Reeves casting question

[Underpressure]

Hi, first off, Happy New Year to you all.

I'm new to the forum and so I though I'd jump straight in with a question.

Some while ago I acquired a Trojan steam engine (ET Westbury design). It is pretty poorly made, although parts like the cylinder and piston are machined to a high standard, so I can only guess two people had a hand in it's original build up. By way of an exercise after a fair lay off machining / modeling, I would like to restore the engine to working condition.

I know Reeves (AJ Reeves as was) sell castings and I also know that they have / had a good reputation for producing good quality casting from the right material. But before I consider placing an order I would like to know if this is still the case.

So, has anyone bought castings from Reeves recently? Were they OK?

Thanks.

Neil

 

[don-tucker]

Hi.I have bought a flywheel for my Minie traction engine from them,in Cast iron,it machined up well but was not the quality of Stuart.Hope this helps.
Don

 

[Underpressure]

Thanks Don, that is helpful.

I have heard of casting from respected suppliers 'not being what they once were' and did not want to end up in that situation.

Neil

 

[Maryak]

Neil,

Welcome to our forum. wEc1

Best Regards
Bob

 

[Blogwitch]

Neil,

I had a friend purchase a rather expensive flywheel casting from Reeves and it was abysmal, in fact I would have been ashamed to see it on a model of mine. A member off here has also had a run in with some of their newer castings, for a loco, and he found them bad as well, so he went down the bar stock route to get himself a quality product, it ended up being a lot cheaper as well.

With it being an old model, you might be lucky and get some old castings, which should be fine, but if it is modern day stuff they have in stock, you could be in for disappointment.

I think this is all to do with the old large commercial foundries closing down, and retailers are having to use a 'backstreet' foundry to get their jobs done, and it seems quality control isn't there any more. As long as it looks something like what it should do, it passes inspection, both at the foundry and retailer.


Blogs

 

[Underpressure]

Bob, thanks for the welcome.

Blogs, what you describe is exactly what I want to avoid. I think I may risk buying just a couple of castings that I need, rather than the whole set.

Neil

 

[Mainer]

I've got the castings for ETW's "Unicorn." They were purchased several years ago though, so may not be relevant. I've found the castings to be good enough to be usable. They could be better, but generally speaking they've been okay. Machining allowance has alternated between being just barely enough on some and gobs of extra on others.

 

[Underpressure]

Thanks for that, I'm still undecided.

Neil