DalaGStanator's Customs, Mods and Experiments

The day before yesterday, the water barrel was finished and test fitted. At least over 60 pieces were cut from matchsticks of both types (normal and long) to fill the gaps, and the top was marked for the lid using a skewer. The middle staves were a bit difficult to glue, so I added a piece of masking tape to bend them on the inside like with the boiler. I initially glued the matchsticks over the frame, but that made the barrel oversized (which it still is) and I had to remove them. Later, the insides of the ends were measured to make the top and bottom (left and right), which were also done with matchsticks. While it did give the realistic look I envisioned, it's not really the most practical process and I'm not sure if I'd use it again.



The next day, I gave up on the reused filaments for the axleboxes. After trying different designs for them, I found a much more effective solution: gluing bolts of staples to the bottom of the tender and adding thin strips of packaging plastic to the outsides. They just happened to be the exact height I needed. One of the designs I tried was a clay mould of one of the filament axleboxes, which was later turned into pebbles to make the pile of coke. The pebbles were put into the matchbox that held most of the short matches, and hot melt glue was added before painting. The bottom layer ended up being removed because I poured the glue onto the pebbles, when I should've stuck them into it. That, and it also made it too high. After gluing it into position, I weathered the inside of the tender to look like it's been loaded several times.



I found out the tender's original cotton bud axles became too stiff and didn't roll well, so I replaced them with toothpicks. However, it led to the wheels losing their grip and sliding inwards too easily. To keep them in place, I added a plate over the axles (like on Plarail, TrackMaster and most toy trains in general, albeit cardboard). The Union Express stock doesn't have such plates, in part due to their wheelsets being all in one piece. Being the same gauge, I wonder if it might run a bit better on TOMY/TrackMaster track.



As mentioned, the loco to tender coupling is a wire tie. To tie what was left of the other end, I turned it 180° before turning it back. Not that I expect much force to be applied to it.