Straightening Bent Detail

[sarge]

Actually, those industrial diesels and tippers were not his hardest sell by any means.

I had one, along with six or seven tippers. They were quite popular with the large scale people, for whom they were intended, and very much ahead of their time being factory battery-powered and such a low-draw mechanism a common Duracell 9v battery lasted for a very long time.

The drive was so ahead of its time, attacking the battery drive problem from the opposite direction, a mechanically and electrically efficient drive. The battery people are still fixated on the battery rather than a lowdraw mechanism such as he pioneered with these models. In that, they were typical Henry; very well made, beyond the state-of-the-art in their time both for fidelity and for engineering, and ever so slightly quirky.

I don't see them for sale on the secondary market from the large scale people very often, and mine were happily traded to a friend in the UK for a very reasonable return, and he was dam glad to score them.

[E7]

In my conversations with Henry prior to his bankruptcy (of which there were several) he told me he was having difficulty selling his inventory of the little diesels. He mentioned he had met some resistance from certain people because the engine was a German prototype. (I guess some folks are still fighting WWII.) If there was/is a market for them out there, he wasn't finding it. He mentioned trying to pitch them to an upscale retailer (might have been Neiman Marcus) with NO success.

As to the quality of the little engines and cars, they were right there with the rest of his stuff (meaning superb) and in one of our conversations, he mentioned he also had a very efficient DC drive for them. They were not really of interest to me personally, but I would have bought one from him, had I even remotely thought it would have kept him from going under.

I always presumed he had a pile of them left, but in all honesty, I couldn't say one way or the other!

Maybe you don't see them on the secondary market because there are not many out there????? I definitely do not know! I knew you had purchased one from your article in OST.

[up148]

As I'm sure most expected, I was able to straighten the ML without any issues, using a combination of ideas presented here. I used a very small (4") adjustable crescent wrench, as the jaws seemed to support (surround) the structure better than anything else I had. Taped the jaws as suggested and just move it back into place gently. Pretty anti-climatic, as I was approaching this like "lightning in a bottle", but it turned out to be very simple.

Thanks go all.

BH

[E7]

Pretty anti-climatic, as I was approaching this like "lightning in a bottle", but it turned out to be very simple.

BH

Butch,

Mayhaps you are too modest, as it still required a "light" touch! Glad it worked out for you!

Rich

[Robert]

It is real nice to know that remarkable locomotive is once again in perfect condition Butch. We often times do get ourselves in a fit over things that ultimately turn out almost insignificant.

Robert

[sarge]

Hooray!

Well done. Much of this sort of thing is merely getting past the intimidation. The gents that taught me brass modelling pretty much told me brass is one of the most forgiving of materials, and almost impossible to screw up permanently unless you are hell bent on screwing it up permanently. You can straighten it, clean off solder and resolder it again, strip bad paint and paint it again; lovely stuff, brass.

As far as how much something costs, it was Tom Harley who told me, "Its only scary to take a torch to a model for as long as it takes for the first bad piece to hit the floor."

[bob turner]

Had to be neat to be friends with Tom. He really wrote nice books.

[up148]

Much of this sort of thing is merely getting past the intimidation.

Absolutely! If this was an unpainted model I wouldn't care, I can handle these types of repairs (and more) and have in the past. It's just I would hate to damage a factory painted model of this caliber since my soldering and painting skills might not be up to the task. But, the encouragement was overwhelming making the task much easier.

Thanks to all.

BH