

I don’t want to break the bank on DCC and sound. In fact, I’m tired of DCC and its finicky nature. It has its place in the hobby, but many old models don’t need it. In fact, it may had issues rather than improvement. And maybe, that’s one aspect of what makes a Joyful Model. It’s reliable and always ready to run without issues. Easy to maintain and fun to play with! So far, I've been testing a lot of locomotives I had in boxes. I class them in three categories: Joyful Models which are ready or almost ready to run reliably, Models that have good drive but needs maintenance and restoration work and the last category, bad models that requires extensive work to be fun to run or may even be lost cases (I'm looking at you Athearn Genesis Mikado!).

4-6-0 Brooks' decals from prototype picture

So after this realization, I decided to go all in with the Rogers 4-6-0 kitbashing. Some people from the Early Rail group.io forums where kind enough to help me recreate the attractive 1884 Brooks Locomotive Works paint scheme and I have done good decals for it. When the parts are all printed, this Mantua beauty will be brought to its original glory!

So there I am, playing again with my trains. What a joy to look at a tiny 0-6-0T crawling over the stone culvert at the yard throat while basking in the sun of the living room! I want to make this layout a conversation piece and game to play with others, not different from what the Harlem Station layout was supposed to be.

Layout Design: Breaking the Boundaries

Building a 4’ x 8’ layout is some sort of blessing when you come back to that style of design after dabbling for years with along the walls layouts and modules. Sure, the plywood sheet has a lot of limitations, but many of them are self imposed to some extend.

A river should be an invitation, not a menacing corner

Over the last month, I’ve been exploring my ideas more freely, considering advice by the whimsical mind of Chris Mears. When he drew the Japanese circular a few weeks ago, he didn’t stick to the circular footprint. The circle was an efficient way to make the trains move, but it wasn’t a good shape to tell a story and craft a landscape. All kind of bulges started to appear, and it was interesting to see how he would create very important deviation just to make sure the scene was great. It was a perfect decoupling of track from fascia.

When dealing with the ASTF-themed layout, I wanted to be more artistic, just as I did with the Stanstead module. For this reason, instead of conforming to a rectangle, I decided to make my scenic elements breath in a better framed context. One trick I did was to paint a mockup river on the bare plywood. No need to wait a long time before imagining it. It's there and it informs all my decisions, including sidings, roads, structures, topography. Everything becomes more intuitive rather than calculated and mechanical.

A culvert needs room to breathe

When I built the stone culvert, it became clear it was foolish to have poured so many artistic efforts into it to have zero foreground to appreciate it in context. For that reason, I decided to build an extension with some ¼” plywood to have more space in front of it. Somewhere to gaze from, to take beautiful pictures and feel the entire scene. I didn’t care about the future fascia location, only caring about having the physical space required to have a good-looking scene. The fascia is a consideration that will come in the future when it’s time to link every scenes. Already, I can imagine several bulges and alcoves creating compelling points of views. The station is probably one of these places where the layout will expand to better serve its purpose.

Even track is informed by these scenic choices

In hindsight, postponing Monk is a blessing. I know my mindset will be somewhere else, more open to opportunities, etc. Your exploration about how the foreground must vary and inform the visual experience really destroyed many of my personal assumptions. I had instinctively done it with Stanstead, but never pushed the idea further and you often sketched scenes that did take that as a given, something that shoudl be naturally implemented, almost obvious.

Things must flow