Geezer,

What is the minimum track radius this loco can handle? You have caught my interest.

Geezer, Looking good. It's going to be a beautiful model when finished.

Roland

Here are a few shots, "Firing for effect", nothing is glued on yet.



Next -



And another -



If you look at the cab, you can see where I have

drilled holes and affixed the tender back up light on the roof.

You may have another solution that provides protection to the LED leads, but, I acc'd some

shrink tubing in the holes (tricky) to protect the leads. The cab is metal.....yanno....

So, next time, I will finish up the circuit board install in the cab. Most likely, I will wire up a

tsunami decoder for the sound and use a small speaker in the cab roof.

No work next weekend, need to do 1:1 at Brooklyn. Thanks for checkin up on the Geezer.....

A little more progress last night...worked on the firebox modification some more-



You have to remove the wiring and circuit board to facilitate drilling (grinding) a couple holes through the floor.

These will be needed to pass the wiring up into the cab where the teneder decoder ill be relocated.

Notice the two wood blocks mentioned previously.



The only wires to cut on the tender are the pickup wires from each truck (red & black).

Cut the two long ones first, then remove the decoder to reveal the shorter wires on the front trucks.

Just make sure you leave enough wire on the tender in case you want to use it for a bash or a sound chamber for another loco. Do not cut any

other wires at this time



This is what you should have...the two long red & black wires leading to the top of the

picture are for the rear headlight LED. The 4 short wires (2 red 2 black) at the bottom of the circuit board,

Do not cut any other wires at this time.

Back with more in a bit...Stay tuned.

Geezer,

Great pictures and "how to". Looking forward to more.

Jump right in Max!

I have to fit the sound too, and rewire everything...

Headin down where its cooler.....91 here no breeze...

Be back later...Thanks for comments all....

I will be watching this as I have one of these kits too. I am 'waiting' to fit mine with sound before I get stuck in with the kit though.

This is great! Looking forward to more..

Arthur

More progress this morning...Here are a few shots of the modified "pony trucks"...a bit intimidating, but it worked out ok....



Here we see a comparison of the front pilot modification....shortened a little less than 1/4"...Cut off with dremel tool and dressed with a file. New hole drilled ....



The original firebox cover is removed, and replaced with the provided cover. You have to drill the holes for the mounting screws and ream out the pilot support. The new cover is held in place via two pieces of wood that are acc'd inside the box. The new screws that hold the new plate on, screw into these....



The rear pilot bolt hole is thinned down a bit, and the trailing end is filed smooth to aid in better clearance.

So, that's about it for now...tonight, I will work on the cab/bunker area and will post pictures of that as well...

All in all, so far, the kit is not really that difficult...but then again, I havent gotten to the rewiring and drilling for the placement of the tenders backup light on the top rear of the cab... More to follow....Thanks for stopping by.

Exiting!! I'll be following...

Recently, I purchased all three of the conversion kits from Backwoods Miniatures.

The "Saddle Tank Version" for the 2-8-0

Bachmann constellation, The "Forney conversion Kit" and of course my favorite - "The 2-6-6-2T Articulated Conversion kit".

So, I will begin with the Connie...



Just a test fit of the tank to see how it looks...

I hope the rest of the pictures came out better...



Removal of the cab and boiler is pretty straight forward...The first thing I did was to shorten the boiler - Bachmann makes this easy with the removal of a couple screws. You re-use the original boiler inspection cover....



Here, I have already shortened the front pilot by a little less than 1/4" and added a reinforcing filler to bring everything back in allignment. I used 5 minute epoxy for this....



Above, is the top view of the modified pilot. You can see where the cut was made...the shiny epoxy and white filler will be painted.

I am going to post this, before something happens....I will be back in a few....

Thanks for stopping by.....