I haven't heard of the pliers for HO, but I have heard of the 'truck tuner', just a fancy name for a reamer that takes out a little bit of material to ensure the trucks roll freely .
?? re: track, couplers, joiners, and truing
Good morning gents!
I've been tweaking my track to accommodate my more finicky engines and have run across a small issue. I was cleaning the wheels on one particularly troublesome unit and noticed they had some minor scratches. If I run a finger over the rails I don't feel any bumps or misalignments so this is a bit of a mystery.
Any idea how they could have gotten scratched? No big deal but I'm definitely curious.
During my tweakfest I've discovered certain engines will behave as though they're hitting bumps in the road, and it turns out the flanges are riding up on the joiners. My plan is to use a flat bladed screwdriver the length of the joiner to kinda mash the unsoldered joiners down a bit, and to dremel the soldered joints if there are any that contribute to this behavior. Again, this is no big deal either but I wanted to pick your brains for any potential pitfalls before I make things worse!
About track.....how exactly do you add or remove a section once the rest has been glued down? Since you need some lateral movement to slide the joiners together there's got to be some trick I'm missing.
The HO guys have a device they can use to "true" their trucks. Nothing more than pliers with funny jaws to spread the plastic. Is that really all there is to it? I have some rolling stock that doesn't roll as well as others but spreading the plastic trucks (by hand) so far is a temporary fix-unless it's actually stressed/stretched it returns to original dimensions when it relaxes.
Finally, and this is just pure curiosity, how long do our little N scale motors last? Coming from the r/c world I know you can burn out a set of brushes pdq, or burn up a brushless motor just as quick with too much voltage, but otherwise I've never actually had one just wear out. I've been thinking since our tiny little motors don't turn anywhere near as fast or draw the same kind of amperage they'd surely last longer than I will!
But, they ARE small...so maybe not. :dunno:
I've been tweaking my track to accommodate my more finicky engines and have run across a small issue. I was cleaning the wheels on one particularly troublesome unit and noticed they had some minor scratches. If I run a finger over the rails I don't feel any bumps or misalignments so this is a bit of a mystery.
Any idea how they could have gotten scratched? No big deal but I'm definitely curious.
During my tweakfest I've discovered certain engines will behave as though they're hitting bumps in the road, and it turns out the flanges are riding up on the joiners. My plan is to use a flat bladed screwdriver the length of the joiner to kinda mash the unsoldered joiners down a bit, and to dremel the soldered joints if there are any that contribute to this behavior. Again, this is no big deal either but I wanted to pick your brains for any potential pitfalls before I make things worse!
About track.....how exactly do you add or remove a section once the rest has been glued down? Since you need some lateral movement to slide the joiners together there's got to be some trick I'm missing.
The HO guys have a device they can use to "true" their trucks. Nothing more than pliers with funny jaws to spread the plastic. Is that really all there is to it? I have some rolling stock that doesn't roll as well as others but spreading the plastic trucks (by hand) so far is a temporary fix-unless it's actually stressed/stretched it returns to original dimensions when it relaxes.
Finally, and this is just pure curiosity, how long do our little N scale motors last? Coming from the r/c world I know you can burn out a set of brushes pdq, or burn up a brushless motor just as quick with too much voltage, but otherwise I've never actually had one just wear out. I've been thinking since our tiny little motors don't turn anywhere near as fast or draw the same kind of amperage they'd surely last longer than I will!
But, they ARE small...so maybe not. :dunno:
1 - 2 of 8 Posts
not much choice, the reason a commercial version isn't available [imo], is that there are many different wheelset lengths for N
1 - 2 of 8 Posts
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