Wow! Extremely impressive and also interesting to see the whole story of progress. Thanks for sharing as it's most inspiring.
Paul
Modeling HO with a transition era UP bent
What really astounds me is the time it took you to complete this project, started Nov.25th 2014 and finished Feb 2nd2015. Barely 2 months.....now that's amazing!!
Thanks everyone!
Like any recently finished project there are some minor tweaks I want to do but I even got lucky with a good thumb nail on the youtube video.
I do plan on having the fleet at the Reading Modeler Meet in September. It will be the second year I will attend and only the third year of the event. In the mean time stay tuned for more builds! This is the 15th currently finished engine, and I have no intension of stopping. I just enjoy building engines.
Flickr: https://www.flickr.com/photos/60361449@N02/
Anthracite Modeler - YouTube
Well done Sir, sounds a bit pathetic.
"One difference between pessimists and optimists is that while pessimists are more often right, optimists have far more fun."
Wow, that puts top end brass to shame!
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I agree you have to show that beautiful loco off somewhere
Wow, that is really nice. Incredible modeling job. How much to make another one for me?
You should bring it by the RR Museum of PA in July when the RCT&HS it set up there, many would appreciate seeing that beauty in action.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
absolutely awesome! I just caught this thread for the first time and glad I got to see it from start to finish in one sitting. thanks!! and great work.
RDG Casey,
Congratulations!
Stunning.
Joel
Modeling the C&O New River Subdivision circa 1949 for the fun of it!
Beautiful!!!. You should really be sitting there with a huge grin.
Joe
Ready for service. The finished pictures are taken on a recently completed 18x30 diorama made for finished projects. Decals are a mix, Microscale Green Scheme for the tender logo, parts of my dwindling pieces of Champion steam sets for the cab numbers, left over hopper numbers for the front number board and Microscale alphabet sheet for the head lights.
Here is the video to go with it. It's a monster puller, I don't think I have the space to max it out in my "train room".
Can't wait to see it "all dressed up" with a fresh coat of paint.
I didn't think I would get to it today but I managed to get the fireman's side done so it is now ready for paint. It will be taken apart to paint the 2 halves of the shell, the internal weight and the driver sets separately. Also I want to make sure after painting the drivers roll smoothly and did not get gunked up by paint before reassembly.
This is looking amazing! The level of detail you're putting into this is far beyond what I would ever do! You should seriously enter this into some sort of modeling contest. I really think it could be a winner!
Nice job on getting everything together. Almost there.
Wish I could lay rivets down that quickly! On a future C&O K-3 mike project I will be embossing them one at a time in brass stock using my NWSL sensi-press/riveter combo.
Oh joy!?
The decal rivets were finished and the final construction was started. It doesn't look like much but the rivets took over 3 hours to do, while watching hockey.
I ended up getting rid of the number board on the tender headlight I tried to make it looked too clunky and there is a flat spot on the side of the headlight which is a reused spectrum 2-8-0 front headlight.
I jumped around a little starting the finer details starting with the front driver set. The plate on top of the pilot got cut down more too after noticing it was like that in pictures. It makes the lead truck and steps more visible too.
Then I did the dome throttle and injector piping.
Then for no real reason jumped to the tender and got everything on that on.
Where it sits now is the engineers side is all ready. The interesting challenge in this part of the project was figuring out how to apply the layers to interfere with each other the least, and not accidentally gluing the shell together. Getting the main boiler handrail to sit right took lots of tweaking too.
I just got around to reading this thread... Really great work! Very impressive!
wish to say this with all sincerity,that John Allen would have been impressed!!
RDG Casey Believe it or not though I do not use drawings of the engines for projects. I use visual markers mostly based on the drivers. I find that dwelling on super accurate measurements will slow down or deter a project from happening.
Believe it or not though I do not use drawings of the engines for projects. I use visual markers mostly based on the drivers. I find that dwelling on super accurate measurements will slow down or deter a project from happening.
Then, I'm even more impressed! I'm the opposite--need measurements to move forward. But I must admit, sometimes, for me, finding drawings, etc., can be a fun treasure hunt in itself.
