RReid
Member
I'm a new forum member, but I thought I'd post a few pics my first crack at building a small live steam locomotive. This was completed about a year ago. I worked from Mr. Dave Watkin's plans for his Wild Rose III. The drawings may be found here: Locomotives - Association of 16mm Narrow Gauge Modellers
The original design is for a 2 foot narrow gauge British quarry loco in 16mm/ft scale. I built the running and steaming gear mostly per the drawings, with only a few minor changes to use imperial measurement materials when convenient to do so. Otherwise converting metric dimensions to inch decimals for machining is no more of a problem than converting fractions to decimals. I found the drawings to be clear, correct, and complete, and with enough build notes to be helpful.
Where I deviated is in the visual appearance. I built the cab, tank, details, etc. to 3/8" scale (1:32) and to look similar to the early logging tank locomotives built by Baldwin and others. Of course, I don't know of any of those having an outside frame, but it was a time of experimentation and home brew in the woods, so someone might have! At that scale, 32mm (O gauge) track corresponds to a full size gauge of 3ft 4in.
The original design is for a 2 foot narrow gauge British quarry loco in 16mm/ft scale. I built the running and steaming gear mostly per the drawings, with only a few minor changes to use imperial measurement materials when convenient to do so. Otherwise converting metric dimensions to inch decimals for machining is no more of a problem than converting fractions to decimals. I found the drawings to be clear, correct, and complete, and with enough build notes to be helpful.
Where I deviated is in the visual appearance. I built the cab, tank, details, etc. to 3/8" scale (1:32) and to look similar to the early logging tank locomotives built by Baldwin and others. Of course, I don't know of any of those having an outside frame, but it was a time of experimentation and home brew in the woods, so someone might have! At that scale, 32mm (O gauge) track corresponds to a full size gauge of 3ft 4in.
