Michael Collins Jupiter & Lake Worth locomotive
I like to work on interesting projects that don't quite fit my layout's theme, this loco is one of those projects. Michael wants to model the Jupiter & Lake Worth, a 7 mile long railway in Florida with no provisions to turn locos. I offered to assemble the Republic Locomotive Works kit he had ordered to build J&LW #2. The kit sooned arrived at my door. I received the kit and additional parts and checked the inventory to make sure all the parts were present and accounted for, they were. I studied the parts and photo Michael had sent along as well as the web site I recommended to him.
My plan of attack started with the tender, (yeah, I went straight for the gravy) a nice urethane casting and white metal underframe. I cleaned the castings, and applied the first of three coats of Squadron Green putty to fill some imperfections in the castings. The rear of the tender had a slight void in the lid of the tool box and was the largest imperfection. Another was in the side of the tender, and one in the front. Meanwhile, I cleaned the white metal underframe, drilled the pilot holes in the bolsters and tapped them to accept some 1-72 screws. I fashioned a drawbar using an old side rod from a Bachman 2-6-0 standard gauge loco that bit the dust. The spacing was perfect to attach it to the rear coupler mounting pin on the rear of the Marklin unit. The other end attached to the tender by the front truck screw. I then dipped it in Blacken-it to keep it looking black. I ACC'd the urethane casting to the underframe, and added grab irons and the water hatch. I removed the wheelsets, and lightly sandblasted the assembly to prepare it for paint. After a light coat of black automotive spray can primer, (try it, it works) I airbrushed it with a coat of engine black. I also chopped up a load of wood from small twigs, and set it aside to be added last. The tender still needs decals and a light weathering with an overspray of earth to set off the details.
After sucking up all that gravy, I was forced to eat some potatos and start on the loco. After cleaning and deflashing everything, I added the rear of the cab with ACC, removing the section of metal to allow the shell to be removable as the instructions suggested. I added a styrene spacer to the back of the chassis to properly center the cab over the motor. The cab needed some slight grinding of the inside until it slipped gently over the motor. I added this insulator to the bottom of the loco shell to keep it from contacting the brush arms. It's made of paper and ACC'd in place.
At this point, I decided to do a little work on the Marklin chassis. I removed the side rods, cut out the valve gear parts from the RLW etching that Mike sent, and soldered them up using some music wire. The Marklin pieces were dipped in Blacken-it along with the rods from the RLW etching. This photo shows the parts awaiting assembly. I applied blacken it to the centers of the drivers and then painted them black followed by dullcote. I also dipped the front truck assembly in blacken-it and painted the plastic wheel centers.
I went back to the loco shell, and drilled and tapped the sanddome to accept a 1/2" long 1-72 brass screw. This was screwed in with ACC and cut to length so as to engage the factory 1-72 hole in the chassis and hold the superstructure securely. I soldered together some handrails from brass wire, drilled the boiler and installed them. I filed off the original sand piping and fashioned my own from brass wire. These differ from the prototype J&LW locos, but those were 4-4-0's and our kit is a 2-6-0, so we kept the piping correct for that wheel configuration. This close up shows the boiler details, we have yet to add the bell and pull, and a few other details. The cylinder casting included had previously been filed on, so I ordered a new one from RLW to replace it. Once the new cylinders show up, I'll add them and the valve gear/side rod assembly and finish the loco. This view and this side shot show the loco in it's current stage. Stay tuned as I update both the loco and this page.....I still have to add the valve gear, final boiler details, tender log load, paint details, window glazing, decals,...........
