What parts would you outsource for machining/fabrication?

[LIALLEGHENY]

If you are now building, or have built a Live Steam locomotive or Diesel in the past, what parts would you outsource if you were to do it all over again? Frames, wheels / drivers, cylinders, side rods ??? What items are most desired that are not presently on the market? I ask this question regarding all 1/8 and larger scales. Let's include sought after castings and/or fabricated parts as well.

Nyle

[Dick_Morris]

I've gone the other way. As my skills and machinery have improved I prefer to make more parts myself (other than drive wheels and cylinders, If the proper cylinder design was available) than to buy the castings. Something that I would probably outsource would be to have the frames water jetted.

[Berkman]

depends on the type of equipment and skillset that you have.

outsourcing water jetting of frame and rods, machining of cylinders, drive wheels + tires, and rods is fairly common.

[Bill Shields]

And if your goal is to build or have a loco to run

[cbrew]

Out source all the flat steel parts to the local laser cutter. this includes Rods, frame rails, bracketing, etc.
i have never felt the need to had anything water jet. the laser cut parts have always been great.
If i know the machinist, I will farm out some of the parts that are better suited to CNC. the Saddle comes to mind.
All my passenger cars are laser cut.

[Berkman]

I should have grouped laser cutting with my comment on waterjetting. But agree, will save a ton of time like on your passenger cars.

As Bill mentions, it comes down to time vs spend money on it. If you "want" to make every little piece yourself, then that is the way you build it, so long as you have the tools/ skills to do so. But if you want to get it running and have a bit of cash, why not hire out some of the more critical and heavy machine work like the rods etc.

Also, if you have an 11 inch lathe, and want to turn 10 inch LE hudson drive wheel castings, this is going to take a lot longer vs if you have a 14 or 16 inch lathe as you are right at the limit of your machine.

[Dick_Morris]

As I have said before, for some the enjoyment of hobby is in the journey, for others it is the destination. I get my enjoyment from the journey, i.e., spending time in the shop creating something, not in operating or having something finished and on the shelf, so that colors my thoughts on what to outsource vs. what to do myself.

[tsph6500]

Some people hire a landscaping company, some people buy their trees and flowers at the garden center to plant themselves, and some people grow everything from seeds and clippings.

The same goes for live steam locomotives and hot rods. LOL

[RONALD]

If you are like me, you try to make everything; great fun, but maybe never completable in my lifetime!

I designed and built two homes, and still putting down track for my RR - I'm not lazy!

For 25 years I taught Physics during the day and at night worked for the B&OCT!

It is only a decade or so that I started buying components made by others for some projects.

Below are three photos of yet to be completed projects.

[Berkman]

As Ronald mentions, do you want to spend decades making patterns, castings etc or is your goal more to build a locomotive you can enjoy with family and friends at a track? - this would be the guiding question. Depending what prototype you want to model, I'd try to incorporate as many off the shelf castings as you can. Buying a cylinder block casting for $900-1000 starts to look really good vs spending a year making the patterns + working with a foundry, etc

[Pipescs]

As Ronald mentions, do you want to spend decades making patterns, castings etc or is your goal more to build a locomotive you can enjoy with family and friends at a track?

This really says it all. Are you a builder or a runner? I enjoy the time in the shop more than running.

I have found a happy medium of having purchased a running locomotive to take to the track and a kit bash project to work on in the shop.

There is nothing wrong with just wanting to enjoy running a engine purchased complete.

[RONALD]

So you do not think all my projects are incomplete, here are two that I completed:

This first one is the making of two TT's, one painted black the other brown, the brown one lay in the weeds for a year or two while we got the RR near the spot for it.

The music I used in making that video, is mostly circa 1913 vintage. I did not do the actual posting of the video on U-Tube.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cu7Cou5zVi0


Second, here are photos of a cow & calf ordered from the now defunct Rail System.

As far as scale model is concerned it was junk, I made over 300 lost wax castings to turn it into a TR2 (NW2 Phase5)