K4

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aww
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Re: K4

Postby aww » Mon Aug 24, 2015 8:21 am

Bob

The decals were regular old Microscale. I cast the frame for it, aluminum, before I figured out how to do bronze, also the truck sideframes as the Scalecraft were brittle and weak. I think I sent you the original tender.

Allan

CA
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R.K. Maroon
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Re: K4

Postby R.K. Maroon » Tue Jul 11, 2017 10:04 pm

I am bumping this one as Joe F. now owns this locomotive. There are at least four people who have had their fingerprints on this one: the original builder (unknown), Allan Wehrle (cast the tender frame and truck sideframes), Joe (insulated the drivers), and Bob T (built the tender wrapper). The model went to Joe last year, per Allan's wishes that it find a good home. The model was missing its valve gear, but luckily, I was able to find them in Allan's basement during the basement clean out in April. Joe brought the now-running loco to the National last month -- Glad to see it together and running.

Jim
Slow progress is better than no progress

rrjjf
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Re: K4

Postby rrjjf » Wed Jul 12, 2017 8:21 am

Jim,

I am awaiting a few small parts from PSC to detail this model. In the meantime I am assembling some CLW F Units. I picked up an A-A set of CLW F-3 kits at the Enfield Convention. I just completed the assembly of 7 pair of Blomberg trucks. Jay Criswell supplied a few missing parts, truck swing hanger castings, and all is well. This may be the summer of the F Units as I also have a CLW A-B-A F-7 in kit form that have been sitting around to long in boxes. I hope to start assembling the frames this week.

it was great to see you and others in Enfield. I enjoyed your talk on O Scale History. In the past year, primarily because of you, I have started paying more attention to older O scale locos produced in the USA. Next show is Strasburg in August and it looks like I will be going to Indy this year in September and Cleveland in November.

My friend who owns a hobby shop here in Maryland had a customer who brought in what I believe is an incomplete Alexander K-4. He found it in an estate with a lot of old HO equipment. It has a cast boiler and firebox, a sheet brass cab and sheet brass tender with no rivets. Tender trucks appear to be Lobaugh Keisel tender trucks. Drivers are cast iron and appear to be insulated for two rail but insulated on the right side of the loco which is not the normal recommended configuration. Motor is in the tender with no apparent was to put a drive shaft into the loco.

I two railed one of these for a friend several years ago and mounted a long narrow Pittman open frame motor in the boiler and it ran just fine. The thickness of the casting at the firebox precluded installing most available motors.

From my description do you think it is an Alexander Model?

Joe
Joe Foehrkolb

bob turner
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Re: K4

Postby bob turner » Wed Jul 12, 2017 11:29 am

Cast boiler sounds like Ed's work. Check the frame - two piece, I think, sand-cast with integral springs, links, and equalizers. Those little pads for the trailing truck are also integral.

Ed's drivers were "nickelene" and quite lacy.

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ScaleCraft
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Re: K4

Postby ScaleCraft » Wed Jul 12, 2017 2:58 pm

rrjjf wrote:Jim,


My friend who owns a hobby shop here in Maryland had a customer who brought in what I believe is an incomplete Alexander K-4. He found it in an estate with a lot of old HO equipment. It has a cast boiler and firebox, a sheet brass cab and sheet brass tender with no rivets. Tender trucks appear to be Lobaugh Keisel tender trucks. Drivers are cast iron and appear to be insulated for two rail but insulated on the right side of the loco which is not the normal recommended configuration. Motor is in the tender with no apparent was to put a drive shaft into the loco.



From my description do you think it is an Alexander Model?

Joe


Maybe. Maybe naught. What was the "convention" when the kit was sold? This in the nmra have changed...you may have noticed couplers on older equipment aren't the same height as newer, for one.
Another thing (and I have done it) is if you use old Monarch, Scale Models, or whatever couplers, and eschew plastic coupler boxes, you will find double heading gives you a direct short through the couplers.
Reversing insulation on loco to match opposing tender makes them the same polarity, and no shorts.
Just a thought.
Dave....collector, restorer, and operator of the finest doorstops

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R.K. Maroon
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Re: K4

Postby R.K. Maroon » Wed Jul 12, 2017 3:37 pm

Joe -- The K4 is listed in the Alexander 1937 catalog. Here are the two pages. Note in the second paragraph on the first page that the boiler is cast bronze. Also note Nickelene drivers (as Bob says) and a tender drive:

Image

Image

I have not seen one of these, but I would think it would be one cool locomotive. And I'm not even much of a Pennsy fan!

Jim
Slow progress is better than no progress

Carey Williams
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Re: K4

Postby Carey Williams » Wed Jul 12, 2017 3:47 pm

Hello K4 fans

I'm new kid on block so just learning, some observations from catalogs and models seen ...

Nice Scale Craft K4 it appears Scale Craft ( per their catalogs) changed the drive train between the 1934 and 1937 window.... as the 1937 catalog refers to Old style ... they did the same with Hudson ... early seems to have more rounded holes in the frame where as the later "improved" model more squared off . I assume there were other differences made during the years of producing the kits/ engines .

Alexander as we saw in the cast sides thread ... was a man of change ..."improvements". Catalog #4 speaks of only built up pieces only , Catalog # 5 mentions built up and some castings , Catalog #10 now cast frames and boilers and cabs ...so there are a wide number of variables based on the age of the piece ...the 1930's was an era of rapid growth , innovation , change , and improvements as the emerging cottage based hobby was pushed to main stream by the growing number of modelers, the rapid expansion of group club layouts, and by the high paying public demonstrations sponsored many times by the railroads to positively promote railroading in general . This exponentiation growth of the niche scale fringe was a wake up call to the tin-plate giants which saw the handwriting on the wall to catch up , move ahead or be left behind. Ed Alexander was able to ride the wave to the top, and most instrumental in creating the wave during the prewar period in the model train world.

