To all future brass owners, there are no stupid questions

[malletman]

Since I post and monitor several different forums, I have noticed lots of newbies looking at or for thier first brass engine, or newbies that have bought one and are dissapointed that it wont get around thier curves or runs poorly. There are NO stupid or naive questions on brass. I take immese joy in helping a new modeler aquire his or her first brass engine. There are loads of affordable models at prices not seen since the models were new in the 60's and 70's. As the generation that bought these new back then age and move on to the next stage in life, thier collections are coming up for sale at shows, ebay and estate sales. The price of these models is many times less than the new plastic/diecast stuff on the market today. There are soem real duds in that mix, with poor gear boxes, or requiring huge radius curves to run. If you are a prospective brass owner and have questions that you want to ask, please do. You can ask it here in the open forum, or you can PM me. I also offer brass tune ups to get it running good and can assist in locating models or offering advise on what runs good and what i know doesnt or can with some TLC. How can I assist you with your brass engine? Cheers Mike

 

[Espeefan]

Ditto! There is loads of good stuff out there, and don't pass up the early stuff. Details can be fixed or updated, and most of that early stuff runs like a Cadillac...well maybe a Mercedes now

Once you get started you may find that brass is easier to work on than plastic.

 

[malletman]

Most of the better models can run really good, most with just some simple, well simple to me, TLC. Mike

 

[bnsf971]

Strangely, I just picked up a NIB Alco Models ALCo C628, F/P in SP&S yesterday, for about half what a plastic Stewart C628 goes for. When I took it out of the box and put it on the track, it ran about as well as a Cadillac from that era would run today. A little fiddling, a lot of lubing, and the thing will go around my oval of 24" radius Unitrack, though it slows down a lot on the curves. I know among other things, that huge square open frame motor is going to go away, and be replaced with something a little less power-hungry, like a can motor with some flywheels.
I also noticed several of the body-to-frame mounts have become desoldered and lost, which is alowing the frame to droop at the ends, and contact the truck frames, causing shorts. Not a good thing for a future DCC-equipped locomotive to have. It also sounds like a capuccino machine filled with gravel, though a lot of that noise is lessening after lubing and running. I wonder if it would be more cost-effective to find one of those Stewart Centuries and put the running gear from that under the brass one I now have, or if it would require too much surgery.
While this is far from my first brass engine, it is one of only 3 brass HO engines I have acquired over the years (I usually model in N, but a $60 brass loco was too much to resist), so any advice is appreciated, and has to be wiorth at least what I pay for it (grin).

 

[malletman]

Dont trash can that old open frame motor, I can give it a good home. With some of my treatments, those big square open frames are quite powerfull. I just did an old Hallmark baby trainmaster for one of our club members, I put 8 wheel pickup, tuned and cleaned everything, and put working lights in it. while its more power hungry than a can motor, its very powerfull and adds to the engines overall weight. Its also very smooth running. Yes putting a Stewart chassis would yield a much better running model. But I prefer to leave the drives stock when possible and make them run as smooth as I can. Most of my customers are of the same mindset, once they see how smooth it runs. A can motor will never quiet it down, those motors are normaly pretty quiet, its the tower gears that create all the noise. Typical early brass diesels. I sold or am selling all my diesels and going strictly steam on my layout. Cheers Mike

 

[UP2CSX]

I've only got two pieces of brass left from my original days of model railroading. One is Gem F-9 that was probably the first hybrid. It has a brass body and trucks but an awful Bachmann motor and drive train. I bought it in 1969 for the princely sum of $30. In those days, the Bachmann drive and motor wasn't much worse than some of the Japanese all brass model's mechanicals. By today's standard, of course, it's terrible. The body itself was made in Japan and is still pretty good looking, although the detail doesn't compare with a Genesis or P2K. I've been debating trying the body on an Athearn frame. It measures out the same and even has the side slit to fit an F unit frame. One of those things I've been meaning to do but have never gotten around to.

The other is an Alco P&LE "cabin car" from 1970. It's in perfect shape except the top part of one ladder has become unsoldered. I paid $27 for it because it was the closest match to an NKP caboose at the time. I think it was one of the first brass model that Alco had made in Korea. My plan was to modify a few details and paint it for the NKP. It's still unpainted in the box. I used to have more brass engines but sold them when I got out of the hobby in about 1975. I have no idea why I kept these two pieces for so many years.