Waiting game

I'm currently in the process of ordering some higher grade rubber for my molds. The prior stuff degraded too rapidly. I could start punching out OR&L kits, but I'd prefer to get my first car assembled first to see if anything needs to be changed. I ran out of primer, and so it is on hold until I can get to my LHS.

The South Park windows still need to be widened, but there isn't much sense in getting them ready prior to the arrival of the better rubber.

In the meantime, I resumed working on what I hope will be my son's Christmas present this year:


Again, the wheels and motor are from a junk B-man Big Hauler chassis I picked up on ebay. I started off building a Cooke 2-6-0, but decided that it would be a bit large for the tight curves it'll run around and so one of the D&RG's 1871 2-4-0s will be the engine. The particular motor/gearbox set included on the axle is know to strip over time, and so I have a simple modification planned to prevent it. I'm designing it with space for a sound decoder in the frame or in the firebox. I'll leave a space for the speaker in the smokebox (I can't stand sound coming from the speaker in larger scales). I probably won't add sound for a few years. To protect it, I'll exercise care in limiting the weight so that she'll prefer slipping to gear grinding...