necessity and desperation inspired yet another approach. I had
been working on a model waterfront pier, and realized that the
piling reinforcement often found with hemp rope might work
here. I had a spool of very fine, strong thread on hand, and
decided that pilings and axle gears are close enough!
After removing and cleaning the gear, I verified that the crack
had not progressed to the center of the gear. The axle gears
are made of a slippery plastic, much like Delrin which typically
does not glue well at all. I applied a thin coat of CA glue sur-
rounding the end of each side of the gear and wound several
turns of thread through the glue. It is imperative that you make
this as thin and strong as possible, as clearances in the motor
truck are tight. So far, the reassembled trucks have worked
fine and the crack did not progress to the gears.
Considering that power might be at a premium in this loco,
other variations were tried to reduce the current draw. First,
the motor and truck gears were removed completely, leaving
only the two freely turning axles in one truck. This obviously
reduced the tractive force available, but also halved the total
power. On another truck I removed the intermediary gears
17. Bachmann 44-ton switcher, in sections.
17
Battery-powered models - 8
MRH-Nov 2014
