Modifying a Williams 10-Wheeler

Was thinking of doing something similar--would love to see your mods on this engine.

Scotie

Hi brr,

I would like to see before and after photos of this project. This sounds very interesting.

As for a headlight take a look at Evan's design's , they have LED 18 volt lights in all sizes. They last pretty much forever, and there very bright.

Thanks
Alex

The AT&N (Alabama, Tennessee & Northern) had some Baldwin Ten-wheelers (who didn't?).

I removed the old light and made a new one (brass tubing/sheet for bracket). The tender is die-cast and from the 1940's (the actual model; auction find), and was empty. The trucks and wheels are original. I mounted the Electrocoupler on the frame with a homemade centering device (flat brass spring mounted with epoxy). The new additional roller is not really visible from the side.

 

It has TMCC: ERR DC Commander (no cruise needed; good gearing; $60); no sound;

Electrocoupler; backup light.

 

It sounds like your detailing job will be interesting. I may re-address the area where the headlight was - it stands out more than I would like. Check daBay for tenders; it

may save you some work. The Lionel General tender is a possibility; already has Archbar

trucks, depending on the vintage.

 

Would like to see it. Great loco except for the cheesy rods.

 

 

 

 

That is really nice.  I've bashed a couple, adding Railsounds tender on one.  They are great running little locos.  I like the look of yours. 

that is one heck of an improvement over the original.  looks great!!!!

Bowser has a number of O scale headlight castings. Look under O scale parts. Post your work please!

Thanks for the kind words.

 

brr - looking forward to yours. I did very little to mine (well, the tender was some

effort), and it was improved, I feel.

 

Would love to see yours with better handrails, piping and the like. Some Ten-Wheelers

did wind up with large-ish tenders later in life, so, unless you just want to change the

looks (I had a particular prototype in mind), the Williams tender isn't actually incorrect.

 

precision scale has your headlight and other parts. download the PDF catalog[takes a while] and order!

http://www.precisionscaleco.com/

 

Page 127. Numerous Square castings/housings!

Thanks for the replies.

D500, I like what you've done to yours. The colors look very nice, along with the tender. I am trying to model an actual locomotive, so the Williams tender will have to go. The Lionel General tender is too wide and too tall, so it's out, but I've got an Atlas atlantic somewhere around here that may have a tender that would work. I'm afraid I'm going to have to build one.

 

Looked into Bowser for the headlight. $9.00 minimum shipping rules them out. Precision Scale looks promising, though, as I might be able to pick up the part next time in Colorado.

 

I did drill the first hole out for the handrail stanchions. I just filed the cast-in "nub" flat, started the hole with a pin-vise, and finished up with a hand drill. No pictures yet because that's the only progress. I'll start to add pictures as more work gets done.

Yeah, I was afraid that the Lionel General tender would be too chubby, but the trucks

look pretty good, if you can work with the high bolsters.

======

A thought, because I've done it, kinda, some years back. Depending on your internal space needs (and depending on everything else, as usual), try finding a plastic, sub-scale

tender with good trucks and glueing a styrene "sheathing" over the existing plastic

shell, shaped as you need it. This enables you to use the original tender body as a "buck"

upon/over which to add the proper body, while retaining the factory frame, trucks and

mounting hardware - and solid structure. The K-line/ex-Mark "NYC-style" plastic tender that came behind the cheaper versions of the K-Marx die-cast 4-6-2 comes to mind.

No archbars, though.

 

Anyway, it can save you some frame-making and measuring and squaring-up. I'm all about easy.

 

As always, your results may vary. 

I know that Bowers shipping is high in cases like that. When I want something I wait until I need a number of items and get them all at once. To bad many small suppliers do this 'minimum' shipping charge. I ran an internet based business and it is possible to have lower rates and still not loose money but it can be more work. But when you can send an item in a 25 cent padded envelope with $2 postage $9 is out of range of what I will pay. Wonder how many sales they miss????

D500, I see what you're getting at, and it's a good idea. The Atlas tender may be a good candidate for your suggestion.

 

AMCDave, Many businesses in the hobby have lost my business due to minimum shipping charges due to the reasons you present. I understand wanting to make a little $$ to make it worth the time to find the part, package it, and ship it, but really? They want to sell larger amounts of product because there's more profit it in, which I'm all for, but then why list individual parts at fair prices if the business doesn't really want to sell them that way?

Stephenson Preservation has some turn of the century headlights also. I suspect you will need some other items to fill out your order like handrail stanchions. the cast on handrails are one detail that has prevented me from considering one of these. 

 

http://stevensonpreservationlines.com

 

Pete

 

 

 

Great topic here!  I've been giving some serious consideration to buying on of these and setting it up for about 1950, and the Milwaukee Road.  What I'd need to do is change the headlight and headlight location to the center of the smokebox door.   I think that the cast handrails would have to come off and be replaced by handrails that dip down to the pilot beam.  wonder what kind of a project it would be to grind those cast ones off?

 

I would need to convert the engine to TMCC because all of my operations require command control.  Can anyone assure me that the tender is large enough for installation of electronics and a speaker?

 

The Milwaukee had a huge roster of ten wheelers, some of which survived until the end of steam on the RR.  In fact, only three Milwaukee steamers still exist, two S-3 Northerns and one lowly ten wheeler in a park building out in Minnesota. 

