I have decided to take a bit of a break from the layout. It was getting a bit frustrating and I wasnt doing as good a job with it as I could, that plus the fact I had to remind myself that its a hobby after all and it should be enjoyable!
Refreshed with this in my head I have turned once again to my favorite side of the hobby which is designing and building engines. The latest one on my workbench right now is a little 0-4-0 Peckett saddle tank engine...
After a very useful advice from someone with regards to Shapeways and the way to send files I resubmitted the body once again for printing and the finished body this time was much, much better with it needing only a little bit of cleaning up which I will move onto once the chassis is finished.
There is still work to do on the chassis but the photos show my progress to date. The chassis is built by soldering each etched Nickel Silver sideframe onto some 0.3mm thick PCB and then filing out the shape through the etched bit to keep the profile. Both sideframe sandwiches are then soldered onto some solid 1/4" square Brass bar with gaps added for the gearbox, and then filed to suit the sideframes. The gearbox is one of my 138:1 ratio designs I did a while ago. This makes into a very rigid and strong chassis for its size, it also adds valuable weight too.
The wheels are 6mm Driving wheels using 2mm Association turned wheel rims onto 3D printed centers. The rest of the bits come from an etch I designed.
Its comming together quite well, its runs really quiet and slowly which has made me very happy! Dont forget too that the engine is just 40mm long bufferbeam to bufferbeam...
Julia :)
