Office of Steam Forum for Model & Toy Steam Gas & Hot Air Engines

Hello Tommy,

Thanks for sharing the pictures of your 368/3 in the thread. This way, other forum members can get an idea of how my machine will look after the restoration. In the past 3 years I haven't failed to search the internet for pictures of the 368/2. Unfortunately, I cannot use these pictures in the thread because I do not own the rights to the pictures. So your pictures came in handy for me. During my research I noticed that there are obviously too few deviations in production of the 368/2 from the machine shown in Doll's catalog. The base plate, unit base, boiler length and diameter as well as the boiler house length are always the same. Likewise the equipment with fittings. On some machines, however, the chimney attachment at the boiler house is lower, while on others it is the same height as the boiler house. Some boiler houses have 3 holes for the air supply, others only 2 (as shown in the catalogue). The angled oiler on the cylinder is missing on some machines. The base color also seems to vary. Most of the machines are black and nightblue, as is the case with your machine and the one I recently purchased. Some versions (very rare) appear in a much lighter blue, like the machine I bought first. But there are also versions that were painted black-green and slightly marbled. The fine lines always stay the same.  I only have one guess about this. Since the models were produced over a very long period of time, there have been structural deviations over the years. The color deviations should perhaps help to make the individual series interesting for many prospective buyers. But that's pure speculation on my part.