It is now December 2007, 14 months later, and the project finally begins!

First, some photos of the victim as it arrived..
in its "as built" configuration, as it arrived, unmodified.

The On30 outside-frame Consolidation by Bachmann:

December 13, 2007

Deconstruction begins..lets take this engine apart and see what it looks like:

First steps - pull off the brake shoe unit, it pulls straight out in one piece.
then unscrew and remove the plate over the drivers.

(im going to have to figure out a way to re-attach those driver electric pickups..)

The On2 track gauge is 12.7mm.
The On2 "back to back gauge" (the distance between the inside of the wheels)
according to the NMRA standards is 10.6mm.
The metal frame between the drivers is 11.2mm wide.

yep..its too wide. 
The drivers can not be regauged to On2 and fit back into the frame.

That leaves only two options:
1. narrow the frame.
2. make a new frame.

The frame is one solid metal casting, the portion between the drivers is attached to the "outside frame" portion that sits outside the drivers. Its not as simple a matter to grind down the frame as it would be with a traditional "inside frame" locomotive..there are actually two frames in this case, an "inner frame" between the drivers and the "outside frame" between the drivers and the counterweights.

A simple way, if you have the tools to do this, would be to remove 3.8 mm (the difference between On30 and On2) right down the middle of the frame, then stick the two halves together again..but I dont have any kind of tool that could do this.

And besides..the driver spacing isnt correct anyway..the drivers are too close together for SR&RL #23..

So as I suspected all along, im going to have to make a new frame!
oh well..shouldnt be a big deal...hopefully.

and..as a bonus for making a new frame, I can get the correct driver spacing!
That alone should make it worth the effort.
Number 23's long-legged stance is quite disctinctive..it wouldnt look right right if the drivers were too close together.

Drivers are out.
 

I always try to cut as few wires as possible.
in this case, I only had to cut 4 wires to get the whole engine apart.
I labeled the 4 cut wires, the labels say "motor, motor, drivers, drivers"
2 wires to the motor, and two wires to the driver pickups..I didnt bother labeling "left and right" because the wire colors, black and red, tell me that.
Making new driver pickups is going to be tricky...no idea how im going to to it yet..
I will worry about that when I come to it! 
 
 

All apart!
wow..it actually reduced to much fewer parts than I expected..thats good!
The quality of modern locomotive models continues to amaze me..
this thing is built like a swiss watch!
beautiful.

Now that everything is apart, I can take some real measurements:

No. 23 needs cylinder width of 35mm (at cylinder centers)
Model is 42mm. 
Cylinders width needs to be narrowed 7mm.

No. 23 needs a cab width of 43 mm.
Model is 53mm.
hmmmm..width isnt looking so great, but I expected that.

(The width of the Bachmann Forney, another upcoming regauge project, is PERFECT for On2! (except for the gauge of course)..that will make the converting of the Forneys to On2 much easier..no major body work necessary.)

But of course the Forneys are already models of Maine 2-foot prototypes..
the Bachmann 2-8-0 is not..so I shouldnt be surprised it doesnt match the width
of Number 23!

No. 23 boiler diameter is 49", thats 26mm.
Model is 28mm..thats better! 
the boiler is fine for #23 as-is..but I already knew that.
thats one of the main things that led to this project in the first place.

No. 23 driver diameter is 33", thats 17.5mm.
Model is 19mm..thats good.

Conclusions after disassembly?
its somewhat worse than I had hoped. 
When I was comparing dimensions before, I only had side-views.
I had no real width data to go on.
The overall loco width is quite a bit wider than what I need..nearly all width dimensions will need to be reduced. Pretty much the entire loco, except the boiler, is about 10mm too wide!

I will just have to build a new frame for everything to sit on.
I was thinking of cutting and pasting the cab, but now im considering just scratchbuilding a new cab..will probably be easier. 

Right about now someone reading this is probably thinking "wouldnt it be easier to just scratch-build the entire locomotive and forget about using the Bachmann engine?"
well no..it wouldnt! 
For me, the point of a bash like this is that you get all the major parts from the donor loco..the parts that are very hard to build from scratch..drivers, motor, cab, boiler, tender, domes, cylinders, all the running gear..etc.  The trick is taking all those "finished" parts and putting them back together in different proportions to make a different engine.

You start with a complete engine, you take it apart and put it back together, but you put it back together according to a different set of blueprints..you end up with a totally different complete engine.

For this bash, I am probably going to have to scratchbuild the frame and cab..thats it.
more than I had originally expected, but still not too bad.
everything else will come from the Bachmann engine.
 
 
 

December 19, 2007

I have looked at the drivers to see how they can be regauged.
Sometimes regauging can be as simple as moving the drivers closer together on the axle, then cutting off the excess axle length. not in this case!

The counterweights are quartered, and are press-fit onto the ends of the axles, and the axle end has a notch that keeps the weights quartered.

The drivers have round openings for the axels (no need for the drivers themselves to be quartered) and each driver is insulated from the axle by a plastic bushing, both sides.

Unfortunately the drivers cant be regauged by simply moving the drivers in or out on the axels, because the axle is thicker where the bushing butts up..thats what keeps the drivers in (On30) gauge..the axels are designed for On30, period. there is no room to move in either direction.
 

Ideally, new axles could be fairly easily made on a lathe, but since I dont have a lathe, and I dont know anyone who does, necessity forces me to ask Frank Zappa's band for other ideas.. fortunately, they have helped me before:

29n2-page5.html

So I will use that same method to regauge from On30 to On2.. I will have to remove the necessary amount from the middle of the axles (3.8mm in this case) then insert the cut axle stumps into a new brass tube to create the new axle..

Unfortunately with that method the only thing that "holds the quarter" is glue..but for such a tiny engine, glue (probably super glue) should do the job just fine...it worked fine in 1/29 scale!

And thats where things stand for now..
I need to order the quarterer and puller from NWSL, I will probably wait until after Christmas for that.

I will probably start on the cab first..
stay tuned...

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