 

I'm gonna need to study some photos for a bit but maybe my next engine purchase ought to be this W/B little ten wheeler.

 

Paul Fischer

Re Williams Ten Wheelers[black undecorated]: I found both brass bells and headlights, with mount for center smokebox door mounting at Precision Scale. In my case the headlight was removed and replaced by a bell[old one sawed off] . The new headlight is yet to be mounted. This is being done for eventual static mounting on rails in a History Committee's Town Hall display[With one of Malcolm's Cabooses] therefore the lights are not to be rewired. Will be repainted and decorated for the former Atlantic & Yadkin hometown railway.

 

For the Southern Ten Wheeler fans, a prototype is Southern's Green 'n Gold Ten Wheeler #949 which survived post WWII. It was modeled many times in HO and a subject of Model Railroader articles back in the day. It is pictured B&W in the hardback Southern Steam Locomotive books by Richard Prince and Rank & Lowe. 

 

Paul, Removing cast on detail is not hard but it can be tedious. Back in the day I detailed a few Model Die Casting HO engines by first removing their cast on detail using first files, then sandpaper on a Dremel attachment and finally smoothing by hand with sandpaper sheets. These came unpainted. In this case the paint should be stripped first.

I wonder if a Stevenson 2-8-0 boiler would fit on the WBB 4-6-0 chassis :

 

http://stevensonpreservationli...&products_id=775

 

Of course other parts would have to be purchased but it might make for an interesting looking locomotive.

Oops!  Ran into a road block for the Williams engine.  This engine is a model of an older, unmodified ten wheeler with slide valves and Stephenson valve gear.  None of the valve gear is visible from the outside of the engine.

 

All of the Milwaukee Road tenwheelers that survived into post war (WWII) times had piston valves and either Baker or Walscherts valve gear.  So this nice little engine will not be a candidate for modification to a late model Milwaukee engine.  Too bad!  I was just getting all enthused about taking the project on.

 

Paul Fischer

fisch330 - if you do continue with this Wms 4-6-0 thing:

 

I can assure you that the Williams tender is more than large enough for ERR command

and RS boards - it's a rather large USRA type that is more often found behind Mikados

and Pacifics. It is also plastic - wonderful, as the antenna installation takes about 30

seconds. It also already has a speaker - use it.

 

FWIW, I installed TMCC/RS in my other Wms 4-6-0 (Southern Railway) - I had an old Train America kit - bulkier than the ERR stuff, a bit - but no cruise, so the excellent low

gearing in the Wms loco was ideal.

 

My customized 4-6-0 as pictures above has that old, smaller, die-cast tender from the

1940's - and I installed TMCC in it (no sound, but there's room). The Williams tender

is a piece of cake. My Williams plastic tender is earmarked for another project, and

will appear, eventually, behind a small articulated that is waiting for work...

If you're up for a bit of work, contact Bob Stevenson of Stevenson Preservation Lines and see if he will sell you the cylinders and valve gear (and, maybe, main rods) from his SP 0-6-0. Piston valves, Walshaerts valve gear, etc. I imagine some metal-mongery would be needed to make it all fit, but you'd have the loco you want.

D500's tender was made by Senco in the early postwar period. It had a speaker inside of it and Senco suggested you play a record of train sounds, hook the player to the track somehow, and the sounds came out of the tender.

Well, here it is. The first pictures of the work in progress.

 

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Not the best picture's, but it gives some idea of what I'm doing. The pilot holes for the stanchions have been drilled, and the handrails ground off using rotary files and a 2" sanding disk on a 90 degree air sander such as used for auto body work. As you can see from the picture's, I did nick one dome, and have lost some rivet detail. Holes and grinding, I have about 45 minutes, and am figuring another hour cleaning it up a little better, especially around the cab.

 

This was the harder of the two sides to grind on because of the raised running board and the cast-in pipe, which I didn't want to damage at this time. Once I've removed the handrail from the other side, I'll strip the shell and prime it. If I like the results I'll start bending brass to replace the cast-in piping.

 

Thanks for all the suggestions and information that you guy's have presented.

 

 

brr,

not sure you're photos are working--can't see them

Scotie

Great looking mods

 

Can I make a few suggestions.

 

1) add a "real" coal load.  I have used fish take filter charcoal and it comes out great.

 

2) do something about that molded in front coupler.  Maybe grind it off and add a kadee to the front to make it better looking.

 

Otherwise a great project so far!

Sorry about the pictures. When I import them from photobucket everything looks good until I post. For some reason it's just creating a link. If you click on the icon that kinda looks like an ] it shows the picture. Don't know what's changed, as everything on photobucket seems to be the same, and I've posted multiple pictures on this forum and others throughout the years. If anyone has any ideas, I'm open to suggestions.

 

Anyway, ground the other side and stripped the shell. Will need to build up the bands again where I had to grind the handrails off, but other than that, it looks good to go for primer and paint. More pictures tomorrow if I can get it worked out.

The easiest way is to go to your photobucket, right click on the image and copy it. 

 

 Come back over to the forum and open up your reply box. Click on the picture icon of a tree, it will open another box.

 

 Put your cursor in the" URL" box  right click again and paste the copied URL in and voila!

 

Here are brr's photos:

 

Thank You, RickO.

Thanks again RickO.