MODELING WONDERS

By Staff
Published on January 1, 1991
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2835 Camp Rd. Manheim, Pennsylvania 17545.

Back in 1970 the family decided to go on a couple days of
vacation to the seashore. We also decided to go see a gas engine
show enroute. We picked Eastern Shore, Maryland as the show that we
would go to on the way. Having bought our first two gas engines not
long before, we were still seeing lots of different makes and
sizes, all new to us. This Saturday, over 20 years ago, was a day
that sort of changed our lives. At this show we saw one of
Breisch’s Olds gas engine models running. We spent quite a few
hours in the model area of the show that day. Later we got a set of
those castings and it took me almost two years to build it. I had
no machinery at home. Working in a machine shop for 21 years
before, I started to work on it at lunch time and after work. This
took almost two years. We finally got it finished and ready to run.
We got it to run almost right away. This first model engine led to
many others. A fellow modeler, Ed Chick, could not have put it any
better when he said, ‘This hobby of building models is a
disease.’

Over the years we have driven many miles to see a new model, a
model builder, a customer, and shows where you never know what you
might see, old and new. This seems to be the big question, we
wonder where our travels may lead to next, to see a new model, meet
a new model maker, or wonder what we will build next.

At shows a modeler always looks at a big gas engine with a
modeling aspect. Almost three years ago, after about four years of
occasional pattern making, we finished a casting kit for a side
shaft, stove pipe Domestic. This past year, starting after the
Christmas holidays, our youngest son Alan and I started making
patterns for a new model kit. It was an early style Galloway that
was made February 26, 1910. Little did we realize that you could
total over 2,200 hours until you have the patterns and core boxes
and one model butlt and running. Yes, a little over seven months
work. The feeling of satisfaction is pretty great when you hear the
‘song’ sounding almost identical to the sound of the big
engine. Engine pictured is running with about 15 fires a minute, it
has 10.200 inch flywheel.

We wonder who will come up with something new next, and we
wonder who will catch this disease next. Time has a way of slipping
by, but everyone involved seems to be having a wonderful time.

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