My Brass Adventure

[cnw1961]

I like working on engines, adding detail parts or making an engine look like a specific prototype, but sometimes I am getting tired of working with fragile plastic parts and having to be very careful all the time. I thought that having a well detailed engine that would stand some handling would be nice. That ’s why I had the idea to get a brass engine and to use only metal detail parts that could be soldered on. I started looking for an old road switcher that would be perfect for a modern shortline operation. On howiesbrasstrains.com I found a GP20 made by Samhongsa and imported by Oriental Limited more than 20 years ago. Compared to some other engines I had seen, $135 for a new old stock engine that looked almost like new seemed to be a fair price. Howie was very nice and helpful and within one week the loco landed on my doorstep. When I took it out of the box, I instantly liked it and I was glad that it did not seem to be a wrong decision to get this engine. This is my first brass loco, so I did not really know what to expect.







The next thing was to run it. Well, to say the truth, although Howie had stated that it ran very well, I did not expect too much after all the bad I had read about these old brass engines. I was half expecting that I would have to replace the motor and the trucks with Stewart parts from a F3 I had at hand. Fortunately Howie had almost understated how well it ran ... it would be a shame to replace the drivetrain of this loco. Only problem that I had to overcome before I could install a decoder was that the trucks only picked up power on one side each ... but it did not take me too long to find an easy fix. I justy needed a piece of PC board, a phosphor bronze wire and some CA glue.



Now that I could be sure that the engine would make it through my turnouts (no powered frogs) I could install a decoder. I am using an ESU LokPilot Basic. It is cheap, but it has a superb motor control.



Did the engine run very well on DC, it runs perfectly with DCC (with the right decoder settings for BEMF to make up for the missing flywheels). The performance of the Geep is on par with my Atlas MP15 now, even at very low speeds. Not too bad for such an old lady and definitly not what I had expected. Another thing I like about this engine: it is as heavy as a brick. The perfect engine for switching.

Though my adventure went pretty well up to now, it is far from being over. I want to turn the Geep into PREX #2053: <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=2059998">http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=2059998</a><!-- m -->. So still some filing, cutting and soldering will have to be done. That is fine by me, because I love working with brass.