Well as railroad-guy mentioned, there has been a darth of posts and activity on this side of the forum. I'm hoping everyone is too busy enjoying the summer or staying indoors and working on the railroad because of the heat.

For me lately its been too hot to have outdoor fun and my latest construction projects are done, so I began working in the K4 again.

Remember this?


Its on again and off again, if I do work on it I usually spend a minimum of 10 hours on it. I am finally done with re-powering and refitting the chassis for a ball bearing 9234 pittman motor. I also finished soldering loose, broken and lost parts. I also fully rounded the boiler as much as I could before the gearbox.
Once all the mechanical was done I used citrustrip (left over from my construction project) to clean off the clear coat. That stuff works wonders to get you to bare shiny brass. The K4 is now off to the painters. It is taken apart stripped down to the bare journals. I am using Weavers scalecoat, loco black, brunswick green, tuscan red and metallic smokebox grey. After painting it is put in the oven at 175° F for 2 hours to cook. The results are a nice hard paint shell. Here are photos of what are done so far.

I took my calipers out and measured the pilot wheels 33" shame on PSC! I replaced them with 36" PSC wheels.


Not sure about the side rods yet, maybe a light coat of grime and dull coat, its tooo shiny. What's cool is that the main drive axles are running with ball bearings inside the bronze journals so I can really load this one up with lead balls in the boiler and balance the weight over the center of the main driver.


Journal separately panted and now lubed for action.


The full mechanism, quiet, smooth and powerful. Oh... The motor is screwed into the ash pan but I also lined the entire pan with clear silicone calking to act as both an adhesive and absorb what little motor vibration there is.


Still missing lots of parts, like steps, running gear but this is just to show what the boiler looks like. Now to figure out what to do with the headlight.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: pitogo,

Hey Mike,
Where you puttin' that Tuscan Red on the K4? The Keystone should be Toluidine Red and the cab roof and maybe tender deck Oxide Red.

Joe G.

That is a pretty neat project you have. Thanks for showing it.

quote:

Originally posted by pitogo:
Well as railroad-guy mentioned, there has been a darth of posts and activity on this side of the forum. I'm hoping everyone is too busy enjoying the summer or staying indoors and working on the railroad because of the heat.

That may be true. With my wife out of town and the lawn not growing, I got to spend about 20 hours on the railroad this weekend. I've been wrapping up wiring the layout, installing DCC decoders, and my big project now is overhead lighting. I wired 10 of 70 lighting fixtures this weekend. Unfortunately these projects are not interesting compared to what you have going on there.

Pitogo, very nice work. Great job. I did not know PSC used ball bearings on the K4 axles, neat. Ed

Hi Joe,

The Keystone, cab roof, cab window frames and tender deck oh OK Oxide red it is then. I also have to get cab interior green and white.

quote:

Originally posted by O_Mag_Publisher:
Hey Mike,
Where you puttin' that Tuscan Red on the K4? The Keystone should be Toluidine Red and the cab roof and maybe tender deck Oxide Red.

Joe G.

So are you gonna attempt the automatic reverser mechanism as shown in the latest issue from O mag Publisher?

Tom Mix's work is insane. I don't have that skill.

quote:

Originally posted by prrhorseshoecurve:
So are you gonna attempt the automatic reverser mechanism as shown in the latest issue from O mag Publisher?

Regarding Tom Mix... He is one of the most talented modelers I've come across in a long time. He is totally self-taught, as is, BTW, Joe Foehrkolb, We can at least aspire to the same level of skill as those two. The only way to get there is to keep doing projects.

In the 1950s Mel Thornburgh wrote a series of scratchbuilding articles in MR and he didn't use *any* power tools. Those articles were my inspiration. Tom continues to inspire all of us.

If you don't try, you'll never know what you can accomplish. Your K4 is looking great!

Joe G.

Tom Mix is an artist whose medium just happens to be brass model trains. He is definitely an inspiration although the level of his talents and ablilities is way above mine. But, that is what makes him an inspiration. Even when it comes to artistic and mechanical abilities he is an artists, artist.

We have a handful of artistic individuals in our gauge...Lou Bartig comes to mind as well as a few others. They will settle for nothing less than perfection.

Nice job Mike! You always jump right in and take care of business and your K-4 reflects this attribute.


Butch

Great close up photos! what camera did u use? i need to get a better
digital camera for close ups.