Little Update, custom tin Commodore Vanderbilt..265E strectch job

Wicked. Nice old bugger.

Looks great, Dennis! Looking forward to seeing how you stretch the loco. 

John

nice work Dennis

Ok, I've taped off the two shells on a cut line.  Next to attack it with a cut off wheel.  Oh, and here is what is left of the two tenders, maybe enough to make a water car of something.  We'll see...

Next step, Taking a 4.5" cutting wheel to the 265E shells.  After the cuts I did a little fit up.  Of course, the hard part will be making the skirt curve look good.  That's the $50 question.   I have a few ideas and hopefully I'll have some more time later today to try them out.

I was wanting to make my 1689E a true 4-6-4, but the pilot truck looked way too small, maybe if I had smaller wheels in the bin, and the trailing stuck out too far. I did better with my Torpedo making a 4-6-2.

you're doing a good job Dennis.

Thanks Dave.  This is just seat of the pants engineering  I think those diecast engines would be a lot tougher to stretch, the tin is a lot easier to make do what you want.  Hey, your engines were some of the inspiration to dream this one up!

Instead of welding, you could attach the parts with epoxy and sheet metal braces. That how I made my Marx 21 B-unit.

Very cool project and it should work out just fine.I would not  have welded it  but expoxied it together for fear that the welder would distort the parts .A little bead work on the bottom curve maybe some spot putty and it should be ready for primer.

Yeah, the welding was somewhat an experiment.  It worked ok, I just had one spot with some blow through in one spot which was my fault.  I don't think it distorted anywhere though.  Will take a Dremel an sanding drum to it and it should be pretty good with a little filler or solder.

I did the ender for my Torpedo with JB Weld. turned out pretty good for a first time. I did some welding on the 221 tender, and finished with JB. I just need more patience with the sanding part.

well thank you sir....

I haven't stretched a tinplate engine...yet....my 4-8-4 I stretched from two 1666 shells was pretty easy...but again. more time spent on sanding would have yielded better results, but I never was a great bodyman.

I have a problem with being patient   I lose interest easily, and so I want to get this as far along as I can before I forget about it! 

Here's the plan on the skirt.  Again, I took the cutting wheel to the shells.  This time, slicing just above the bead at the bottom of the skirt.  I plan to possibly run a piece of 12 gauge copper wire in the back side of the bead and use that to "form the arc and to support the bead.  It would be soldered in ( or epoxied either way would be fine).  The fit up seems to suggest it will work.  I think the arc looks pretty good.

I tac welded the two boiler halves together,  and it worked pretty good.  Very sturdy.  At this point I haven't done anything to the skirt, it will get some massaging. The last couple of shots are mocked up sitting on a 6 wheel motor with the tender behind an with some 1685 passenger cars behind.  I think they will look good with it.  At this point, I am planning to paint it GM and paint up a set of 1685/86/87 cars in two tone green.

Oh yeah!it is working out quite well!The red elephant ears on the stretched 1666 shells really stand out!

Thanks! I've been expecting some problems, but so far its working out pretty well. I'm going to need to pick up a cab pretty soon I think.

Yeah you can get some sheet brass carve a body buck and hammer and form a cab to shape!

That might not be a bad idea since I am kind of thinking the stock cab might look a little small now

Yeah mock it up with cardboard to find a cab design that looks right. 

Dennis Holler posted:

I tac welded the two boiler halves together,  and it worked pretty good.  Very sturdy.  At this point I haven't done anything to the skirt, it will get some massaging. The last couple of shots are mocked up sitting on a 6 wheel motor with the tender behind an with some 1685 passenger cars behind.  I think they will look good with it.  At this point, I am planning to paint it GM and paint up a set of 1685/86/87 cars in two tone green.

 

 

This guy is going to turn out very nice. Like what you did with 'raising the skirt' on the lower side of the shell, gives it a graceful line. Sometimes I wince at seeing some of this tinplate stuff cut up, but realize that it stays in the junk box otherwise. These 2025/675 mechanisms really come in handy. Workhorses and cheap. Bought a 3 piece lot on ebay, all have e units, all run, with a little tweaking. About $40 total.

Jim I here ya I don't normally cut this stuff up.  I'd been thinking about this one for a while though and finally just dove in. I'm still tempted to make a motor with prewar wheels. 

I did some more mock up stuff last night.  I think I may try to move the steam chest forward  1/8" to 1/4", I think it will look a bit more balanced.  Also a few shots from the internet of the real CV.

