Kozo Cost

[weibel]

Hey all,

Before I dive too head long into a Kozo locomotive, what would it cost to build a Heisler or a Climax in 7 1/2 inch gauge roughly? No tools required, my club has everything I am sure I will need.
Just looking for a ball park figure.

Thank you in advance

[bluemasaccio]

I have some indirect experience that may be helpful in calculating cost for the Heisler or Climax.  I am working on Kozo's first Shay.  When I started the project 5 years ago, I prepared a detailed materials list as an excel spread sheet.  Each part on a chapter by chapter basis is enumerated with the raw material from with the part was taken.  It's a big spread sheet, about 700 lines and many worksheets.  This allowed me to calculate the total amount of raw materials of each type for the entire model.  I then consulted various online metal vendors to approximate the costs.   At that time the cost of metal for the 3/4" Shay was close to $4000.   Metal costs are based on weight.  Doubling the scale increases the volume by a factor of 8 but since the locomotive is not solid metal, 8 is too large a factor.  A factor of 4 is more realistic based on the amount of plate used in the model, which increases as the square instead the cube.  Hence for a 1 1/2 scale Shay, I'd ball park the materials at $16K.  There are probably ways to reduce this such as switching to a steel boiler or switching to stainless steel plate.  Copper for the boiler is the single most expensive item on the 3/4 shay.  Finally, I am familiar with the Heisler and the Climax but I haven't prepared materials lists for them however I suspect that their cost will be very similar to the Shay.

Tom.

 

[Cabbage Stack]

I don't think a Shay would run 16K in materials cost. Possibly if you had Marty Knox build your boiler, you'd drive up the costs. I have 7" Schedule 40 pipe for my boiler and it's about $350 in materials. Aside from the boiler, I think it may run closer to 2-3K for materials.