HO 4-8-0 Boiler

[NW Modeling List]

I have already been planning out an M2 'fleet' for my railroad.
I have already cobbled one together to see its feasibility.  I want
to have 5-8 of them when all the dust settles. It starts with MDC  
frame and drivers and side rods.
  Add in a bunch of Cal-Scale and Bowser bits, and a "USRA" style  
tender.
The boiler is a piece of PVC tube filled with lead shot and epoxy.
I glued the brass castings onto the PVC tube with CA.
The plan is to make a "best shot at being correct" and building  
another, cleaner boiler,firebox,
  back head, brackets for appliances, stack bases, sand, steam, and  
access hole pieces added to
boiler if it would 'cast' cleanly.  I make a mold of the PVC tube and  
castings version, but
CAST the final boilers with Alumilite and Lead shot.  I run a thin  
brass tube to the headlight
area and use the large MDC/Roundhouse 2-8-0 cab. The smaller, "Old  
Timer" 2-8-0
frame with the larger MDC/Roundhouse, and all those Bowser Valve Gear  
parts
can be used to make your own Baker-Pilliard valve gear.  Small wheels  
with
big heavy boiler is what you want.  A smaller body with different  
valve gear
and you M1, or an M.  N&W's 475 as restored at Strasburg would be a  
perfect subject for Boswer.
They could do a frame and those lil drivers, and maybe some SPOKED  
wheels?

I've scarfed up several MDC kits very cheap, so all I need to do is  
get moving on the boiler.

Any REALLY good source for boiler measurements?...other than hacking  
thru the weeds
and measuring the old relics they want to 'pick up and move' .......


Mark Lindsey
Stuck in the 1930's





On Jan 24, 2008, at 10:52 PM, NW Modeling List wrote:

A year or so ago someone asked if anyone had a metal working
lathe to make a "M" boiler in HO out of brass to be used as a die.
I replied that I had a lathe and I would be happy to make the forming
die, but it would be better cut it from drill rod tool steel so the  
die can
be used many times with out damage, besides the cost of tool steel
is much less and you get a better tool.
I asked to send me a print in HO and I would make the die for 3 of the
new brass boiler shells. I never heard anything from my offer.
                                   Its still open!!

If we want M's why not design and make our own kits?
Boiler shell from brass shim-stock, cab, frame and tender from
brass stock. Every thing else I think we could buy off the shelf.
We need the following tools to make the Kit:
Metal lathe only for boiler tooling, small milling machine,
metal cutting band saw, small hand break,
(drill press,drills and taps?).

There still are a few of us 70 to 80 year olds scratch builders still  
around.
In the 1940's there were printed paste-board and wood car kits.
and a very few very high priced 0-4-0, 4-4-0 and 2-6-0 Loco Kits.
In the late 40's and early 50's other kits came on the market,
If you wanted power you had to build it from a kit and this led some of
us to scratch building.

Any one remember the steel HO rail of the late 30's and early
40's when everything ran on a 6 Volt auto battery??  After a
few months in the basement  you did not need rust color paint
for the rail.

                                   H.B.Lyon
                                   Alexandria