Saturday, August 8, 2015

A Part Assembled Clayton Locomotive

Having built some O14 track ready for the Clayton battery loco I thought I should make a start on assembling it. Due to the rather large wheels it sports I decided it would be easier to paint it before assembly, we'll see how successful an idea this was at some point but for now this is the current state of play.


While all of the photos I've seen of the loco in use (just two if you remember) show it painted orange I understand that when it was originally delivered it was finished in Clayton's standard yellow colour. As this is the first prototype I've built and I had a can of yellow paint, this one will be painted yellow.

As well as painting I've assembled the layshaft, which slides into place pre-assembled, I've cut the OO gauge axles down to the right length, and I've sorted out most of the electrical side. The motor is actually rated at 12V so in theory could be wired directly to the pickups, but I'm going to try and fit working lights, so the little PCB holds a resistor and capacitor ready for wiring in the lights.

I'll probably leave the paint a day or so to fully harden, given past experience of spraying this Humbrol acrylic (while it feels dry it's possible to leave fingerprints in the surface for a day or so after painting), and then will assemble and test the mechanical parts before adding the working lights.

2 comments:

  1. Sounds good. Driving models in the dark it ought to look impressive.

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    1. Yes, I've been thinking about doing a set of small, linked scenes of the line, one of which would be inside the tunnel and there it would arrive and leave into darkened areas and the light should really help with the effect. That's a long way off yet though.

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