[modeleng] Re: Another one bites the dust

Since "Investment casting" is such a part of our
modern technology, "why" couldn't the entire line of
Stuart-Turner castings be made by this method and sold
at a price the average modeler can afford?  The price
of good quality cast Iron has not increased that much
in the past 30 years has it?  I mean, I bought my
Stuart V-10 back in about 1973 from Coles' Power
Models for something like $20.00US.  And with modern
CNC machining stations, could not the machined kits be
produced as well?

Al Messer
--- Harry Wade <hww@xxxxxxxx> wrote:
> At 09:22 AM 5/24/05 +0200, you wrote:
> >Do you think there might be a business for the
> Chedder Void once they have
> gone if the kits could be reproduced to the standard
> the Stuart Turner used
> to make saying having the castings made in the far
> east?
> >Does anyone have drawings of thw S.T. kits before
> Chedder produced them? -
> John Burridge
> 
> John,
>      I think a few clarifications are needed before,
> or in, answering your
> question.  Drawings for most old stock Stuart
> engines are plentiful and
> should be easy to find.
>      While they owned the Stuart line Cheddar
> produced the kits almost
> exactly as Stuart had done, in appearance anyway.  A
> significant difference
> was that the castings were sent out (to the low
> bidder one must assume) and
> quickly acquired a reputation of relatively poor
> quality and inconsistency,
> not at all what people had come to expect of Stuart
> castings.  Kit prices
> also took a significant leap.
>      The current owners of Stuart Models have
> improved the quality of
> castings considerably as well as redesigned and
> remade patterns for many of
> the engines, and have completely redone the drawings
> and graphics to
> possibly the highest standard of clarity and quality
> I've vere seen in
> steam model product.  Howsomever, as has been
> pointed out, their prices
> continue to increase.
>      NONE of the current Cheddar steam engines or
> boilers are holdeovers
> from their Stuart Turner days and none of them bear
> more than a generic
> technical resemblance to the Stuart engines.
>      The key to the current Cheddar designs is that
> they have been reduced
> to the simplest mechanism possible consistent with
> sturdiness and good
> operation, made from as few parts as possible, with
> as many as possible
> machined from bar stock or die cast, thus reducing
> the amount of man-hours
> required to produce a working engine.  They bear
> little constructiuonal
> resenblence to Stuart engines which are designed and
> intended to be built
> piece by machined and fitted piece.
>      Based upon what I've seen, aside from
> components which must be
> machined from bar stock (crankshafts for instance),
> in terms of "castings"
> virtually the entire Cheddar range could be reduced
> to die or lost-wax cast
> components, and may very well be now for all I know.
>      Do I think there might be a business to be made
> in the Cheddar void?.
> . . Yes, but not in attempting to replicate the
> Stuart line.  That's being
> done (albeit expensively).   Not in boilers, as
> there are a number of good
> boilermakers and one of them will surely end up with
> the Cheddar forming
> plate library.  IMHO there will be only one real
> void created by the demise
> of Cheddar and that is in the availabilty of good
> reliable components for
> the marine live steam hobby. This would be RTR
> engines, boilers, and
> "package" power plants (integrated boilers and
> engines).  Whether or not
> these could be mfg overseas to a significant
> advantage I don't know.
> 
> 
> Regards,
> Harry Wade
> Nashville  Tennessee
> 
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