A friend of mine is building several Bowser steam loco kits that I bought in the 90's. He has had a number of issues, including missing or incorrectly machined parts (the kits were unopened), which to date he has suiccessfully overcome. He is currently building the Challenger and has the following major problem:I have run into a problem that I am not certain that I know how to handle. Like in the motor mounting problem with the Northern, the motor mounts for the Challenger provided do not allow the motor mounted worm to engage with the axle mounted mating worm gear. The space difference between the two, like in the Northern, is about 1/16" at the closest but no where being able to engage. On the Northern, I was able to cheat and wiggle the motor to encourage the motor mount to cooperate by greatly modifying the provided mounting. That technique will/cannot work in the Challenger because at the far end of the motor shaft sits a coupling to transfer the motor power to the front engine chassis. If I make a new mount and tilt the motor so that the gears will mesh, the coupling at the motor shaft far end will dig into the chassis. I will really have to study this one out but at this time, I can't see a workable solution. I may in the end modify the entire drive so that I have a working solution. ************************************************************ Certainly, others must have experienced similar issues in the past. Have had no luck in searching the issue on the web. Any advice you may offer would be greatly appreciated. I had a high regard for Bowser, but these experiences/issues have called into question that opinion.
Looking at the pictures of the assembly instructions on HOSeeker, it looks to me that the only thing that could keep the motor from sitting properly and engaging the worm would be flash in the srea where the motor frame sits down in the loco frame. There appear to be no other pieces involved, other than the screws that runs up from underneath into the motor. For the front engine it mentions the washers to adjust the spacing of the shaft supports, but shows nothing like that for the motor and rear frame.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
I'm beginning to realize that aging is not for wimps
I also think more filing and fitting is what is needed here. Some of the late model kits I built took more of this as the tooling was getting wore out and the castings had much more flash and misalignment that required more filing and grinding with the dremel to get the fitting correct. All ran beautiful once done. I built the Challenger, and PRR M1a, K4s and I1sa decapod. Wish I still had the M1a with long distance tender. Mike
Silly NT's, I have Asperger's Syndrome
I have one of the late Bowser Challengers with the skewed armature DC-71. They made the driveline work by pressing the worm far enough onto the motor shaft that only the front of the worm engages the axle gear, and then there's just barely enough room for the coupling to fit and work without interference. It was a very noisy driveline, so I eventually replaced it with tubing and an additional central shaft between the motor and flexible universal.
If you can't get it to work as is, you may want to consider upgrading the driveline with the worm supported by the bearings, and then have the motor installed separately behind it. Or, maybe the motor could be mounted sideways with a custom bracket so it doesn't have to lean down as much.
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My understanding from a article on the inter-net several months ago and I think it was by the new owner of Hobbytown of Boston, that Lee English destroyed all steam locomotive tooling and sold for scrap metal.
Some models got retooled. Newer ones were zinc boilers. Sometimes the people who did rough cleanup of the castings were more careful than at other times. They never made that many kits at one time--maybe 200 of a given model at a time, and sometimes only once a year.
For those who have technical questions, I recommend calling Lee directly at 570-368-2516. He will most certainly work with you to see that you are satisfied and end up with a serviceable model. This assumes they or you have all the right parts. At this point, steam drivers are in short supply if not gone, and I do not know what parts or to be stripped models remain.
I cannot comment on sale of tooling. There was at one point a buyer, but I do not know what happened. At the end nobody was buying the metal kits. The market simply vanished.
John Mock
Are you trying to actually build an HO Steam Locomotive?
That sounds like a real challeng! I'm sure I would need some assistance if I were to take on a project like that.
To All:
Many thanks for your replies. The saga continues, but definite progress is being made! My engineer friend, who s building the Challenger for me, and I were so desperate we questioned whether we had received the right chassis. Thay was not the caseas ye the chassis had the correct part number. Fortunately, through dogged persistence y friend was able to sole the problem. I have attached his solution:
I dug through my multiple parts boxes and found a myriad of "O" Scale gears, worm gears and worms. I took two of the worms that I though might match the pitch of the Challenger worm gears.
I worked for Bowser and my dad and I had trouble riveting together the valve gear for an L-1. We gave up and bought the assembled valve gear. The painter painted the engine for us...it was a great running engine and I wish all these years later that I had kept it instead of later selling it.
Now I have an Athearn Genesis challenger and a Bachmann 2-8-8-4. They are nice indeed, but I bet a nicely built Bowser might outlast them...in the long run.
I am sorta waiting for a very nicely painted Bowser steamer to turn up sometime, and then I might pick it up just to have one.
One does learn a lot by building one, though I do not enjoy the building, especially filing and cleaning castings. At least I can say we did build one...didn't think they would go away so fast...
Lee designed all kinds of jigs to make specific manufacturing steps, like drilling all the holes, easy and repeatable, but actually assembling one ordinary kit, not a challenger, was supposed to take 40 hours on average, and longer if one is adding extra details or really being a perfectionist about the appearance. A challenger or big boy was estimated to be 60 or more hours on average, I think.
John
Run EightMy understanding from a article on the inter-net several months ago and I think it was by the new owner of Hobbytown of Boston, that Lee English destroyed all steam locomotive tooling and sold for scrap metal.
Yeah, it was the owner of Hobbytown who let me know it was all gone. When I first saw he was bringing Hobbytown back, I asked if he'd considered getting the Cary tooling to expand the line, but he said he'd already checked with Bowser and they had scrapped the tooling.