Thanks for the commentary. After looking at the detailed directions Claude sent me, I decided that such a project in model building had better not be my first one. By the way, I remember I Sill or Sills in Houston. Toward the end of my stay there, he and I became friends. He was in HO at the time and wanted to model the MKT during its late steam days. I heard that he went in to S though, and a heavily reworked Omnicon 2-8-0 showed up in the S-Gaugian in the photo section quite a few years ago.
Tom -----Original Message----- From: [email protected] on behalf of Bob Werre Sent: Tue 7/29/2008 12:26 PM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: {S-Scale List} Future steam offerings comments Tom, If you look at a mess of old S Gauge Herald's you will find little ads for several folks who over the years to would custom build those SSI&S kits. Some did a lousy job, others kept the money and ran, but a few did come through but I think most of those got tired of getting 25 cents per hour for doing the work. A few like Jess Bennett (who really didn't build the kits but made his own engines using the parts) and perhaps, John Bortz just kept working until they couldn't build them anymore. Claude's early boilers were heavy sand castings generally requiring a heavy duty resistance or torch for soldering. This later boilers were lacking in many ways. The various styles of outside running gear required lots of patience to get right--some were cast nickel silver and very soft/easily bent. The frames, as he sold them, were solid and the gear was the open worm and gear just like AF. Some of those engines were indeed a work of art but I think there are a lot of coffee grinders out there also--probably not unlike the early imported brass we've been discussing. I 've mentioned this in the past but I had a guy (George Sills, I think was his name) built a Southern heavy mike for me. Very well done overall (he rolled his own boiler) using the bulk of SSL&S parts. Jack Troxell our local loco hero, worked on the drive rods, installed a modern gear box, replaced some crooked drivers, the motor and a few other things to finally make a smooth running engine. A few of our members were really impressed enough to order engines from George and I wanted a 0-8-0 switcher. We sent our money off and he disappeared. He charged in the $350 range, so one can easily see after buying the kit what his lack of profit would be. I couple of years later the Overland engines started to arrive in the $500 range. Overall the Korean stuff was overall superior to Claude's kits. I remember him sitting at the dealer tables with his samples and not selling much. This engine is the one awaiting a better sprung frame from our new/renewed suppliers. It will then receive a new paint job and be rolled out of the shops as a Milwaukee L type engine. They had one engine with an Elasco feedwater heater, which this Southern engine has. Bob Werre BobWphoto.com Thomas Baker wrote: > > > Some questions: > > Although many of those scale SSL&S kits are out there presumably, > hardly any ever show up on E-Bay or on our list. I wonder if those > kits are like the Sunshine kits in HO: They accurately portray the > prototype freight car they are supposed to, and they sell. But I > really doubt that all the purchasers have assembled them. Perhaps it's > that way with those kits for brass steam locomotives. I once inquired > of Claude Wade about assembling such a kit. He graciously responded > with a letter instructing me that,yes, it did take time to assemble a > kit. He also included the directions for the Berkshire. I kept them > for many years and recall that they were highly detailed and many > pages long. > > All that leads me to suspect that many who have purchased the kits may > still have them on a shelf somewhere. Claude Wade also had a 2-8-0 and > some switchers if I remember correctly. > > Tom > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] > > [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Links [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/S-Scale/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
