Kasiner Aluminum Passenger Cars

Eric, I have 3 OK Engines cars (ex Kasiner I believe) and like them a lot.

OK Engines is still active in Mohawk NY:

http://www.okengines.com/

I used the aluminum bodies and made my own floors, end, and interiors.  I also used GGD passenger trucks on 2 of them and K-Line/Lionel trucks on the 3rd.

Kasiner passenger cars can be built into some nice looking rolling stock if time is spent detailing them. the extrusions are similar to what K-line and GGdepot use. with detail parts available i have seen many that are beautiful pieces. biggest problem is the thickness of the sides with the windows being inset.

Kaisner 18 roomette it is actually short of scale by 7/8 of an inch but still nice

I collected them for a while before Jack Speer made a better Daylight extrusion.  I was able to sell my spares on eBay for around $50 each, no floors, ends, or trucks.  That is about triple what I paid for them, so apparently the market is still ok.

I think a K-Line or GGD car, fully assembled, is a better deal, even for a few bucks more.

Here is a Kasiner, converted to SP:

I think I have a mold that would make ends suitable for these cars.  By-product of a casting job that I did a few years ago......

I would be interested in some of these ends. I have some un-built kits and the sheet metal ends are one of the things that have prevented me from building them.

Yes, those original ends and doors left a lot to be desired.  The Kemtron ends can be trimmed to fit, but the prototype was dead- smooth, so I used 1/16" aluminum. I cut an inner and an outer, and use wood screws to attach to my slide- in wood floor and roof assembly.  The screws wind up under the diaphragm.

Here is a shot of the Speer extrusion (left), coupled to a Box Car Ken (B-C) Daylight coach.  Try not to laugh at my silver journals and lack of details.

The B-C were state-of-the-art for decades, until Pecos River came along.  I like my Kasiners better, but the B-C corrugations were correctly inset, even though missing the skinny rib.

Did you know that the Lobaugh Daylight truck is still the most accurate truck in terms of overall size and proportions in O Scale?  They should have sent a Lobaugh casting to China when they made those lost-wax sprung versions.

I have some unbuilt and, as described above, some once built that need rebuilt,

Kasiner cars.  I hope to get around to building a RPO baggage kit for me, as I built

one finished as Pennsylvania for a friend.  I have read others complaining, and I found that alloy darn hard to work with..... drilling holes for handrails and steps ate drill bits.

Kitbashing, cutting and remating, to move windowns around, looks like a challenge.

Use aluminum cutting oil.  It comes in little green cans, at good hardware stores, and smells like wintergreen.

If you don't, the aluminum heats up, grabs your bit, solidifies, and "snap".

I cut my own windows, and can tell you I discovered this by experience.  An end mill of reasonable quality is around ten bucks. Cutting fluid is a third that, and lasts for years.

The Seaboard Sun-Lounge body they sell has more ribs on the sides (above the windows) and ribs on the roof that weren't on the prototype.  I removed them with my Dremel, files, chisels, you name it, it took forever.  Not the prettiest job in the world but (until GGD comes thru ) it'll have to do:

I don't have a mill and had to make do with what I had.  That's one piece of machinery I'd like to get.

Here's an example of the ends I made:

This end is a press fit, no screws holding it in place.  The vestibule ends (inner and outer) are glued in place in the body shell and 2 screws thru the floor hold the floor in place.  Removing the screws and this loose end allow the floor and interior to be slid out.

Martin, can you show us a photo of an end made from your mold?  I'm all for having more detail if possible, you can see the original, plain-jane end in the middle photo of my last post.

Let me locate a mold tonight - think I have 2-3 of them from that project and get a photo posted up for you.  I think made 40-60 ends from one person that supposedly fit into extruded ends.....but I never saw the end product, just the check in the mail.

Please do. I am very interested in them.

Did not forget - just got delayed a bit.  And, I located all 3 molds!  I remember that there was a trick to using these successfully, but I don't remember what it was.....every mold has some quirk to it and that increases with the complexity of the mold.

No idea what the master was as I had to return that to the person I was doing the casting for at the time.

If interested, I'll have to order some resin - contact me directly - martinwb (at) verizon (dot) net

Being familiar with Kasiner cars, those molds look like they would generate a GIANT

improvement!

Again, if there is interest............

I'd be interested.... I will have to figure out how many I would need, but I would probably be interested in 10-12 of them. I have 5 - 6 passenger cars to restore.

What about the end of the car with doors on the sides? How is that handled?

For those that asked for these ends in resin - ready to ship!

I have two Kasiner coaches. One is going to be a Southern coach and the other will be a Seaboard Sun Lounge, as seen above. Delta Models USA has some awesome detail parts for passenger cars (including car ends) that will work great for the cars. I bought them for around $40 each on EvilBay. I always keep an eye out for them. Pretty good cars.

I had never heard of Kaisner, but I am familiar with Herkimer and OK Motors.

I'm looking forward to seeing a finished improvement.