Ruby is an appropriate color as this project is a process of taking junk to jewel!
Cool evening and dryer day means I got a little work and painting done, fitted the tender section of the heisler with grab rails, the brass ones put Jax pewter black and the plastic ones will get a little brass paint to look the same. The top slanted section I made removable in order to access the interior for something to be determined later, just seemed like a wasted space to cover and not use. It’s not too large and could probably get my G scale graphics receiver in it but not much room left for a battery or sound unit. Made it removable by using magnetic tape and can always put weight in there for traction. Painted it a flat black and secured the water hatch cover, still to do is mount it and weather it, I think I’m opting for a battery/sound car behind the engine as at the moment I have 4 small engines that are all track powered and no layout but friends with layouts but no track power. Think it would be great to be able to run all these engines. So I have a nice wood sided Kalamazoo box car that already has the bottom hole drilled for sound and being as my passenger train is the Mason Bogie I think the box car would function for all of them, it would be nice to see my fruits of my labor in action. More to come, Bill
Thanks for posting all this, Bill. I’m fascinated by your project. Your answers to readers’ questions are great.
Moving along, got the headlight bracket and light installed and a little weathering done and started work on the sanding pipes, more to come
Slow progress on the heisler but some things have gotten done, have rebuilt the drive chassis and tested, while in the chassis I removed all links to rail pickup and soldered wires onto the motor leads for later battery powered operation. Have started on the lighting and wiring of the engine using a voltage regulator to lower the battery voltage to 3VDC for using LEDs. Although the G Scale graphics has a circuit for that in their system, by adding it on board it eliminates extra wires from the battery car to the engine and figured it would be easier. + the board is just a little bit bigger than a quarter and there is enough room to tuck in the tender section with room to spare. Got the headlight wired and tested + adde lighting in the cab by using a red and a orange 2mm flickering leds placed down by the fire box to simulate a fire in the box, this was done in lew of a over head light in the cab and adds plenty of light in the cab area for viewing detail, you can see the red glow in the cab window. Have done this on other engines with good success but was using track power then, left to do is add a diode to another light for backup on the tender section. More to come, Bill
Keeps on coming together! (https://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-smile.gif)This little critter is turning in to quite the project.
Some how they usually do, sometimes my mind leaves me in charge by mistake!
Been adding detain parts and electrician connections to the heisler, found a pair of wood look a like tool chests from wiseman models that just did fit between the tender shell grab rail and the back of the engine cab so after a little paint to make them look woodiz I secured then to the deck. Also stumbled on to some old rusty chain from michaels and added it to the right from side rail. Found some railroad tools which after being painted will be added to the deck some where. Had some old logs from my Rosy build and secured them to the top of the tender housing. Came across an old Christmas decoration of a plastic deer head and after surgical removal of this head and scraping the glitter off his horns he became my hood ornament. With electrical connection complete and battery car in hand next on the build list is making and installing front and rear engine bolsters along with couplers and then build the battery car for the electronics, stay tuned, more to come, Bill 
Bill,
Nice to see this project moving along! It gets “curiouser and curiouser” each time you post pictures! Love the look!
Eric
Thanks Eric hope to get the bolsters and couplers on this week so I can run it, have a friend who I have run at before and he has several battery cars so I can take my time with that, just hope it weighs enough cause all I have for weigh is about 3/4 of the stainza boiler weight and the tender motor block, should be a fun run, BB