USRA 2-10-2 light rebuilt

[Schraddel]

The further i examinated this loco the further i came to the opinion this is a real junker.
First there was an incident damage probably by crashing on the floor which is in the resposibilty of the previoos owner.
Second this was a real "heavy" monday in Korea.
Have a look to this:


No, you are not drunken, this might been the case and cause in the 1980's, Koreans on Monday?



After much bending, straightening, drilling, milling and resoldering the smokebox front appears in this form.
There is a 3.2mm boring in the headlight drilled which will lateron take a 3mm LED plus a piece of black insulating tape.
On the right side the lower handrail holder is actually a little bit lower mounted, i will not correct this as you cann see ist only from front and when pointed to it.
The headligt was resoldered with a torch and the gold laquer quitted it with browning. I soaked the front over night in acetone, but the laquer did'nt quit and still "glues" strong on the surface. So it will remain as ground coat when the loco will be painted.



Several times i looked on this loco and tried to discover where it is actually torn and damaged. And how to correcten it.
I took an intense look on the smokebox and considered if the boiler have had to move back longitudinal some Millimetres. Then the rear traverser will be straight.
But on the front end was o.k. with the exception that it was leaned to the left side.
Here i bend until the boiler was straight.
So the repositioning of the rear traverser was one the right steps to made the loco square.
The main corrections i have made on the firebox, with the aid of coarse tools out of the tractor tool box.



A look of the other side. The injectors were repostioned.
The soldering points still have to be cleaned out.
This work could be done with an 30W electrical soldering iron.


A look from the rear.
As the borings for the screws were not square too, i filed oval holes into the rear traverser.
The photo fools you a little bit, the shell sits actually straight and square on the frame.

I hope i could do something for de-mystificationing of brass models. Expensive on such brass models are not the materials, expensive is the manpower.
Those hours spent of working on a model intil you will have the perfect model, or better said the nearly perfect model.
But perfect models will have their price. My hobby budget was always fixed on a low level, here this is possible because i have bought a cheap junker.
Either you pay for the model or made it yourself. Either you are cutting and soldering brass sheets or you are carving ten thousand 1:87 bricks into a master model for a mould. That are two aspects of the hobby, not much so far away as you believe.

Lutz