Whilst waiting for capacitors to fix the lathe motor (which is now sparkly clean inside, the accumulations of brush dust and the odd bit of swarf thoroughly removed), I decided to get the finger out and finish the chassis for Tony’s Manor which, if your memory for my ramblings extends far enough into the past, you will recall started life as a rather nice scratch built model with coarse scale wheels on the tender and no underpinnings on the loco at all, which he purchased for 75 quid.
I had the chassis laser cut from brass, and assembled it and it sat there, glowering at me, as my attempts to make slide bars did not satisfy. The fretsaw and file approach would have been the final route had not the production manager at work taken pity and machined them on the edge of a bit of steel bar, from which they were finally cut with a disc in a Dremel, and then filed to width.
The cylinders, G brackets and crossheads are all 3DP. The rods & motor are from Bill at Premier Components. Slaters wheels and axleboxes, it’s CSB. The bushes are my usual modification of a Slaters bush, and the crankpin is a very short length of 1.6 NS, threaded 10 BA and screwed into the con rod which I tapped. The visible end was filed down with the pin in the Proxxon as the lathe’s in bits…. It should be a castle nut and split pin. Unfortunately I have had to use brass for the piston rod as I have no 2mm steel or NS, either of which would look nicer.
Anyway, one side done and it seems to turn ok, crosshead is a little bit tight, but that’ll ease with use, or I’ll ease it with a file!
Once the other side is sorted, I can strip the chassis glue on the springs, sandboxes, brake pivots and brake cylinder, get a coat of primer on it and then see if it needs anything else.
atb
Simon
