A mogrel Mason

[Mik]

So, I had this junky worn out Big hauler drive. The center axle was split, the plating gone from the wheels... but the gears were good and the motor ran...
I was going to build an 0-6-0, but then I turned that locomotive into a consolidation.... so back to the junk box.. or not?

Not.... I eliminated the dodgy wheelset, cut down the c-16 frame I had the drive mounted it in, and made it into a short 4 coupled brick... dug out the one odd B'mann archbar truck I had and...

Since I run r-2s outside and r-1s in, a Forney was really out of the question, so it would have to be a single Farlie. Unfortunately, the Big Hauler wheels are too modern for a Mason (they stopped building locomotives in 1890), and I didn't have a proper cab either... What I had was one extra c-16 cab, so I moved the back wall on to "make do", and used an Aristo bobber caboose frame for the floor. I also shortened the wheelbase more than would be typical for a Mason, so it would look OK with my Kalamazoo cars. The end result is only summat a quasi-Mason mongrel. -- which I WAS going to paint it with my basic AV colors, but then my daughter said, "make it pretty"... so it's now an 1870's Mason scheme adapted to work with the stuff I had.

I don't usually bother with smoke, but I had a USA unit here... it was a real cozy fit getting it in that smokebox! And the circuit board had to be mounted at an angle in the front boiler course to clear the motor

later tonight I'll fit the siderods, but then I need to scrounge some weights before I can do anything with the boiler firebox section

 

[JonathanJ]

This your entry in the 2012 challenge Mik?....
J.

 

[Mik]

nope, it's just a "use up some junk" project...

Anyway, if anybody has an urge to build a REAL Mason, Mike Reilly managed to salvage the 2002 MyLargeScale.com Masterclass articles in PDF format...
http://www.mylargescale.com/Community/Forums/tabid/56/aff/21/aft/119978/afv/topic/Default < Link To http://www.mylargescale.c...afv/topic/Default

And these may help as well...
http://www.mylargescale.com/Community/Forums/tabid/56/aff/21/aft/1444/afv/topic/Default < Link To http://www.mylargescale.c...afv/topic/Default
http://www.frontiernet.net/~scottychaos/ON_LINE/

 

[Mik]

Well, despite not being able to find a sand dome yet (LGB Mogul sand domes are too fat to use with the c-16 shell! ), some progress has been made....

I filled the lower firebox part with everybody's favorite standby for extra weight... BBs and white glue

This pic is for those who aren't sure of difference between a Forney and a Farlie. If the cylinders and drivers swivel, it's a Farlie (and yes, LGB's "Forney" IS actually a Farlie... but don't tell anybody!)

Starting to get all the various linkages and lines in place. If you think the paint scheme looks like it was dreamt up by a demented elf on an eggnog bender, you're not alone! But according to my rail historian buddy, Mason expert Jim Wilke says this is actually almost completely correct for Mason's red/green scheme (I was informed that there is not enough gold, yet?). -- All I can say is it's.... bright. Maybe even a bit... garish.

 

[Mik]

Gone as far as I can until a few parts arrive:

Meanwhile, I cooked up a crazy, but fairly plausible backstory:
Many people today fondly wish for a return to America's "gilded age". Why not? It was a time when opportunity, progress and optimism were the order of the day! And even better, there were great fortunes to be made!.....

One of the things a lot of people forget about the time is, while there was opulent wealth, there was also seemingly bottomless misery. There were a few great boom times, but there were many busts to go with them as well. While Dame Fortune may have smiled radiantly upon a blessed few. She ignored most. And sometimes, like a coquette, she teased then spurned a man - making him even more miserable than if he'd never succeeded. This is a story of the latter.

In the middle part of the 1850s much of North Central Pennsylvania was still a wilderness. Villages and single homesteads dotted huge tracts of forest. There were thousands upon thousands of acres of virgin pine, hemlock and hardwoods, and the second industrial revolution needed that lumber! Experienced lumbermen from Maine and Canada, having already depleted much of their own great forests, flooded the area to feed that need. As technology advanced, so did the size and efficiency of the companies that cut the tress, and from this, modern industrialized logging was born!

In the early years the hewn logs were assembled into great rafts and floated downriver to the mill. In dry years low river levels could cause serious supply disruptions. There had to be a better way. Shortly after the Civil War railroads became an answer to that problem.

In parts of western Clarion County, that railroad was owned by the Clarion River Lumber Co. In the spring of 1872 CRLCo was doing well. So well that the owner, Mr ____ ______, decided that he needed new, more powerful locomotives to get the logs to his mill even faster. However, he had a slight dilemma. His line, like most lumber railroads, had extensive mileage, but the tracks were hastily laid, and maintained only if absolutely necessary. He needed a locomotive that was not only powerful, but flexible. So one of Mason Machine Works' strange looking Farlies was seen as a near perfect solution. Two were duly ordered, and they arrived that fall. Mason-Farlie locomotives #3 and #4 were found to be entirely suitable, and would become the foundation of a small fleet of similar engines destined to serve the CRLCo well for the next two decades.

Fast forward to 1898, Mr ______ had become a very rich man, but the easy timberlands along the Clarion River were mostly logged out. The end was nearing, but fate would hasten it. On a bitterly cold December night tragedy struck, no-one was sure if it was started by a careless hosteler, or a vagrant trying to keep warm, but what is known is that the CRLCo's enginehouse caught fire in the early hours of Christmas Eve. The hot fire, whipped by winter winds, spread to several nearby drying sheds. By morning 7 buildings and tens of thousands of board feet of valuable lumber were reduced to ashes. And the Clarion River Lumber's entire locomotive fleet were just burnt hulks.
Mr _____ was facing almost certain ruin. While quite rich on paper, he was actually overextended. He barely had enough ready cash for that week's payroll! He also had a bill due from the Allegheny Valley RR for 25 carloads of lumber that he had shipped to Pittsburg that week...

