I know several years back MR published a series of articles on how to scratchbuild a brass locomotive. I am in the planning stages of building an HO L&NE decapod and could not find a good starting point - so I’ve decided to investigate building the boiler and cab from brass and setting this on a Bowser 2-10-0 mechanism.
My question is, in addition to the MR article, what are the additional sources for beginners who want to scratchbuild brass locomotives? Books? Articles? Websites? All sources welcome!
The most recent MR article was on building, I think, a New York Central 4-6-0.
Before that Gordon Odegard had a series on building a B&O 2-8-2. I think that series was the most complete and would help you the most. Sorry do not have the dates at hand but the index should have them
Prior to that there was a series on building a C&NW 4-6-0. That was I think in the 60s.
Dave Nelson
RMC also had a series in the 80’s on scratchbuilding a NYC 2-8-2. I have all of that series and have found it to be quite useful. The MR articles by Gordon Odegard were from January to November 1983. The RMC series on the 2-8-2 was April through June 1980 (I was thinking it was longer), then there is another series on a 4-6-0 from October 1980 to January 1981. There is a lot of good information in these articles.
Along with sources, I would think you may need a lot of talent to take on a very intricate part of model railroading, this would be no easy task, I assume you have many tools , skills in almost every phase of metallurgy, welding, soldering, bending, molding,etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. This must be an enormous challenge, I can only wish you the best of luck and I certainly admire your quest.