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Re: Mantua 2-8-2 mikado Ideas
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Karen M Miller
I do agree with the fact of not buying $400 "toys" in the fact that the old Mantuas run great on DCC. Just add a printed circuit board cut out and some wipers. It juns almost better than my Bachmann stuff.
Donovan Miller
From: John Hagen To: yardbirdtrains@... Sent: Fri, November 30, 2012 8:04:39 AM Subject: RE: [yardbirdtrains] Re: Mantua 2-8-2 Mikado Ideas ?
Forgot to mention redoing the rear boiler mounts is necessary to keep the stack properly lined up with the steam pipes to the cylinders. That change along with having to cut, grind and file off any unwanted detail on the Mantua boiler would make using a Cary boiler much easier. ? Of course there are production USRA mikes available today that come highly detailed and have dcc and sound BUT with the situation in China nowadays plus I sure as heck can¡¯t be buying much in the way of $400.00 ¡°toys¡± (as described by ¡°shoe who must be obeyed¡±) the idea of finding and old Mantua drive for under $50 and a Pacific boiler for maybe $20.00 is starting to look a lot more appealing again. And the dang thing will run forever. ? John Hagen ? From: yardbirdtrains@... [mailto:yardbirdtrains@...] On Behalf Of John Hagen ? ? Just for general information the September 1977 issue of Model Railroader has an article by Dean Shepherd on building a USRA Mike using Tyco (Mantua) parts. He used a Pacific boiler on a Mikado drive although he note that since he had built it Don Stromberg had introduced his Cary USRA boiler which Shepherd states ¡°will make the conversion easier.¡± He also chose to keep the Tyco long distance tender calling it a replacement for the original USRA tender on his road. The resulting loco certainly does look USRA-ish enough for the most modelers which would also mean it could be used for many subsequent prototype locos built that were based on the USRA design. ? Kinda funny how things make a circle. Using a Pacific boiler on a Mikado chassis was one way of building a convincing USRA or USRA clone until the Cary shell appeared. Now there are no more Cary shells and Alan is back to using a Pacific boiler. ? John Hagen ? From: yardbirdtrains@... [mailto:yardbirdtrains@...] On Behalf Of Alan Kilby ? ? If boiler mounting holes are in back of frame as I suspect they were originally,making a mount further back than original on mike frame would not require as much work(filing)and make for an easy conversion.I look forward to completing this faze and moving on to detailing,the mechanism and valve gear is completed. ?? Alan ? From: Alan <albyrno@...> ? The boiler I got had been modified already,it looks to me going by file marks that the pad where mounting holes I will be using were filed into boiler(not original?)to fit the mike(shorter?)frame,not having a pacific to compare am not sure.Other than milling out some material from inside of pac boiler to accomodate worm,with high speed dremel cutter it took me less than a minute to do,the rear mount is the only thing you may need to change I'm using a 1/4 x 1/16" brass for mine with screws coming up from bottom into tapped holes in boiler support to mount to frame.I am using these holes that line up with frame perfectly but back of boiler sticks up which is why I cut notches in rear of frame and made new boiler mount plate.I do not like the large space between frame and bottom of boiler on these locos so I also lowered the front saddle by filing down frame where cyl.rests and
removing additional material by cutting/lowering cyl.saddle,if lowering you will need to remove the nubs inside top of boiler,this is not neccesary but is more prototypical height.Its not difficult only drawback your arm may get tired from filing for mount. |