Railfan Technology > Building a passnger yard steam plant

My Dad was a mechanical engineer with the New York Central RR.  One of his positions was Superintendent of Steam Plants.  Since all the passenger cars on my HO-gauge model RR all require stesam, I want to have a working steam plant.  Plenty of example buildings available, and making steam substitute is easy as mixtures of glycerin and water will make thick steam when heated at the correct temperature.  I have been experimenting with MCH heaters of the type shown in the image.  They work ast 12 vdc, but take 5 to 8 amps.  So that means connecting the 26-gauge leads to 14- or 16-gauge wire from my 10 amp power supply.  Some ceramic MCH heaters use tiny crimps to connect the 28-gauge wire to 16 stranded.  However, no one seems to know where to get these in USA.  I would really like to find an electronics shop that can build the entire system for me.  If a shop can do this, I have other work lined up I need to build experimental systems for clients of my scientific consulting business.

Thank you for reading,

John

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Take a look at these...

https://www.dxengineering.com/parts/dxe-hsib-pack3#overview 

and watch the video at that location.  The example they show is two equal size stranded wires, but I'm sure you could just stuff a lead on your heater into stranded wire.  

They also sell very flexible stranded wire, but you might be able to find something as flexible sold as speaker wire at a local shop.  The stranded AC power wire at Home Depot won't be nearly as flexible.

https://www.dxengineering.com/search?N=part-type%3Awire&SortBy=BestKeywordMatch&SortOrder=Ascending&keyword=dc%20wire

I buy lots of ham radio stuff from DX Engineering, but I have no financial interest in the company.  They ship very quickly.