What’s on your Workbench?

[sarge]

Steve’s N5c is still one of the best out there for fidelity to prototype. I picked one up recently myself, nicely painted but in the early scheme so due for a repaint to bring it forward into the early ‘60s, I fear.

Maybe we should swop…

Grin!

[PRRK4s]

Sarge, yeah, Steve filled a need back in 1975 when he produced his N5c. It's a wonder Max Gray never did one. Several others produced them since and none will ever reach the caliper of the Kohs import. I don't have one of those, I do have their N5b, and when my buddy called me about this Grabowski N5c, well, a no brainer. This one will be finished to represent 1942-1949 era, prior to black roofs and yellow grabs additions in 1949. I added the on porch operated cut off lever chains earlier, made a trip to blasting booth and the primer is now applied. Looks good enough for me.

[bob turner]

If those bolsters are plastic, I have a lifetime supply. Free for postage to good homes.

[sarge]

Bob, I could use a few sets if I’m honest. How many is a lifetime? Grin!



I don’t believe there is anything dimensionally questionable about Steve’s N5c. Sunnyside’s is a little off in roof shape if memory serves, as are the others up until Kohs. Its a devilish car to do right, apparently, but Pennsy guys are also merciless (including, thankfully, Steve).

I have to update this one for my needs, but I very much like Steve’s model so I grabbed it.

[sarge]

While my good mate was doing his thing and painting away at backscenes, I was doing mine and finishing up three of the four LV units in the workshop you saw earlier. After gearing down and rebuilding drives, we carried on with lettering, paint here and there, weathering, lights, glazing.

These FAs are part of a planned 1961 scenario:










Fast forward to 1974 and this RS-3. I usually don’t do one-off locos, sticking to the typical rather than the unique, but this one is an exception. There was a single Geep painted in this wide-striped scheme, too.

[up148]

If those bolsters are plastic, I have a lifetime supply. Free for postage to good homes.

They look like the old USH bolsters.......are they?

[PRRK4s]

up148, if you're referring to the N5c underframe photo, yes, those are U.S. Hobbies plastic bolsters. When I received the N5c I noted the ones on it were cracked. Evidently the undercuts weren't deep enough to fit over the center sill and when the bolts were tightened down they cracked. I'm assuming Grabowski used U.S. Hobbies bolsters? If not then the original owner of the N5c had put them on. Whichever, they work fine and lined up with the mounting holes as well.

[sarge]

Same on my N5c also.

PSC sold them after USH, and I want to say Levon also sold them as Kemtron products early on.

[PRRK4s]

Tom Tronzo used bolsters that were supplied by Max Gray back in the early 60's as well when he built his GRa and H21/25 hoppers. No sense of reinventing the wheel!

[R.K. Maroon]

I had a CB&Q Mountain on my workbench last week and posted it on page one of this thread. I stated that the gearbox was gummed up, and it was, but that didn't solve all the problems. It turns out the bronze sleeve bearings in the open-frame motor were dry as a bone and the motor was essentially locked. A few drops of light oil and it came back to life. Here it is in operation at last weekend's Southwest O-Scale show:


Not the best photo, as the lighting in the hall was poor and there was a color balance problem in my camera. The locomotive ran smoothly throughout the show. We started with this relatively short train, notable only because nine of the cars are the fine work of Ed Bommer, including the Gerber insulated/ventilated box car (which ran until the war, at which time they were donated to the war effort):


We kept adding cars until we had a train about twice this length. I have some video of this and will post when I get it edited. The mountain never seemed to break a sweat -- a really nice runner.

Thanks to Bob Turner for advice on how to deal with the gummed up gearbox. He recommended I flush it with WD40 first and see how it goes. I did and then discovered that removing the wrap-around part of the gearbox case was easy. As it turned out, the WD40 had completely cleared the case and all the gears of the old grease. I recall Jay Criswell recommending WD40 for the nylon gears on a small OMI switcher -- that worked too so WD40 is now my cleaner of choice for such things. I noticed that WD40 actually sells a version specifically for cleaning, but the regular formula works just fine.

