hardware store Archives

How to disassemble a Marx 490 locomotive

Dave Farquhar Toy trains December 18, 2015September 2, 2017christmas, hardware store, lionel, Lucas Red, marx, marx trains, stiff wire

Disassembling a Marx 490 locomotive isn’t too difficult, but it’s very different from other Marx locomotives.

Once you take one apart, though, you’ll see why it was designed how it was. It was Marx’s lowest-cost locomotive, and it could be assembled without tools, so the labor costs were minimal.

For that matter you only need one tool to take it apart, and since there’s so little in it that can break–not even a headlight–you can find anything you would need to service it at the nearest hardware store or auto parts store.

Dave Farquhar

David Farquhar is a computer security professional, entrepreneur, and author. He has written professionally about computers since 1991, so he was writing about retro computers when they were still new. He has been working in IT professionally since 1994 and has specialized in vulnerability management since 2013. He holds Security+ and CISSP certifications. Today he blogs five times a week, mostly about retro computers and retro gaming covering the time period from 1975 to 2000.

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How to disassemble a Marx 999 locomotive

Dave Farquhar Toy trains December 13, 2015November 19, 2018american flyer, boxcar, clearcoat, commodore, hardware store, lionel, Lucas Red, marx, marx trains, metal polish, o27, tin, trainz

Disassembling a Marx 999 locomotive isn’t too difficult, and it’s easier than the Marx 666, but it helps to have some instructions.

The nice thing about the 999 is that if you can disassemble it, there’s a long, long list of Marx locomotives that disassemble in pretty much the same way: the Commodore Vanderbilt, the Mercury, the tin Canadian Pacific 391, and the tin steamers 592, 593, 594, 833, 897, 898, and 994.

Marx designed its trains so that a father or older brother could service them, so it comes apart with simple household tools, and you can get most of what you’ll need to service it at the nearest hardware store, with the probable exception of the bulb for the headlight.

Dave Farquhar

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How to disassemble a Marx 666 locomotive

Dave Farquhar Toy trains December 11, 2015September 3, 2017hardware store, lionel, Louis Marx, Lucas Red, marx, marx trains, o27, tin, trainz

Disassembling a postwar Marx 666 locomotive, or its plastic counterpart the 1666, isn’t too difficult, but it helps to have some instructions.

Marx designed its trains so that a father or older brother could service them, so it comes apart with simple household tools, and you can get most of what you’ll need to service it at the nearest hardware or auto parts store, with the exception of the bulb for the headlight.

Dave Farquhar

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Fixing a sink that quit working

Dave Farquhar DIY, Landlording October 26, 2015November 26, 2016hardware store

My mother in law bought a foreclosed condo, and I helped her get the water turned back on, but one sink just wouldn’t work no matter what I did. I finally found an answer, and since there wasn’t much information online, I thought I’d share what I learned about fixing a sink that quit working suddenly, to save someone else some hassle.

The problem occurred in one of the bathrooms. The shutoff valves under the sink were extremely sticky and didn’t want to turn on. Eventually I got them to turn on, and then I ran the sink, and it worked. Then I turned the valves off and back on a couple of times to loosen them, in case she ever had to turn off the water. They loosened up to the point where they were usable again, but then the sink, which had been working fine a minute before, didn’t work anymore. If I turned the sink all the way up, the best I got was a slow drip. If someone else hadn’t been there with me and seen it, I would have thought I’d gone crazy.

Dave Farquhar

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My garbage disposal adventure

Dave Farquhar Landlording October 2, 2015November 19, 2018amps, Emerson Electric, hardware store, InSinkErator, leaks, PFTE, Plumbing, PVC, Waste King

Changing a worn-out garbage disposal can be a 10-minute job–assuming you anticipate everything, use the same brand as the old one, you know what you’re doing, and the person who installed the old one was at least as competent as you.

It didn’t quite work out for me like that the last time.

Dave Farquhar

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Aluminum paint is a cheap alternative to replating

Dave Farquhar Toy trains June 26, 2015September 3, 2017american flyer, erector, hardware store, lionel, marx, tin

Aficionados of old toys, particularly building kits like Erector and Meccano, or prewar tinplate trains made by companies like Lionel, American Flyer and Marx, know all too well that the tin plating on unpainted parts can wear off with time, and with it, bring unsightly rust.

When restoring a piece, they’ll often use a replating kit to apply a new coat of tin. But sometimes you want a piece to look better but can’t justify the expense of a replating kit, or the piece is too badly pitted to replate well and need an alternative.

Dave Farquhar

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Lionel train light bulb chart

Dave Farquhar Toy trains June 19, 2015February 23, 2019american flyer, ba9s, billboard, electric trains, hardware store, KW, lionel, lionel train, LW, marx, NYC, o gauge, trainz

Lionel used 15 different types of light bulbs in its O gauge electric trains in the postwar era, but in most cases–87% of catalog numbers, and a lot more than that in actual number of items produced–you can get by with two. Since knowing when can be difficult, here’s a Lionel train light bulb chart.

Lionel almost always specified 14 or 18 volts. Using an 18-volt bulb in place of a 14-volt original, or a 22-volt bulb in place of an 18-volt original results in longer service life. And there were two base types that Lionel used more than any other. Read more

Dave Farquhar

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How to make fake plastic train buildings look more realistic

Dave Farquhar model railroading April 10, 2015October 22, 2022hardware store, train layout

Miniature plastic buildings for train layouts are readily available, but like any plastic model, they look much more realistic if you go to the effort to paint them. You can get what you need at the nearest hardware store.

Fortunately the materials are inexpensive and easy to find.

Dave Farquhar

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I didn’t winterize my lawnmower but I got away with it. Here’s how.

Dave Farquhar DIY March 26, 2015April 10, 2021hardware store, home depot, Lawn mower, Marvel Mystery Oil, recycling, Spark plug

Last year I didn’t winterize my lawnmower at the end of the season. Shame on me. So I took some extra precautions this year to avoid a $50 lawn mower repair, and got away with it. Here’s what I did.

Dave Farquhar

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Loose brick repair with epoxy

Dave Farquhar DIY, Landlording March 25, 2015September 10, 2017hardware store, home improvement, Plumbing

My home inspector told me about an easy, inexpensive and nearly permanent repair: Loose brick repair with epoxy. It works really well if you need to fix a loose brick in something like a fireplace or a retaining wall. Epoxy is a effective loose brick adhesive.

Epoxy works because it’s stronger than cement. And while it’s not economical to use epoxy for mortar instead of cement, in small quantities it’s cheap enough, and much quicker.

Dave Farquhar

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