A picture is worth a thousand words, but the above really only says one I shouldn’t type…
Canandaigua Southern Railroad (CSRR) 914 was the first model John built. It was built in the late 1930’s while he was a student at Purdue University out of tin and Folger’s coffee cans. Skipping over how this locomotive got to this point (which is an article all on its own…), the locomotive was in very rough shape when it arrived.
The first step was to assess the damage. Most of the damage was to the fireman’s side rear of the locomotive’s superstructure. The four main areas of focus were the fireman’s side of the firebox, the sand dome, the cab, and the frame.
Here are some close ups of the most damaged components. The exterior and interior of the cab were the most damaged. The sand dome was split on one side. The mechanism wasn’t damaged at all, and rolled very smoothly on the bench. The tender had some damage, but most of it was inside where wires were ripped from the decoder.
The trick with locomotives of this vintage is to understand that nothing, and I mean nothing, is screwed down; it’s all soldered. Nothing is one cast piece; it’s multiple small pieces soldered together. You also cannot use excessive heat to “weld” parts together; these are all tin parts. I hadn’t (to this point) worked with tin before, and that was a steep, scary learning curve. These parts will deform or get destroyed by excessive heat. As a beneficiary of resistance soldering and brass parts, I will likely never understand how a 100-Watt soldering gun was used to make this.
The method used to disassemble the engine was using a small butane torch to carefully unsolder the damaged parts. I found it easer and more precise to control the heat with the open flame.
The first area I focused on was the sand dome. I wanted to preserve as much of the original as I could, so I made sure to follow the marks left behind by the break. The first step was to flatten and reshape the sides of the sand dome, then solder it back in place in its proper shape, then place the top back on.
The sand dome was difficult to shape the exact right way. Sometimes you need a special tool to do that. The special tool I used? A wooden Easter egg!
The exterior, interior, and frame of the cab were completely crushed from the fall. The first step was to roll out the sides of the cab itself, as well as the front that attached to the backhead of the boiler. Then I had to match the curvature of the cab to the backhead.
John’s locomotives were designed with lift-off boilers. The superstructure sat on the frame rather than being bolted down to it. The frame was held in place by pins soldered to a hollow tin structure. This was repaired by flattening the pieces and resoldering them. Above right is the finished seating of the cab. The decals were replaced later due to burn damage.
The firebox was the hardest part of the restoration. The exterior had a large crease due to the fall. There was a piece of tin inside which made the side double walled like the bottom of a ship. Taking the Belpaire shape off the end of the cab was not an option since there were too many solder joints to contend with. I made a small incision and used the handle of a file to roll out the crease from the inside without dislocating the exterior detail parts.
Speaking of detail parts, earlier, I mentioned that everything on this model was an individual piece. That includes the compressors and tanks. They were made out of hand-shaped metal pieces and soldered together. I know they weren’t single-cast pieces because the heat from the open flame, while the best method for me, still went to places I didn’t intend. That included unsoldering the air compressors… twice. They were difficult to put back together, and I still have no idea how this was made with just a 100-Watt soldering gun.
After 2 months of work and learning to work with tin, the locomotive was ready to go back on its chassis. The fitting was a success! I turned my attention to the tender.
The tender held the DCC decoder and escaped most of the damage. The only damage, other than a step being knocked off, was the wiring for the decoder getting ripped out. Both were easy to replace. Inside the tender was some evidence of the old Folger’s coffee tin paint, which was really neat to see (I kick myself for not taking a picture of it).
The locomotive was painted, white-walled, and send back to the railroad. The shake-down run revealed the mechanism needed a few alignment tweaks when it was under load, but those were minimal and the engine was back in service on the layout in no time!