Desperate and not completely scrupulous, he telegraphed his acquaintance, AV director _____ - hoping that he hadn't yet heard about the fire - and offered #3 and #4 in lieu of payment for the balance due on his bill. Mr _______, unaware that he was being duped, agreed. The resulting lawsuit would take almost a decade to settle...

Meanwhile, expecting two intact locomotives that would only need regauged, the shop crew was rather surprised to see two forlorn looking hulks show up on flatcars the following week. One of the shop supervisors forlornly asked Master Mechanic Daniel St. Clair, "Now, what da Hell are we supposed to do wid dose tings?" The disgusted reply was simply, "Salvage what we can..."

Upon further inspection it was discovered that while #3 was a near total loss, #4 still had possibilities, Her cab was gone, yes - but her boiler, frame and cylinders were still sound. Only a broken driver actually prevented her from being a relatively easy fix. Unfortunately for the AV, as Master St Clair soon found out, Mason had exited the locomotive business almost ten years earlier. Baldwin was willing to sell the AV new drivers at reasonable cost, but since they were two inches larger, all 4 would have to be replaced. In an attempt to salvage some pride, the AV Directors authorized a small budget, and the rebuilding of #4 was begun in April of 1899.

While much of the original Mason was refurbished, many changes were made. Without patterns for a cab, the shop crew simply adapted the same style used on the line's Moguls. During the rebuild it was also decided to add a 2 wheel pony truck for better tracking. After almost 7 months of part time work, the burnt hulk had begun to look something like a locomotive again. Master St Clair even indulged his sense of humor by painting "_____'s Folly" as #4 had now been dubbed, in the gay colors she had worn nearly 30 years prior...

Anybody wanna volunteer to be a fictional crooked lumber baron?

 

[Tim Brien]

Mik,
your history almost had me convinced that it was real. Likely candidates for the timber baron names -

Elijah Wood
Tim Burr
Theresa Green

 

[Mik]

Mik,
your history almost had me convinced that it was real.

As a builder, I'm a passable bullshit artist..... Half the fun is in weaving history and fiction into a good story.

As for the timber guy's name, I'm thinking he should be "Col." or "Maj" ____ ______. A lot of not so honest businessmen affected to ranks they never actually held after the Civil War -- It was a way of schmoozing potential investors into believing they were more trustworthy than the next. ("Col." Edwin Drake for example, in fact I think Kentucky still awards "official" (or maybe offal?) rank of "Colonel" to big political donors and philanthropists.

 

[Mik]

Today's topic - "Dome on a Diet".
I realize many guys probably have done this before me, I just thought I'd document it as a brief photo essay for the newbs.

I bought a pair of LGB Mogul domes to use on this project. The steam dome was almost perfect, the sand dome, however....

Not sure whether I never noticed that they were that much fatter before, or had, and just forgot... either way, this just wasn't gonna fly...

After over a week of trolling the 'bay to find a replacement, and even an email to Navin at Aristo, with no success, it was time to "make do". The size of the dome was molded in plastic - NOT set in stone!

First step was to reduce the size of the dome ring to go better visually with the needed smaller cylinder diameter. If you have access to a lathe, you're in like Flynn. I didn't, so it would be hand tools. First, I used sprue cutters to remove the real heavy cuts...

Then I switched to a hobby knife with a fresh blade, then 80 grit sandpaper. I decided to be lazy (or maybe smart?) and use the old dome part as a guide to keep things concentric and round....

Funny thing with LGB domes. Sometimes they're glued super tight, sometimes they aren't - This one was. A visit from Mr Razor Saw on the seam soon took care of that!

The next order of business was the undercut... again a lathe would have been handy, but it's something you can do with a hobby knife. Take tiny cuts until you get it where you want it. The plastic flecks clinging to the blade are about as heavy as you want to remove with each cut.

How do you produce the final concave or cove shape by hand? Sandpaper wrapped around a dowel....

Once you get everything close to the shape you want, shift to finer sandpaper to remove any remaining deep scratches, bobbles, or gouges. Go slow, it's easier to take a smidgen more off, than try to put it back on!

You don't NEED a section of expensive Evergreen or Plastruct tube for a new dome - any cylindrical bit the right size will serve. - Here are a few of the things I tried before settling on the plastic pipe fitting on the right.

Generally I don't like to put weights high up on a locomotive - because it makes them top heavy and more liable to tip over. But this one will be very light due to the short boiler, and the sand dome is directly over the drivers, sooo....

Test fitting. I probably should have rounded the edges of the dome ring a bit more, but I got lazy..

Painted to match... yeah, I really should round down those edges, but it still looks a lot better than it did 90 minutes ago!

 

[Mik]

Mini update: I reprofiled the dome a little more and changed out the stack last night. Next I need to touch up the boogered paint, and figure out where I put the package of Ozark handrail stanchions.....

 

[Richie]

Cracking work Mik always full of great ideas when using up bits from the junk box

 

[Woderwick]

Large dress/coat buttons make good dome tops too mate.

 

[Mik]

I always tell the noobs that if you're not satisfied with how something came out, don't be afraid to tear it back apart, and start over.

I really wanted an 1870s style cab. Well, I finally scored a junker Lionel 0-6-0 for just under $22 including shipping.

It arrived today, and promptly got torn apart... the chassis runs, and will eventually get used for another project, but the cab is for this one! First order of business was to remove the back wall and use it to lengthen the sides I used popsicle wood to reinforce the joints (I may remove it later)

Test fit.... not too shabby!

The tiny window on the rear section probably should have just been enlarged, but I thought I'd try it this way

Looking a more like a Mason now, isn't it?