This pic shows the headlight, after it's return from the milling shop, having been bored out to allow fitting of the 3 mm yellow gold LED from Gywdir Valley Models. Initially I though with a headlight body this size I would be fitting the 5mm LED, not so. Even the 3 mm had to have the front filed a little to fit. I drilled two small holes in the rear of the head light and poked the terminals from the LED through, making sure that they did not touch the headlight body anywhere and then put a large drop of 'liquid insulation tape' into the headlight from the front and poked the LED through. As the terminals passed through the holes they dragged some insul-goop with them and insulated the terminals from the headlight body. After sitting in the vice for a while the goop went 'off' and the LED now sits securely in the headlight. Later I will fill the gap with clear resin to give it the glazed look. I will clip the terminals as close as I dare and fit leads to run back to the decoder prior to fitting the headlight to the loco smoke box.
Work on the tender included the fitting of additional pickups, as Ray Pilgrim did on 3822 (see other post), to ensure better signal to the decoder, using 0.5mm phospher bronze spring wire and soldered to the underside of the bogie spreader. The bogies a electrically connected via the black wire you can see passing over the speaker grill, simply by soldering this to the top of the bogie spreader. This wire was purchased at Casula Hobbies and is from the DCC manufacturer TCS, it is 36 gauge ! very fine stuff.I have since fitted the motor and gearbox to the loco, connected the motor wires and the pickup wires to the tender and the locomotive frame as well. All being well 3265 should have its first test run very soon. Unlike it's larger cousin the last thing I want to see is any smoke when I open up the 'throttle'.
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