HOn30 Headaches, Part 1.

Five79 Forney prepped for paint

On my kick of cleaning up started projects, I picked back up on the HOn30 Forney from Five79.  If you are a glutton for punishment like I am, HOn30 is a good scale to start with. There is no one stop shop for all of your needs, and no manufacturers really support the scale, except Minitrains, which produce a limited (but growing) line of locomotives and rolling stock, but only import into the US through a small hobby shop in California, that doesn't exactly have a "buy now" or shopping cart feature.  Sometimes I feel like Indiana Jones searching for the Holy Grail. "The penitent man will pass"....

This particular model I'm building is a a fine kit by any scale standards, and at roughly $65, not terribly expensive, until you realize everything you need to add on your own. Unfortunately, that $65 is variable, because it's converted from British Pounds, because the only dealer on planet earth for a Maine (USA) prototype locomotive is a shop in Scotland. Parkside Dundas is the shop, and you can find the kit here.  The rest of the story, as it is said are the other items listed here:

N scale Bachmann 0-4-0 mechanism.  You won't find this at any hobby shop, or online store. The old model has been discontinued quite some time, but because they run like garbage, people are always selling them on eBay and at shows.  Yes, I did say that they run like garbage. On anything other than perfectly clean and level track with no turnouts, the 0-4-0 will fail to run. They have horribly poor electrical pickup and transmission, and they tend to wobble a lot because they were assembled hastily in Chinese factories, and there is not enough weight to keep those 4 wheels in constant contact with the track. By adding electrical pickup with a trailing truck (see below) and piling on as much white metal as possible (the Five79 kit), the mechanism can be salvaged.

N scale trailing truck.  I'm using a Bachmann Spectrum Tender truck, because it has 4 wheel pick up to improve electrical contact. In the picture below you can see that I have filed off all of the molded on detail to be replaced with an archbar truck side frame. There are two contact pads that the wheels ride in, which transmits electricity from the track, to the wheel, through the truck, and eventually to the motor. This doubles the amount of electrical contacts the locomotive has, which, in theory, should dramatically improve performance.

Modifying the Bachmann Truck

N scale handrail stanchions. I used an old Gold Medal Models set. 

N scale pilot wheels and axle.  I used a metal one from an older Atlas car, and ground down the axle points with a dremel.

Of course, you need a variety of modeling tools, and not a small bit of skill. I told you that you need to be a punishment glutton didn't I? 

This is part 1 of a two part series. In the next installment, I'll discuss finding decent trucks and wheels for your freight cars.