Saturday, 01/06/01, the new cylinder casting showed up from Republic Locomotive Works. I promptly started in on the valve gear, so much for the gravy..... The first thing I did was to drill out the cylinder casting to receive the valve gear, next I soldered two lengths of Detail Associates .010x.018 brass flat bar to the valve guide hanger. I did this by cutting them extra long and inserting them through the hanger and into a blob of clay. I used some rosin flux and soldered them, cut the excess off and filed it flat. Remember, this is the backside of the hanger. Next, I searched for some valve guide pins in my bits box. No such luck, everything was too big. I found some 1/4" long brass brads in the box and turned some crank pins from these using small collets in a Dremel and and assortment of needle files. This picture shows some small watch screws which were too large. The pin in the upper right is a brass turning I made that was also oversize. Armed with a pair of pins and a little ACC, I whipped out these. The hanger assemblies were cut to length and added to the cylinder castings. Here's an upside down view. And the rightside up one for those who don't hang from the ceiling. One whole day, a frozen pizza, an ACC-skin accident, and two beef buritos later, here we are......
Sunday,01/07/01, With the valve gear in place and the loco passing the test run, I started on adding the pilot, details and getting ready for paint. I removed the shell from the chassis one last time to do this. I made sure the valvegear was clean and removed any flux residue. Here's the closeup. And again from the top. I added the bell and pull, the pilot and cab grab irons and then blasted the shell with 220grit aluminum oxide. After the blasting, I blew any blasting sand off the shell and prepared to paint some of the areas that I couldn't reach with the airbrush. I painted all of the area underneath the boiler, bottom of the pilot and the inside of the cab with locomotive black using a small brush. It's starting to actually look like a locomotive.....
Tuesday, 01/09/01, I finished up the majority of the paintwork by airbrushing the shell with locomotive black and reassembling the unit. It's currently sitting next to the car shops in Durango awaiting decals and weathering. Before I send it to Mike, I'll dust it with floquil earth, add the decals and give it a coat of Dullcoat and post some finished pictures. Speaking of decals, I purchased a package of decal paper to print some decals for this loco and soon realized that the HP deskjet wasn't going to kick out a set of white decals. I went to a couple of local modellers who were unable to print some up for me. I joined the rr-decals list on egroups and issued a plea for help. Bill Priepke of Scale Rail Graphics quickly came to my aid. Bill printed up a set of Jupiter & Lake Worth decals in white for me at a price I couldn't believe. If you need custom decals, tell Bill, I sent you. Thanks again Bill.
Thursday, 01/18/01, J&LW received some light weathering and the numbers on the locomotive. The tender decals haven't arrived yet. I also added some split wood to the tender for fuel, and shot it all with the first coat of Dullcoat. Here's how it looks now, a closeup, and the wood in the tender. It's almost time to ship it back to Florida.
Some thoughts on assembling the Republic Locomotive Works mogul kit# RLW2170
I'd like to share my thoughts and experiences on assembling this locomotive and please take this for what it's worth, one man's opinion does not make it fact. I invested a total of about 35 hours assembling this locomotive, but if I removed the television from my shop, it'd easily cut that time in half. Marshall's kits are well thought out and his support of them is fantastic. (Marshall sent me the new cylinder casting I needed at no charge.)This kit went together well and makes a nice looking locomotive when finished, however, if doing it over the following are some changes I'd make.
1. Add tender pickup to this loco using the Marklin wheelsets and Richmond tender power pickups. The Marklin 8895 has power pickup on the outer sets of drivers only and let's face it, four wheel power pickup on a short wheelbase loco doesn't cut it.
2. Add about a 1/4 to 1/2 ounce of weight to the tender. This tender is short with a urethane body casting and a metal underframe. Even so, it's still a bit on the light side.
3. Add Richmond controls constant lighting units. Not hard to do and once the tender pickup is in, why not?
4. I'd skip the valvegear addition and just use the Marklin main rod sliding into some holes in cylinders. The valvegear conversion wasn't overly difficult, but the brass siderod etching is for 8800 wheelbase locos and includes three sets of main rods, two are too short, the other is too long. I first used the middle set and the result was sharp rod angles and valvegear binding. I ended up using the longest set, cutting them down to a 6'6" center to center length and soldering them together with a small splint. Not fun, nor easy. As a collective group, we need to work on making etchings for all plausible valvegear/chassis combinations. Maybe I'll get into metal etching............
Mike
