Hi Lucius,lucius Gale wrote:Hello all! I am new here but I just joined because I am considering purchasing the Reeves Hunslet set of drawings and package deal castings. I am looking for information from anyone who has possibly used their castings and also comments about the drawings. I have machine shop experience and own my own home shop including a Grizzly 12" lathe and Charter Oak (very large RF45 type) milling machine and lots of tooling. Would the Reeves castings generate a machine about the size of the one in this thread? I am located in the U.S. and the track that is close to me is 7 1/2 gauge so I would need to build the loco slightly wider than the 7 1/4 gauge the plans are designed and I would appreciate any thoughts on that. Thank you in advance. L.G.
I'm in the US and building (albeit rather more slowly than Fred) a Milner 4" Hunslet, and mine is 7 1/2" gauge as well. The biggest hurdle I found was getting the cylinders machined - in the end I chickened out and had them machined for me, for the cost of a bottle of whiskey
There's quite a lot of useful information on the English 7 1/4 society forum - it's a popular locomotive over there, and Station Road Steam have several examples in their archive with photos showing some of the tough to work out stuff.
Where are you located?