12-02-2010, 10:13 PM
Gus ...
I'm not sure what to tell you about the cylinders ... I'd suggest you PM doctorwayne as he is the Go-To Guy for steam, at least when it comes to all the attached appliances and their associated plumbing!
You are probably correct when you speculate re: the age of the tooling. All molding/casting tooling wears over time, some faster than others depending on the abrasiveness of the material being molded or cast. Zamac is relatively coarse and wears a tool faster than styrene. The tooling for the locomotive you are building (Mantua, Bowser, MDC) dates, no doubt , from at least the sixties, if not before. Production of these great old kits has slowed as so many newer model railroaders don't want to be bothered to actually build stuff ... they are of the "instant" generation ... they want it now, and detailed to the max. So whereas RTR used to be cheap and kits, along with a more detailed model, cost more, now kits are becoming relatively rare and RTR costs as much as a whole peddler freight of RTR cars used to cost.
Anyhow, you're off to a good start ... be mindfull of carefully filling in the "pits in your complexion" (as I am having to do with my EOY project,) be careful when applying your detail parts, don't rush things and when it's all painted and lettered and everything you'll have a nice looking model that weighs a ton and will pull track nails out of the plywood sub-roadbed!
I'm looking forward to following your progress!
I'm not sure what to tell you about the cylinders ... I'd suggest you PM doctorwayne as he is the Go-To Guy for steam, at least when it comes to all the attached appliances and their associated plumbing!
You are probably correct when you speculate re: the age of the tooling. All molding/casting tooling wears over time, some faster than others depending on the abrasiveness of the material being molded or cast. Zamac is relatively coarse and wears a tool faster than styrene. The tooling for the locomotive you are building (Mantua, Bowser, MDC) dates, no doubt , from at least the sixties, if not before. Production of these great old kits has slowed as so many newer model railroaders don't want to be bothered to actually build stuff ... they are of the "instant" generation ... they want it now, and detailed to the max. So whereas RTR used to be cheap and kits, along with a more detailed model, cost more, now kits are becoming relatively rare and RTR costs as much as a whole peddler freight of RTR cars used to cost.
Anyhow, you're off to a good start ... be mindfull of carefully filling in the "pits in your complexion" (as I am having to do with my EOY project,) be careful when applying your detail parts, don't rush things and when it's all painted and lettered and everything you'll have a nice looking model that weighs a ton and will pull track nails out of the plywood sub-roadbed!
I'm looking forward to following your progress!
Both BR60103 and Nachoman each slipped entries in under me as I was exercising my notoriously slow and typo laden typing, followed by three proof readings.
biL
Lehigh Susquehanna & WesternÂ
"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." ~~Abraham Lincoln
Lehigh Susquehanna & WesternÂ
"America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves." ~~Abraham Lincoln