Jim

[sarge]

A fine engine and handsome train of cars. Ed is one of the unsung masters of carbuilding in this scale.

An aside. The rail joints between modules; how are they treated? Are the rail ends soldered to plates and screwed in place?

[up148]

up148, if you're referring to the N5c underframe photo, yes, those are U.S. Hobbies plastic bolsters. When I received the N5c I noted the ones on it were cracked. Evidently the undercuts weren't deep enough to fit over the center sill and when the bolts were tightened down they cracked. I'm assuming Grabowski used U.S. Hobbies bolsters? If not then the original owner of the N5c had put them on. Whichever, they work fine and lined up with the mounting holes as well.

Yep, that's what I meant. That is an outstanding caboose and maybe the best details I've ever seen, makes a guy wish he modeled the PRR.

[E7]

Yep, that's what I meant. That is an outstanding caboose and maybe the best details I've
ever seen, makes a guy wish he modeled the PRR.

Come on down!!! There's always room for another SPF (Slobbering Pennsy Freak)!

[E7]

I don’t believe there is anything dimensionally questionable about Steve’s N5c. Sunnyside’s is a little off in roof shape if memory serves, as are the others up until Kohs. Its a devilish car to do right, apparently, but Pennsy guys are also merciless (including, thankfully, Steve).

Don't take offense because this is purely for MY edification. I've looked at all three of the above cabins, and if there is any difference, I can't detect it. Maybe I have a "Tin Eye". (That's the visual counterpart of a tin ear.)

Maybe you can point out/or describe the difference?

I like them all "junked up" with all the train phone hardware! Man if I could just get one of those Kohs pinups for on the wall!

On another note, it's easy to understand why you are doing the Lehigh Valley colors...one word: Handsome. A while back on Allegheny Scale Models website, they had for sale, one of the late Henry Bultmann's RS11's done in a spectacular red and white color scheme. Wondering if you were familiar with it?

[sarge]

None taken Rich!

This was from hanging around with some serious SPFs a decade ago or so, until we all retired and went in several directions, but their observation has to do with how deep the eaves come down the side, the radius it rolls from roof over the sides, the “point” of the roof over the collision posts, and the shape and radius of the upsweep of the eaves above the steps of the platforms. Minor stuff to be sure, but the advice to me was Steve’s was the benchmark N5c at that time, so I seek them if I have a Pennsy project I’m doing. What has come in the last decade or so, such as George’s, I’ve no opinion on for the nth degree of neurosis, but many are just beautiful exquisite things.

I’m not really “one of the tribe”, but I find the Elmira Branch a fascinating operation full of potential. While the true believers like the M1 best of steam, being an infidel I can pick my poison and nothing says Pennsy steam to me like the I1. The essential cabin for me is the N5c. On the north end of the Elmira, NYC power (Mohawks and Mikes) and cabooses pooled on merchandise trains interchanging off the Corning Secondary down to Southport and coal trains headed to New England actually saw Pennsy I1s running through to DeWitt in Syracuse. Add the Erie out of Hornell, the LV crossing the Sodus point segment, and a modellers paradise emerges. Later, diesels picked up the duties but those operations and arrangements continued.

It’s an operating scenario currently on the workbench here, inspired by several models serendipitously coming here at one time. The date will be 1961. John’s F’s will represent what had just become EL out of Hornell. For the Pennsy, a pair of Art Selby’s F-unit conversions he dearly loved doing, an Atlas SW and a Red Caboose Geep. Then, a lightning stripe Geep I found at Strasburg joins an old Kemtron RS-3 I built many years ago for one of the old Philly crowd to handle the NYC side of the house.

Needed cabins, so “back home to momma” with that Grabowski N5c.

I’m off to look at that RS-11 you mention. Grin!