 |
The red parts of this project , a Tomy product , is 1/4"
scale static |
| model of the Disney Land, Japan locomotive.My friend Steve
Fisher and I |
| were given these by the importer. We put them on MDC 0-6-0
drives and |
| for various reasons were less than satisfied with the
running ability of the |
| final product. Recently another friend suggested that
we look at the |
| Bachmann HO 0-6-0 as good power source. Thus we dusted
off our |
| models and started an upgrade bash. |
| |
| |
| |
 |
| For this project we had to fit the
mechanism, designed for a wide saddle tank, |
| into a smaller boiler. This required removing
the directional light module from |
| the motor which for this Mogul was not needed.
Then the motor mounting bracket |
| needed some surgery. It looked like this after a little saw
and Dremel tool work. If you plan to use the Bachmann 0-6-0 |
| mechanism with the stock
saddle tank boiler then this internal modification is not necessary. You
may, however, want to |
| change the light bulb
arrangement to accommodate a larger O scale
headlight. |
| Fabricating and installing the lead
trucks was one of the more time consuming parts of this build. First I had
to find a set of |
| wheels that would look size
appropriate. In discussion with my partner, we chose Grandt ore
jimmy wheels which we had |
| on hand (a deciding factor ). One
reason for this choice is that the Grandt wheels take a wire axle that can
be run through |
| a piece of brass tube which has been soldered to a
small sheet brass |
|
| tang. Note, the pivot point is forward of the
attachment point. |
  |
| The whole assembly attaches to the forward gear
cover plate screw |
| and pivots over the boiler screw. Also not that
the Kadee #5 coupler |
| box has been trimmed at the rear with a McHenry
coupler installed. |
| |
| The tenders for the mini-moguls are similar but
different. |
|
| Both used the tank from the Disney kit but the
stock four wheel |
 |
| tender had pedestals that we found unattractive.
For one version |
| we used a scratch built brass deck that was
originally for |
| another project. For the other deck we used two |
|
G C Design Group log bunks that were
cut and glued together |
| to make the deck long enough for the tank.
Additional details |
| included tools and tool boxes from the
GC Design Group |
| selection of detail
parts. |
|
| |
|
| All of our loco painting lately has
been Floquil Engine Black, a custom mixed graphite smoke box and dry
transfer lettering. |
| Then a slight rusting with
brown acrylics and alcohol . Next a dusting of Polly S Grimy Grey finally
followed with a dry |
| brushing of light gray stencil paint to
highlight the details. |
| |
| We hope that this page might spark
your enthusiasm to dust off some tools and bash a loco. If you need advice about
such a |
| project or if you would like
us to build one for you e-mail us at G
C Design Group |
| |
| All loco parts were supplied by
Coronado Scale Models , Phoenix Arizona, 602-254-9656 |
Besides working on these Bachmann conversions shown above, I have recently
also been doing some bashing of Forneys. These tank locos
usually have side doors and provide little visibility into the cab. However, I
still wanted to give the impression of backhead detail without getting too
committed to detail that couldn't be seen. To achieve this I started with a
Grandt Porter backhead . To this I added a turret made of a tiny block of
laminated styrene strips , a pressure gauge made by using a hole punch to make a
styrene disc, a piece of styrene sprue and a few pieces of .020 wire. When the
backhead was painted black and added to the interior of the loco it did just
what I had intended, created visual authenticity yet took very little time to
fabricate. Try it , it's easy but subtle.