Been a long time since I updated this project.  I haven't done much, been working on my '63 falcon "project" and some other stuff.  I did get a new cab and I must say the MTH cab is very clean and crisp, I like it.  I also picked up some wheels.  I was thinking I'd like some a bit bigger than on the normal 224 motor, kind of like a 763.  These are iron castings for a live steamer or scale modeler.  Eventually I would turn these on my lathe and the plan would be to make a frame that fits the engine shell and of course the wheels as well.  The wheels have a casting boss on the back so I think its big enough to leave a shoulder for the drive gear like on a normal prewar motor.  Do you think they will be too big or just right?  I think I like em..  The picture is at a weird angle, the shell will sit lower like the real engine and I think the middle driver axle will be about under the seam in the shell.

those should look pretty good Dennis. and a Ford guy huh? Never woulda known....

A little update. I guess I had been putting off working on this for a while afraid to deal with the skirt.  But today since I had the soldering gun out anyway for the 1685 cars I decided to take a stab at the 265E skirt as well.  I cleaned up the roughage and cut a piece of 12 gage copper wire. Next I tinned the skirt backside where the wire would end up.  After that, I just clamped the wire in an started at it with lots of flux and my big Weller iron.  I know it still needs some cleaning up and a bit of filler, but I'm happy with it so far.  I did the other side as well, but it will take a bit more clean up work than this one.

Not sure how I managed to turn these sideways....  They are right side up on my laptop lol....

Have you tried an American Flyer Hudson frame?

Brian, No tried that one yet,  I did think of that option though.  I also have one but it is part of a complete engine and at least so far I've been reluctant to use it.  Could also buy a set of wheels, but that are really pricey.  Your right though, I think that would be a pretty good fit.

Little update,  I've been doing a little sanding, filling, filing, scraping, soldering etc, Working on some motor mounts for the boiler today.  I also dug out some Walthers Commonwealth tender trucks and realized that postwar wheels would fit in them so I'm going to try and make those work so I can save my other six wheel trucks for some more original tenders.  The motor I'm looking at now is a magnatraction postwar motor, not sure what it is out of.  I'll need to clean some steel wool out of it but it should be ok.  I've cut a bunch of material from the between the cylinders to clear the four wheel front truck and I also plan on shortening cylinders lengthwise as well so everything will fit better. You can also see one of the stretched out Pullman cars.  At this point, I've soldered the two halves back together and it came out halfway straight.  The hard part will be the roofs I think. I apologize about the mess on my "workbench".

BTW, those stretched Pullmans are about the same length as a pre/postwar Madison car...They are a great solution to having some JUNK observations though.

So far, no good train parts have been harmed in this conversion project

Dennis, gonna be a good looker when done. I see you swapped out the 2025 mech for a 2064 mech, eh? Magnetraction should help it pull, but I also like the drivers on the 2025's.  Also notice there is a bit of a traffic jam on the High Line

Jim

This is great! I was thinking the same thing, although I want a 2-6-2 Lionel 262. I have a junk frame and shell. I thought I would use the 262 motor but attach a set of dummy wheels from my Williams dummy motor. I haven't found the courage or worked up the ambition to do it yet. First, I would need to check that the motor with the additional drive wheels wouldn't bind on curves. It probably wouldn't run on O36 curves, but I was hoping it would work on O72.

George

George, this might help some but involves making and drilling new sideframes.

Interesting. Seems complicated, and I don't have good metal machining equipment. That book looks fun. There are a couple on Amazon for $125.

I'd rather find a custom one that was already built.

George

Fantastic job Dennis!! I need to start hunting for some junk tin passenger car.....really like the look of those stretched cars.

George S posted:

This is great! I was thinking the same thing, although I want a 2-6-2 Lionel 262. I have a junk frame and shell. I thought I would use the 262 motor but attach a set of dummy wheels from my Williams dummy motor. I haven't found the courage or worked up the ambition to do it yet. First, I would need to check that the motor with the additional drive wheels wouldn't bind on curves. It probably wouldn't run on O36 curves, but I was hoping it would work on O72.

George

George when I did my 4-8-4 I moved the blind drivers to the #2 & #3 spot and it goes around my O27 curves just fine.

Looking great Dennis.

I've been working on the tender trucks the last couple of nights. First try is the one that still has the swivel and the second version is the one with the prewar truck frame screwed directly to the Wathers commonwealth sideframes.  Number two makes the grade.  I like the height.  Width is ok, wheels and axles fit and clear, roll freely.  I think this will work, notice I was able to use tinplate wheels.  The axle spacing is close enough I'll be able to use a normal prewar roller pickup on each truck and set up the articulating coupler in a stock fashion.  It's take several trials and some patience, but it's working out fairly well.

Few more shots of it up on the highline, had to move some stored locos

I'm not sure if the 600 series Pullmans are tall enough, the body shell is about 1/8" shorter than the 613 series cars.  It's hard to get a good visual without the roof on the stretched car, but do you think it will be tall enough to fit in with the loco and tender?  Also, I think I'll tuck the tender trucks in front and rear just a tad.