Ed,

She is abeaut. Wish you could bring her to run on Tuesday At Steve's . Suppose to be a great day.40's early and up to the low 60's later.

Ed:  I forgot to ask you how well the Walschearts valve gear works.  Kozo does very meticulous work so my guess it works great.

 

Henner Meinhold mentioned  he wants to build a ride on Climax, but is worried of the gears.  Kozo's Climax book shows how to use stock bevel gears in place of the offsets.

 

If anyone want to build one in 7.5" (7.25") gauge, this company sells gears:

 

So Ed, just how durable is this Gun-Kote? How easily is it scratched, etc. with the normal handling associated with our live steamers? Does handling eventually wear it off?

 

Beautiful work on the Climax!!  She's a real jewel!

A Climax without the correct gears is a no-no for me. As this model will be a companion to my 1" Heisler, I eventually have to bite the bullet and make the gears. Of course, Kozo makes it look easy (like books about golfing...), but I am still chickening out...
Regards

  

Henner,

 

Don't you go changing hobbies on us now!  Long live the 4L Society. The grass is always greener on the golf course but that doesn't mean the cows enjoy it anymore.  The milk comes out just the same.

Dwight,  the Gun-Kote does well for wear.  One thing I do to promote adhesion is to beadblast the metal before painting.  This results in a matte surface that is microscopically rough and gives the coating a good surface.  The product was originally developed for firearms so it stands up well to high temperature and handling.   I have been using my Heisler for a couple years and it looks pretty new.   Out of the oven it is hard - not like ordinary paint that may be gummy until it dries.

 

Henner - don't be afraid to make the gears.  If you can make a working Heisler, you will succeed. 

Dwight, 

 

I have a large benchtop-size sandblaster that I use with 100-170 mesh glass bead media.  My air compressor is 3 hp peak, and it can do 5cfm at 90psi.  This is small for sandblasting but it does get the job done.  I have the air compressor on a hand truck and I wheel it into the garage for blasting and back in the shop for coating.

Regards,

Ed

It IS easy, just time consuming.  When I started thinking about the Catatonk Climax, I reasoned that I would have to sure about making the gears before committing myself to the project.  The first step was to take Kozo's formalae and convert them into a spreadsheet - I could then play with numbers until I got the diameters and gear ratios I wanted.  I ended up with 12:21, which meant that, over a period of time, each tooth would have to mesh with every other tooth, thus evening out the wear.

As I was making more than one loco (I had to make about 400 pairs of gears to allow for "scrappers") I decided that CNC was the route to go.  Accordingly, I fitted stepper motors and a cheapo computer to my Taiwan miller and rotary table and simply plugged in the numbers.  As a result, having done the groundwork, I could mount up the turned blank gear, press the "go" button and get on with something else whilst the machine produced swarf.

 

If you're only making one loco, this is a lot of work (although the benefits of having a CNC machine in the workshop are considerable) so the time could best be spent making up the odd shaped bits of metal as specified by Kozo.  Do exactly what he says, and you'll be sure of success.

 

Go for it! 

 

When you look at the finished Climax, you'll wonder what all the fuss was about.

 

Good luck.....

 

Mike Chaney

Henner:  I know you can do it.  If you can drill a 0.006" hole for a gas jet, you can cut some of Kozo's gears.  Here is something that might help with the math

 

 

 

Take care, Bob

Here is a short video segment showing the Climax running on rollers-

 

The preview mode is not showing the embedded shockwave video from flickr, so I am not sure this post will work....

 

 

The URL of the video is http://www.flickr.com/photos/edhume3/3053734641/in/set-72157600964223180/

Ed

She is a "BEAUT". Your video worked out fine. Im gonna be gone for a couple of weeks, Hope to see her at Steve.s soon. Have a great TG.