The Shay

In my previous post, on DCC, I mentioned fitting my Shay with a DCC decoder. I did that yesterday, using a basic Digitrax DH126 decoder with an 8-pin plug. It's a tight fit, but it does fit. If I was going to do it again, I might use a smaller 1 amp decoder, or pull the factory circuit board and hard wire the larger decoder. And I might yet install sound.

Initially, it ran, but in the "wrong" direction; and the headlight didn't work. After much messing around I looked at the decoder plug and the circuit board under a magnifier and found the little numbers that showed me I had the plug reversed. Easy enough fix.

Unfortunately in the process I broke the orange motor wire loose from the plug. Annoying, but just a quick touch with the soldering iron to repair. Once that was done and the plug re-inserted the right way, the engine ran correctly and the headlight worked.

Meanwhile, I sanded the lettering off the water tank with 1,000 grit sandpaper, then masked the stripes with blue tape and airbrushed the sanded area with gloss black.

Originally this was factory-lettered as Pocahontas Lumber #3. I was going to make it Lockwood & San Emigdio #3, but after thinking about it, the route of the L&SE doesn't have any very steep grades or sharp curves, so it would be more likely to use rod engines. Geared power would make more sense on the Frazier Borate, or maybe even McGill Lumber, another real-life company that ran a sawmill on Mt. Pinos. I decided to letter it for Frazier Borate, and made it #11 since it was actually my first On30 engine, and I'm following the convention of using one-digit numbers for DC engines, two digits for DCC. I wanted to use a different font on the Frazier Borate engines than on the L&SE equipment, so I lettered it with a Microscale Condensed Gothic alphabet set. I'm not sure I'm happy with the font, so I haven't yet applied a clear coat over the decals in case I decide to change it. Once I've finalized the lettering, I'll give it a little weathering.