Well, I silver soldered a tube for the whistle today, and that was the last part - the loco is complete.  Here is a photo from my set on Flickr (

http://www.flickr.com/photos/edhume3/sets/72157600964223180/ )

 

 

All that remains is painting and debug.

 

I'll be bringing it to John Frank's on Saturday.

 

Regards,

Ed

> Is the Shay next?

 

Eventually I would like to build a Shay but probably not as the next project.  I have been thinking of some smaller items such as log cars.  Also, I have been thinking of functional tank cars to haul water and butane.  To use Kozo Hiraoka's shay plans for Gauge 1 would require some serious re-sizing and rearrangement to have the drive shaft straight for 3ft NG.   Dan Rowe's Shay plans are being published in SITG and are of interest to everyone who likes the geared locos.   His model is somewhat larger than 20.3 scale and would be tall compared to my Climax and Heisler. 

 

Ed

That, Sir, is one beautiful model and a great achievement in any scale.  It would take prizes at any model engineer exhibition here in UK, of that I have no doubt.  A building log of this model should be compulsory reading for anybody interested in scratch-built live steam.

The boys and I offer you our heartiest congratulations.

 

tac & the boys

www.ovgrs.org  

Ed,

I really enjoyed your pictures on Flicker and got a feel for the tremendous amount of work involved. You can be proud of your accomplishment. It's a beautiful piece of work. I hope to see a movie of it running. Thanks for sharing.

Thanks guys!

 

Dwight - I started in Feb 2006, so it will hopefully be a little less than 2 years when I am through painting and through debug.

Truly spectacular work Ed.  You mentioned once before that you used Kozo's plans basically scaled by 1mm=1/32".  How did this work out?  Hit any snags? 

 

Thanks, Bob

Here is what she looks like painted and with decals -

 

 

 

These images are from my Flick page http://www.flickr.com/photos/edhume3 where you can see the photos in larger size or see other images.

Noel,

 

I have used a bake-on coating from KG Systems called Gun-Kote.  The product is #2401 Satin Black.   I spray it with an airbrush and bake it on at 325F for an hour in a toaster oven.  The coating is much thinner than paint or powder coat - maybe 3 tenths of a mil (.0003") so it does not interfere with the fit.  Once it has been baked on, you are ready to go.   Also, you can touch it up if you need to - something you cannot do with powder coat. The shiny brass was coated with a high temperature clear varnish from Eastwood.  The white trim line is also a Gun-Kote 2400 series coating.   Also, the Gun-Kote does not harden without baking so cleaning up your airbrush and bottle are less critical than with paints. 

 

 

 

Regards,

Ed