Go figure.
Thanks for the kind words and the Lehigh Valley N-3 was the first to get the ash pans of that type but won't be the last. I have a couple more Lehigh Valley projects planned.
Believe it or not though I do not use drawings of the engines for projects. I use visual markers mostly based on the drivers. I find that dwelling on super accurate measurements will slow down or deter a project from happening. I try for accurate driver size but in reality the models are not what I am making, thats why I am making it. I go or fitting what I am trying to make to the model then trying to force the model to be a prototype. I measure things to keep it consistent and symmetrical, I also base things on pre exsisting sources like a cab from a bachmann I-10 shell. In short I eyeball it with some guide lines.
Enjoying how you transform the starting model into that brutish Reading prototype. Looking at this build and the others you have done on your Flickr link, I am struck by how well you have captured the overall proportions of the prototypes. Nothing looks out of place. Nice job taking measurements from drawings and reference pictures to pull off making the main structural parts. Cabs, tenders, and the wonderful buldge of the Wooten firebox all look "right". I especially, like the integrated ashpan that wraps around an internal bearing trailing truck in one of your builds. The K-1 class Mike on the C&O had the same setup (in my signature below). She'll look great after paint!
This has been a fatastic read and I look forward to the seeing the final product.
Steve
Finally got around to ordering parts with no luck at shows. So now the major castings are installed and I built the latter on the rear of the tender and the steps on the on the back of the pilot. Next will be rivets done with micromart decals before doing all the plumbing.
Impressive by any standard. I'm looking forward to more!
Sean
HO Scale CSX Modeler
It sits as it looks in the last post. I need to order some detail parts to finish it and am waiting on the off chance I find any at a train show next weekend. The holiday travels allowed me to take a break and I got 21 hopper decal sets from family (emailing links to specific ideas is great) to repaint cars that didn't fit. It makes a good interim project, I have 12 done taking about an hour a piece.
This was the first 3 done.
Work this week started with windows in the cab made from mostly .010 scrap then the cab interior got a coat of black.
Then the roof sheet was cut out in .010 for wrapping.
After the roof was glued down the rood detail went on.
Other things were done this weekend too like the safety valve area, sand dome hatches, and some major parts were added like the check valve and the power reverse.
The tender got some work too with the footboards and water hatch made.
I set a new draw bar and did some test running. One I had the draws bar kinks worked out it ran great.
Here is a teaser video from the test run pulling a 30 car train with ease. It was quickly taken with my phone so the quality isn't the best.
I only worked on this today since last sunday but got quite a bit done. I did a test run before starting any more construction to make sure the steam delivery pipes were working the way I thought they were, rolling it on the track with no motor installed. I need to make a new draw bar to which will require another test run before finishing.
I started with the pilot steps and platform on top of the cylinders. I used brass strips for the vertical frame work to keep it thin yet strong. I added little .040 tabs to the bottom of the platform to keep it up off the cylinders a little.
Then I did the foot boards, all .010.
The markers appear on the front with the wrap around running board to the face installed. The little piece of running board over the pipe was fitted by drilling a hole the size of the pipe and cutting the bottom of the circle out so the piece looked like a U which fit right over. The first air tank was placed as well as the air compressors so I could mark where to repeat the drilling method for the pipe and air compressors. The air tank set the height of the running board since the pipe needs to be able to move around it the running board sits on top of the tank.
With the remainder of the running board in place the other air tank was placed. That air tank is glued with thin connecting strips to the top half of the boiler to make the shell removal less complicated after all the plumbing is installed.
The engineers side has the same basic spacing but no air compressors to work around so it went a little faster. This is where it sits now starting to look rather Reading.
ACY Your posts are always a treat. BTW, Precision Scale makes B&O paired sandboxes very similar to the ones you made for the rear set. But it looks like you did very well on your own. Tom
Your posts are always a treat.
BTW, Precision Scale makes B&O paired sandboxes very similar to the ones you made for the rear set. But it looks like you did very well on your own.
Tom