Headlight placement

[dontex2]

Do you make a New York Central  Ten Wheeler with the headlght in the center of the boiler?  No NYC steam loco had the headlight on top of the boiler.  I worked for them and the Putnam Div. was my hobby and no engine had anything but a central headlight  TKS desco2

[jonathan]

Dontex,

I don't know the mind of our host, but I suspect in order to manufacture affordable, quality locomotives, one must pick a general prototype and run with it.  If they had to make each and every model correct, brass would be more affordable than a Spectrum Steamer.

I have the opposite problem.  The B&O put almost all their headlights high on the smokebox.  Fortunately, it's not tremendously difficult to pull off these little parts and move them where you want them.

I notice in the parts diagrams that the ten-wheeler headlights are separately applied parts and not cast on.  Perhaps a little kitbashing is in your future.  It's a little nerve racking at first, but now I look at every model, planning on how I'm going to modify it to match my prototype of choice.  Join in the fun...

Regards,

Jonathan

[RAM]

I have noticed during my life time many words changing their meaning. It looks like kitbashing may be another word that is making this change.  When the word first was used it meant taking two or more kits to come up with something different.  I think the first example that I saw was that of taking the MDC Santa Fe 4-4-2 boiler and installing it on the frame of the MDC 2-8-0. I would use modify instead of kitbashing.

[jonathan]

I am sure you're right, RAM.  As I have only been at this for a few years, I have gotten use to refering to any kind of model changing work as "kitbashing".  Your definition makes more sense.

At the same time, "modifying" doesn't seem strong enough to describe the work involved changing a RTR locomotive into something more prototypical (now there's a 50-cent word).

Perhaps that's why kitbashing is becoming a more used term.

Regards,

Jonathan

[glennk28]

Don't know why not--they did it on the HO Russian Decapods--at least with the unlettered ones.

gj

[Jim Banner]

Like RAM, I've noticed a slow morphing of the term "kitbashing."  As used today, anything that is more than out of the box, ready to run but less than fully scratch built, is kit bashed.  As I originally understood the term, it was cutting up a kit and putting it together in ways the manufacturer never dreamed of.  Commingling two or more kits, I seem to remember, was referred to as "cross kitting."  Then again, these may have been local terms and usages.  Before the internet, many terms not found in dictionaries were used differently in different places.  Today, the meanings of such terms tend to be tacitly agreed upon around the world, and quickly so to boot.

Another term that would apply to what jonathan is suggesting  dontex2 do is "model bashing," based I suppose on the fact that no kit is involved.  But I will accept kitbashing, kit or no kit.  After all, there is no ham in hamburgers, but we still enjoy eating them.

Jim

[Keusink]

Jim
Stop eating hamburgers. They are bad for your arteries, and I am not done picking your brain for advice.

Chris

[ebtnut]

We've used a lot of colloquialisms in the hobby that mean pretty much the same thing - kit-bashing, kit mingling, cross-kitting, re-detailing, etc.  I wouldn't get too hung up on terminology.  The prototype roads did a fair amount of bashing themselves.  The Santa Fe turned some 2-10-10-2's into decapods.  The B&O stole the boilers from a couple of Class S 2-10-2's to build a couple of 4-8-2's, then put new boilers on the frames to make a pair of 0-10-0 switchers.  The Pennsy plunked a couple of I-1 decapod boilers on K-4 mechs to make the K-5 "super" Pacifics.  A lot of roads did a fair amount of tender swapping over the years too. 

[RAM]

I think you will find that the Santa Fe turned some 2-10-10-2's into 2-10-2s and not decapods.  Also when Santa locomotives were built, that had a plate on the back of the tender that had the locomotive number.  If you have a Santa Fe locomotive in your park, you can check that number to see what locomotive it had when built.  The SP did not put the locomotive number on the tenders.  That way if the tender need repairs they would take the tender off of a locomotive in the shop and get the other locomotive back in service.  No need to repaint.

[Doneldon]

ebt and RAM-

Actually, the Santa Fe built ten 2-10-10-2s out of, I think, decapods, but found that they couldn't steam enough to be as powerful as they had hoped. (I don't know why no one did the engineering before setting torch to locomotive.) Subsequently, they converted the articulateds into two 2-10-2 Santa Fes each. These were the Class 3000 and 3010 Santa Fes which were the big ones on the pike.
                                                                                                                                        -- D