I found a brass kit for a UP 3-Unit Turbine at an estate sale. It has what seems to be all of the parts, wrappers, and castings to complete the kit. The builder would only have to add some brass rods, piping, and angles to detail the kit…and, have a good resistance soldering iron.
It has no drive train, but it does have the side frames.
The instructions were mimeographed and have aged dramatically. It seems that the manufacturer is Scale-Craft/Scalesoft…Scale-something, but I can’t be sure as the lettering is so faded that it could be a recipe for a souffle.
I’d like to know who is the manufacturer and if, A BIG if, possible, a location for instructions, or anything about this kit as nothing has come available during my searches.
The kit appears to be from the 60’s or early 70’s. The cast nose and other parts are clean and well formed.
I thought it might be them, but I found no records of their making any turbines.
BN7150’s post is the closest I’ve seen to what it might be. I mean, I’m super open to thoughts and ideas, so lay-em-on-me.
I have solid experience building ancient metal/brass kits in many scales, so I think I can build it and add decent enough details, but I’d like to have even rudimentary instructions to compare against.
I checked out HOSeeker. I didn’t see anything that big on the Scale-Craft site. I do have the 600HP Switcher and a Pacific that I managed to get to run well. I’m still scrubbing the HOSeeker site to see if there is anything there.
Sorry, the switcher and pacific are from Super Scale…not Scale Craft. Apologies.
At that time, brass models were being imported from Japan in large numbers, so I looked into that. First, here is an advertisement for Balboa Scale Models in the April 1969 issue of MR magazine.
Next is page 49 of the photo book “Art of Brass Vol.1” of Kumata Brass. On the data page, it says “8500HP 3unit Gas Turbine for Alco International Inc. 1979 350, 2nd 1979 123”.
There is a ten-year gap between the advertisement and the shipping records, and the fact that the importers were different is questionable, but we can consider the two together. A more likely speculation is that the Kumata had trouble developing the gear train.
I am concerned about whether the products of the Salt Lake City manufacturer were competitive.
The castings are (for the era) top tier; the wrappers, and details are quality, but basic, even for the time. It’s definitely a craftsman kit. I got my hands on a couple of OMI drives that will work with the kit…having said that, I don’t think the kits were competitive with the RTR brass of the era given the need for some fairly extensive metalwork, and soldering. Not to mention hitting the brass shape-shop and PSC/Kemtron catalogs for the added details and drivetrain parts.
Actually, the thought occurs to me that the kit might be an almost finished RTR model from one of the manufacturers that you finish for bragging rights.
