Merkur 8986 Lamp post

Santa was good for me and gave me a Merkur 8986 Lamp post. So, I naturally felt obliged to construct it immediately and shed some light on those dark days. The lamp post itself is easily constructed with two parts of the post, one goose neck with cast iron details, four screws, 4 washers and 4 nuts.

As you all can see, this is really nice 32 cm (13 inch) high lamp post. The manual is special treat, since it is written in Czech language. Nevertheless, I do understand loose parts and the need to solder a LED to wires.

The soldering itself and shrinking of the insulator is all peanuts and easily done. What annoys me slightly is that Merkur does not mention that this is a 3 V, 10 mA LED. They could even have written that down in Czech language in case they felt like it. Than I would not have to measure the LED to find this out myself.

Anyway, finding a new battery for the multimeter is always an issue, but whenever you insert a new one this makes all electrical measurements a lot easier. The base plate is connected to the lamp post by four slots and tabs (very tin-plate but unconventional for Merkur). As a general tip I would advice everybody to bend the tabs only after you have juggled the wire through the post.

Since my base current is roughly 19 V AC, I needed a (19-3)/0.01 ~1600 Ohm resistor. Well I have plenty of 1500 Ohm resistors and these work as well, So I soldered one in the wire, so that I can hide the lot under the base plate.

So, then it was time to test the Merkur lamp post. And as you all can see, it is a beautiful made lamp post with a Czech art deco flair to it. Furthermore, it is a truly tall structure, even longer than the Lionel 153 Semaphore.

After a few days of consideration, I nailed the lamp post down besides the station building.

Well Merry X-mas and jolly good new year to all.

Restaurant car

Experience helps when it comes to placing an interior inside a Merkur passenger car.  I received the interior last weekend from Blik en Speelgoed.

In this case it is Merkur 9331 buffet car and a concomitant 8963 interior with grey tables.

The interior is actually composed of three metal parts; the brown seats, a left row of tables and a right row of tables.

The roof is removed after 6 screws are undone from the side panels, but the interior will not fit just like that.

First the wheels and the undercarriage compartments have to be removed, since the screws are needed to fix the interior later.

Then we have to remove two screws from the head-sides to loosen a side panel and the 4 screws connecting the side panel to the base panel have to be loosened. You do not want to completely remove those screws, otherwise you will have issues later during reassembly. Now tilt the side panel in such a way that you can fiddle the interior in.

After the interior is in, first tighten the four screws between the base panel and the side panel, then fasten the two screws between the head panels and the side panel. Then position the three interior parts correctly and fasten them with the two nuts and screws to the base panel. Then re-fasten the two undercarriage compartments and the two wheels with in total 6 screws and nuts.

Then I decided to lighten the buffet car as well with two sets of 10 LED strips from Hufing Tronic. These were glued to the roof and the wires were soldered parallel to each other. The wires were led to the trucks.

Then I scratch-build an electrical pick-up for the car and soldered the wires. This time, I made sure that the wires were led under the axles...

Then I placed both coaches with lightening on the track just to check and admire. That is another job well done. Santé et bon appetit!

Upgrading the electrical pick-up assembly

Last weekend, among the birds, I received the ordered Merkur third rail pick-ups for coaches (9885). So, I had to place one of them on the coach with lightening.

So, I removed the assembly with the temporary third rail pick-up and swapped it for the nicely sprung Merkur pick-up. I was a bit worried that this black painted metal would be difficult to solder a contact on, but a bit of sanding and solder flux worked great.
This time I managed to pay attention and let the wires run under the axle. The pick-up is now positioned directly over the axle, but the clearance is sufficient to prevent any shorts from occuring. This assembly is much better and the coach also rides the rails smoothly again.

There are also three new additions, a Lionel 654 tank car which is complete and perfect. a Lionel 655 box car which is missing a door and brake wheels and a Lionel 1682 caboose.

Toy trains among birds

Last weekend was the Dutch scale zero gathering in Zutphen. Normally, I would have visited it, but this year it happened to be a 2-rail only gathering. The coarse scale tin-plate show was located a village further in Almen in the middle of a bird show. Here Blik & Speelgoed had laid quiet a substantial L-shaped layout with some interesting toy trains, well on 3-rails obviously.

This colourful layout had modern Merkur trains, Lehnhardt trams and some pre-war Spanish toy trains partially constructed from wood and metal named Manamo (see the picture above, in front of the Darstead engine shed). I had never saw those before and it was nice to touch and feel these rare toy trains for once.

 The silver Merkur Mikado was present as well.

Above you can see two engine sheds. To the left the Darstead engine shed and to the right the Merkur engine shed. The Darstead one is thinner, lighter and lithographed on both sides of the tin-plate. The Merkur one is substantially heavier, with nuts and bolts and much more affordable. So all the prejudices were confirmed again.

Here a really nice green Merkur tank engine and a few goods wagons. The birds were luckily in cages on the other side of the room, so I just focused on the more important and more pleasant aspects of life.

Lighting up a Merkur passenger coach

Two weeks ago, I purchased 6 LED strips of Hufing Tronic with 10 LED's and suitable for both AC and DC operation on the MSCV swap meeting at Herwen. A friendly German grand-father taught me how to connect these strips. Anyway, since then I was busy to scratch-build the electrical pick-ups for the Merkur passenger coach. I used a small piece of aluminium sheet (4.6 x 2.8 x 0.2 cm) on which I glued to piece of Plexiglas (4.8 x 2.0 cm) on which I attached bent brass sheets to connect to the wheels and as third rail pick-up.

