I was browsing through ebay and came across this listing which doesn't sound right to me:
HO Scale- Bowser- Brass- NYC K-11 Pacific Loco & Tender Kit | eBay
I've never had a Bowser kit built loco but I never thought they were made of brass. I don't know what kind of metal is in this loco but it sure doesn't look like brass to me. Is this item just mislabeled or did Bowser offer brass kits? If not, what kind of metal were they made from?
Simply by placing the word brass into the eBay title or description you are going to multiply your chances of potential buyer's "hits" when they search for HO locomotives. A common eBay listing "trick".
Bowser started out in Indiana by buying the interests of models formerly made by Knapp Electric which were made primarily of cast brass. A 4-8-2 Mountain:
before moving the operation to Redlands, California around 1946. Bowser found many of the plaster masters were poorly made and out of scale for the brass model. He later used material that was zinc alloy, Zamak for his next project, the K-11 you link to in the eBay auction.
Regards, Ed
It's pretty obvious that neither the locomotive nor the tender are brass, but there are brass detail castings included in the box.
To call it a brass locomotive is misleading, but anybody viewing it would likely recognise the ruse.
Wayne
I am a former Bowser employee from the time when the steam loco kits were made and sold, as well as rtr locos, too.
The older engine models, which were originally Penn Line (or other) kits, had lead boilers, or a lead alloy (like pewter). The Selley Finishing Touches line of figures and detail parts is/was a pewter alloy.
The newer engines designed new from the ground up by Bowser, including but not limited to the PRR M-1 and M-1a 4-8-2's and the A-5 0-4-0's had zinc boilers. This also included any older steam power whose dies were completely worn out--the replacement dies would have been designed to make the loco in zinc.
Added details were most often made of brass, because it is very easy to work with for modeling purposes.
Unfortunately it is now common for the perhaps less scrupulous ebay sellers (less scrupulous in that they don't care what the model is made of, they just want to get more clicks) to label Bowser models as "brass". It is true that many of the smaller details are actually brass, just as on today's plastic bodied Bowser diesels.
Lee English prefers to make models that can be handled and is more likely than some other manufacturers to make the added details out of metal. Many of the details are brass or stainless steel, but he'd never say the model was brass.
Current diesel loco handrails are a very flexible, forgiving, grade of abs plastic that will take some degree of punishment without breaking, but can then be glued if they do break.
John
I've seen sellers put "BRASS" in the title for a plastic detail part to get views. It's very annoying when you're actually looking for brass.
Bowser's first model (as mentioned before) was the former Knapp 4-8-2. The body, chassis and tender were all made from lost wax brass castings, and in the late 40's, it was a very advanced and detailed model. They stopped making it sometime in the late 50's since more detailed models were coming out and the lost wax process for something that size was too expensive and time consuming to keep it going.
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