Very inspirational! I really enjoy watching your builds progress.

As you can see from the photos I have stretched the tapered boiler on the ten wheelers, and the boilers and frames have been shortened for both Roy and Lilly. I have also moved the air pumps to the other side. I have head lights in work, some will be those removed when the smoke box extension was cut but I’ll use at least one from Bachmann removed during another project to change to a round light. There are three major tasks left on the loco’s,

1. Add the cab roof vent
2. Add a smooth pilot deck
3. headlight and bracket with light

When I get those tasks complete then it will be priming, sanding, and painting and the fun of making and applying the graphics. I also have to find some boiler stanchions for the hand rails and cross head pumps.

As an aside, I was bidding on a spoked front truck for an old AHM Casey Jones 10 wheeler because I'm afraid that the 2 drive wheels may not be enough to pick up power on ROY but I was not watching last night and I was out bid by snipers. The tyco truck will not pick up power. I hope to have the Loco's all assembled enough to try out on the club layout this coming weekend, then I'll be able to debug any problem like that before painting.

Just for your track test, you could put a pair of the tender truck wheelsets in the pilot truck frame. They're the same as the pilot wheels on the Rogers 4-6-0. Also, since you mentioned keeping the die-cast tender weights, you might get, or make, tender trucks which pick up on both rails.

Well, a breif report with out photo's, I track tested all 4 loco's on the club set-up for approx. 50 feet of track and all operated very well. Initially there was a little knocking from Lilly but even that seemed to smooth out with time. Depending on progress I may post some photos Sunday. Have a good weekend all.

Okay, to answer a question here is how the frame and boiler were altered to be Roger or Walter. First I made sure I was using one of the older tyco Rogers 10 wheelers with the brass bearings. Using a razor saw and files I cut a new slot between the two bottom plate screws.



To shorten the side rods I used K&S brass tubes in the bearing locations to set the length I cut them tinned theme with soft solder and then set the length to the same as is between the axles, clamped them with some locking forceps and re-flowed the solder.



The boiler was cut using a razor saw in 3 places, removing the smoke box extension. I also made a vertical cut behind the sand dome and about half way between the dome and the front band. then an XACTO chisel blade was use to cut the section out at the running boards. since the frame length was not changed the boiler must also be the same length to fit.



The section was then cemented in place with the sand dome reversed to be pushed forward. Then a longer taper section was placed over the old taper and the moved boiler section. I worked with a paper pattern until ai had the tapered section right then I cut .030 plastic to glue on.



I have also cut off the air pump and moved it the left side and salvaged the head light and attached it to the smoke box cover.



Well that is a brief summation of the method used to modify the Loco' I'll try to answer any questions.

Here's a couple:

-Did you need to remove the siderod plating where you tinned?

-Are you using the brass headlight brackets to carry the headlight current?

No need to remove the plating, tin or nickel will solder just fine.

NO the brass wires are part of the mounting bracket, the lamp will be inserted though a hole to be drilled in the bottom and the small wires will go through the top of the smoke box cover to a voltage regulator providing 1.5 volts DC

one thing I forgot to mention is that the tapered section was preformed with the heat of the water coming out of the tap around a 1/2 inch tube,. it only got it close but makes cementing easier.

How did you cut the running gear? Did you use a wire clipper?

Yes, I just used a wire cutter, a larger set. I did some filing to improve the smoothness and external appearance.

I haven't put in an update since progess has been slow. With warmer weather comes yard work and less time for model building. The listed tasks from March 2nd are complete, the smooth deck is in place,so are the roof vents and the head lights with brackets. The sanding is going slowly since I'm removing all the cast in water lines and sand lines. I'll take pictures again when I get the colors mixed and first coat on the locos, cabs, and tender bodies.

till then HAPPY RAILS