Category:Beginners

ChipsAhoy posted on Chaski.org:


 * I visited and eventually joined a group "XXX Live Steamers" And I never had a hint of an idea that I would ever build/operate a Live Steam Loco. I was encouraged to build anything that struck my fancy and was assisted by a longtime member in building a pair of Davenports with gas engines. That put me on the rails where I was able to run with the "Steamers". In a way, I was their equal, I was "in".


 * At the end of a long day, several of us were sitting around the club campfire. I was visiting with a well respected owner of a Steam Loco, a Heisler, in the course of babbling and drooling over the steamers I told him "I could never build one of those, I don't have the time or skill". And he said to me, "Just build one part at a time, make it correctly, make it over and over if you have to, when it is right, set it aside and build the next part...I can't do it for you, but I can help, one day you will have a fine steamer."


 * I currently am knee deep in building my first steamer (first steamer!!). Because of the good attitude of those fellows, there is one more engine being build and hopefully someday being operated.


 * Countless people have stopped by my place, viewed my work in progress and perhaps one or two of those will find an interest. When chatting with the visitors, if they POO POO on their own skills, I try to work the conversation around to what I was told... "Of course you can, just build it one piece at a time. I can help."