Below the 5th Alexander catalog with engine specs .....then the 10th Alexander catalog with the cast frames and mention of cast boilers etc

Photos of my Alexander K4 ( it was sold to me as an Alexander it does have marked tender trucks ...and engine fits the "early" Alexander period of construction"

Last photo 3 K 4's the Alexander between the Mi-Loco (L) and Scale Craft ( R) ..look how cute 1/4 scale is compared to 17/64ths ..

Yes I posted too many photos .. I can delete them a few days to conserve space .

Jim glad to hear your talk was well received ... was it able to be captured digitally for posting ?

Cheers Carey




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R.K. Maroon
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Re: K4

Postby R.K. Maroon » Thu Jul 13, 2017 12:06 pm

Thanks for posting the photos of the Alexander K4, Carey. As I said, I have not seen one of these before that I know of, but I don't seek them out either. As I mention in my talk about early O-scale history, I decided early on to not actively seek PRR locomotives. I did this as one way to limit my interests. I figured since everybody and their brother offered PRR locomotives (at least twenty five offered in catalogs before the war), I could free money, space, and time for other projects if I avoided them (or, to say it another way, one could go broke just acquiring PRR locomotives). I feel the same way about the NYC Hudson. Great models and interesting prototypes all, but when everybody else is doing it no reason for me to do it too.

And thanks to Joe for the kind words on the history talk. Cary, I did not try to record the talk, as I didn't have a good way to get a decent audio-visual setup (as mentioned the last time this subject came up). Also, I have found that post-production (breaking it into segments and getting it on YouTube) takes a lot of time. I have posted a couple of dozen videos over the last few years but I still have lots of unpublished video in the archives. So easy to take, so hard (by comparison) to edit and post.

I have posted links to my videos as I post them, but if anybody is interested a list can be found here:
https://www.youtube.com/user/ParadocsMusic/videos?sort=dd&shelf_id=0&view=0.
Some are more interesting than others, some are better done than others, etc.

Jim
Slow progress is better than no progress

Carey Williams
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Re: K4

Postby Carey Williams » Sat Jul 15, 2017 11:39 am

Hello Jim

thank you for the link to your video library ...some fun footage of vintage in motion . Nice GG1 snaking through the switches .

Perhaps at one of the up coming O scale shows you'll do an encore performance of your early "O" scale talk ? I'm sure it would be a sell out SRO ..

25 prewar K 4's .... oh my that would be quite a lash up . One must practice restrain for fear of amassing a collection the size of Jim Seacrest.

Cheers Carey

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R.K. Maroon
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Re: K4

Postby R.K. Maroon » Thu Nov 15, 2018 2:32 pm

I am bumping this post to remind myself to post some photos once the board limit is cleared
Slow progress is better than no progress

bob turner
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Re: K4

Postby bob turner » Thu Nov 15, 2018 2:43 pm

Don’t tempt me. I will go find the K4 thread?

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R.K. Maroon
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Re: K4

Postby R.K. Maroon » Fri Nov 08, 2019 1:34 pm

I wandered onto this thread while looking for the Machine Shop post. I remembered that I had a couple of photos I wanted to post. The thread here was started by the late Allan Wehrle. He had acquired a ScaleCraft K4 Pacific as a project. He sent the chassis to Joe Foehrkolb for upgrade (See first page of this thread). Joe returned it but Allan became ill before he finished the restoration. Allan asked me before he passed to send his favorite models to some of our mutual friends in the hobby. The K4 came to me this way from Allan's basement:

Image

Allan did not specific who was to receive which models, but with Joe on the East Coast I figured he would be a good choice to get the K4. What a surprise after he received it for Joe to inform me, "Hey, I think I worked on this model before" -- I clearly had forgotten this thread. But it seemed just right that Joe should have it. He got it all spiffed up and I featured this photo of it in one of my OST columns on ScaleCraft:

Image

Dang nice model, given it was designed in 1934 (opinion). Though mentioned earlier in this post, I want to mention again that Allan cast the tender frame and truck sideframes, and that Bob Turner provided the tender brass wrapper:

Image

The quality of this work is above my current pay-grade.

Jim
Slow progress is better than no progress

bob turner
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Re: K4

Postby bob turner » Fri Nov 08, 2019 2:13 pm

I aspire to being able to paint stripes that good! Thanks for waking up these threads.

bob turner
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Re: K4

Postby bob turner » Fri Nov 08, 2019 2:18 pm

By the way, check out the sand dome. It is held by a 2-56 screw. You loosen that and insert an .020 brass doily, appropriately shaped. Takes ten minutes, and gives a proper flange between boiler and dome. A little filing on the rear dome doesn't hurt. And note the very well done smokebox wrapper!

Carey Williams
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Re: K4

Postby Carey Williams » Sat Nov 09, 2019 2:32 pm

Hello all ..nice job on the K4 ....York is a wonderful event about 9000 guests filling many huge halls stuffed with hundreds of tables piled high with trains .....now if you walk all the halls and gather up every piece of O scale ..it would fit on one 6' table .... so it's all about the hunt .

This year an Alexander K4 surfaced ...found 20 years ago + - ...about 10 miles from Ed Alexander's barn . It's going to need some love ... tender drive , outside 3rd rail ...this puppy is early ..unique 2 piece cast frame . I was a very happy camper finding it ... no not cast boiler ..

Cheers Carey


I could not post any photos here ...so please see link if you wish to see images

https://ogrforum.ogaugerr.com/topic/ale ... -from-york


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