Well Ken, Perhaps you don't think this would count, but I am building a sort of American ' Project'.
I bought a 'Project' boiler from a guy some 20ys ago & it was looking for a home 'till last year. Anyway it is now destined for a little US Mogul which with a bit of luck might be ready for Diamondhead. That's the intention anyway. It will use Roundhouse cylinders which are OK sizewise for US 1/32 you might be surprised to hear, & will be meths fired. However there is no real reason you could not use a Roundhouse type single flue boiler particularly with an 'O'Connorised' radiant burner to minimise gas consumption. As Aster & others have found out, a gas tank in the tender & high gas consumption results in cooling problems. Don't agree with your statement about 'Brits having it easy'. There is nothing 'easy' about inside cylinders & valve gear whether in model or 'real' form. Why do you think the whole world went over to the US way of doing - provided they were not bugged with track clearance problems? To the untutored eye, inside slip eccentics with outside cylinders is a pretty close approximation of Stephenson & RH has shown how easy it is to fake a plausible Walshaerts gear. You point this out correctly for the early US 4-4-0s but a snag is that these gals had pretty small diameter boilers. US difficulties revolve mainly round how to make plausible bar frames - a task which is more difficult for the modeller than for the prototype. Another difficulty is the near total abscence of affordable 1/32 stock. Most stuff on the market seems to be of 1/29 or some other bastard scale. Art Walker, Guildford, England. ----- Original Message ----- From: "XXYZ" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Multiple recipients of sslivesteam" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Sunday, September 29, 2002 1:46 AM Subject: American project? > > > Hi all, > > I wondder if everyone is out steaming? There has been little mail today. So > here is a little conversation stimulation. > > I was wondering, what kind of interest would there be in an American 1/32 > scale prototype project locomotive. > > Obviously, the brits have it a bit easier with their inside cylinder > locomotives (Dee, Project) than we do with outside cylinders and valve gear. > But I think that the proper choice of locomotive would make things easier. > Just looking at a few photos, it looks like many early 1900's 4-4-0 locos > have Stephenson valve gear inside of the frames. With only the drive rods > outside I think it would be possible be fudge the use of a slip eccentric > valve gear. I think another draw to the 4-4-0 model would be that it culd be > spiffed up with different stacks, pilots (cowcatchers, per earlier > discussions), domes, etc, and still be "prototypical" as there were lots of > veriations with these locos. > > Any other ideas? > > Ken Vogel > > >
