Hi, as I announced in Bill's thread I am beggining to build a Pennsylvania railroad "Hyppo" or decapod in gauge one 1/32 scale in live steam. This project stems from two things:
One) I had started work on a French NORD railway De Caso mikado tank suburban engine the prototype which I had known well, were very modern and fascinating engines to see in operation with their Cossart valve gear and were retired from push pull service only in 1970. This project became redundant when I purchassed from a British friend his own model of this engine, beautifully made by Roger Marsh. I had many parts on this chassis which had been succesfully tested on air, which needed to be reused on another project. (canibalising...)
Two) The Pennsy is well represented in live steam passenger locomotives with the E6 Atlantic, the K4 pacific, the G5 ten wheeler and the T1 duplex. but we still don't have a true freight engine! (I don't consider the USRA light mikado as a true PRR engine) There si the FAM M1a mountain which did a lot of freight work, but it is electric. I figured that the 2-10-0 is the most representative freight loco on the Pennsy and a very long lived one, since they lasted to the very end of steam. So a Hyppo it will be. I would also have loved to model a J1 but in that case, I needed totaly diferent parts. Wereas the decapod had the same size drivers and wheelbase as my original mikado. Here are some photos of that mikado chassis:
![Image]()
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Now while I wait for the laser or water jet cutting of the 5mm thick bar frames under way at the moment. I started on one item that would certainly be needed in my scheme : I planed to use as many parts as possible from this prior build. Many were purchassed from Keith Cousins a supplier of machined parts within the G1MRA, of sundries needed to make models to Paul Forsythes drawings.
I had to make two extra journal boxes for the tenth driver as my original build was a Mikado. These had to be identical to the 8 Keith Cousin ones I already had. So I purchassed a 1/4" reamer and some drills 6,1mm and 6,2 mm diameter to pre drill a brass block to just under 1/4" and then reamed between center by hand the brass blocks. I then placed a milling vice I had salvaged from the junk box of the technical school I teached in a few years ago (I was not a machining istructor but an applied arts teacher), fixed it and was able to bolt it down firmly to the vertical slide of my Myford lathe. I placed the blanks inside the jaws which I had aligned properly wiht the comparator before hand. And with a millig cutter started to mill the blocks into the proper T shape.
![Image]()
This went very well and was a fine exercice for a beginer at machining like me. I managed to make the two necessary journal boxes which are identical to the original ones I have:
![Image]()
I can now order the axles and wheel castings from Walsall which offer the correct wheel diameter as the French engine had 16 spokes and the PRR one had only 14 spokes.
To be continued...
One) I had started work on a French NORD railway De Caso mikado tank suburban engine the prototype which I had known well, were very modern and fascinating engines to see in operation with their Cossart valve gear and were retired from push pull service only in 1970. This project became redundant when I purchassed from a British friend his own model of this engine, beautifully made by Roger Marsh. I had many parts on this chassis which had been succesfully tested on air, which needed to be reused on another project. (canibalising...)
Two) The Pennsy is well represented in live steam passenger locomotives with the E6 Atlantic, the K4 pacific, the G5 ten wheeler and the T1 duplex. but we still don't have a true freight engine! (I don't consider the USRA light mikado as a true PRR engine) There si the FAM M1a mountain which did a lot of freight work, but it is electric. I figured that the 2-10-0 is the most representative freight loco on the Pennsy and a very long lived one, since they lasted to the very end of steam. So a Hyppo it will be. I would also have loved to model a J1 but in that case, I needed totaly diferent parts. Wereas the decapod had the same size drivers and wheelbase as my original mikado. Here are some photos of that mikado chassis:
Now while I wait for the laser or water jet cutting of the 5mm thick bar frames under way at the moment. I started on one item that would certainly be needed in my scheme : I planed to use as many parts as possible from this prior build. Many were purchassed from Keith Cousins a supplier of machined parts within the G1MRA, of sundries needed to make models to Paul Forsythes drawings.
I had to make two extra journal boxes for the tenth driver as my original build was a Mikado. These had to be identical to the 8 Keith Cousin ones I already had. So I purchassed a 1/4" reamer and some drills 6,1mm and 6,2 mm diameter to pre drill a brass block to just under 1/4" and then reamed between center by hand the brass blocks. I then placed a milling vice I had salvaged from the junk box of the technical school I teached in a few years ago (I was not a machining istructor but an applied arts teacher), fixed it and was able to bolt it down firmly to the vertical slide of my Myford lathe. I placed the blanks inside the jaws which I had aligned properly wiht the comparator before hand. And with a millig cutter started to mill the blocks into the proper T shape.
This went very well and was a fine exercice for a beginer at machining like me. I managed to make the two necessary journal boxes which are identical to the original ones I have:
I can now order the axles and wheel castings from Walsall which offer the correct wheel diameter as the French engine had 16 spokes and the PRR one had only 14 spokes.
To be continued...