Well, the lighting in the passenger coach is now much better with 2 strips of 9 LED's each.

Now it is time to finish this assembly, by allowing the wires to run under the axle and to replace the third rail pick-up by a Merkur one. Then I will also have to apply some tape on the inside of the coach between the roof and the side panels, to block light.

Some new sheds

Yesterday, I had a couple of hours of spare time in Amsterdam, so I drove to Harlaar. It is the LHS of our capital and it is tucked away in a neighbouring village that is pretty much enclosed by the metropolitan ambitions of its neighbour. Since I dislike traffic jams under an unforgiving sun, it was quiet a challenge to get there. The whole village appears to be connected to one bridge over a canal, and obviously this bridge was open both times I had to cross it. The shop is hidden in a residential area, they had quiet a lot of Märklin, Fleischmann, Roco in half zero and N on display, so I enjoyed myself. The old man explained me how to wire my semaphores with Reed switches and relays, I found a few old Dutch decals for signs and ads, so i was happy.
Today, it was too hot and humid to do any normal work. So, I decided to play with my layout and gave the new Merkur 9967 goods shed a decent place along the tracks.Again this Merkur structure is constructed with many screws and nuts. The window bars are fitted with slots and tabs. The sliding door can open and close. I like the colour, as it fits in great with pre-war trains.

Additionally I glued a Moba-Art 120100-I laser-cut small shed together and I must admit that it was nice and easy to build.

In the end, I soldered the internal lightening system from Conrad 240863-89 together LED strips 219707-89 and fitted it in my Merkur passenger coach. It indeed produces a constant light emission at variable potentials given to the tracks, but the light strength is a bit disappointing in scale zero, so I probably have to go find some better LED's to do the job.

Merkur Museum

During our holiday in the Czech Republic we visited the Merkur museum in Police nad Metuji. We had to drive for two hours through the Giant's mountains and the Eagle's mountains through very small villages to arrive in a small industrial town close to the Polish border. The museum itself is situated on a park like square a few hundred meters from the central town square.

The building appears to be an old school building. Most of the museum is devoted to the construction sets of Merkur and what you can possible build with them.

Some folke like to build houses.

While others prefer the Valdstein castle.

But an old city hall is also nice.

 

Others build huge pillars that can only fit in the central hall.

But this enormous railway bridge is my favorite. So, large that it couldn't fit in the museum and had to be placed in pieces.

This small truck is quiet fancy as well.

There is also the red monster thing that fits into a complete room. It is a kind of fair ground attraction for a small train that runs through it. A bizarre creation, all made from construction sets.

Fortunately for me, there were also two train rooms with trains running smoothly over the layouts.

The display cabinets in the train rooms held several treasures for me. Below you can see some old pre-war Merkur trains.

Four cabinets had beautiful trains, but due to light reflections, they were difficult to photograph. Below are ETS trains in the back, and old trains in the front that I did not recognise.

 This large cabinet is filled with pre-war Merkur trains.

Another display with old toy trains that I do not recognise, but nice to see.

This display cabinet has modern Merkur trains and all types of prototypes.

On the walls old advertisements and newspaper stories  were displayed. I really liked the old pre-war Merkur ads.

In short, the museum is located in a beautiful mountainous region it has several amazing structures and some beautiful trains. Personally, I would have appreciated a little more explanation regarding the old and peculiar trains.
In the side street next to the museum is the entrance to the Merkur factory.

Of coarse I purchased a small souvenir in the museum shop on my way out. It is a small good shed from Merkur and will fit nicely in my layout. The Czech grandmother in the shop has hardly any stock displayed and most of it locked in cabinets, so I pointed to a few things that I would like to buy and in the end bougth something she had.

New Paya spare buffers

A few weeks ago, I received two sets of new spare Paya buffers from Bruce Palmer. Bruce has cast many different Paya spares with the original moulds, including buffer heads, shanks, bogie side frames, etc. Since, I had no Paya coach with a complete set of buffers, I ordered and received two sets of new buffer heads. Since these spare parts are made from a low temperature melting metal alloy, soldering them is not recommended, instead I used an epoxy glue and that worked fine.

The photo shows the three Paya 987 passenger coaches with a new Paya spare buffer on the left and an old original Paya buffer on the right. I am quiet pleased with them. Thank you, Bruce!

Adding interior to a Merkur passenger car

Today I visited Blik & Speelgoed and purchased a passenger car interior (8961) for Merkur passenger car 9330. Under an unforgiving hot sun, we went home and assembled the interior after sunset in slightly better temperatures.

Here are the two parts prior to the merger.

Unscrewing six screws and the roof was removed. This clarified that I had to unscrew another six nuts for retaining the interior. This flexible metal interior was fairly difficult to get inside, so I loosened another 5 nuts to loosen a side panel and then the interior flipped into place. So, then I had to tighten the nuts of the side panel again.

Then the six screws and nuts through the bottom plate and the interior and then the lot was secured.

So, finally the passengers are able to sit down and relax. So, after this close encounter with all them nuts, screws and washers, I do know that these Merkur cars are decently constructed and making modification is fairly straightforward.