Heather Kay
Western Thunderer
Slow but steady progress on the bench. While waiting for the missing castings I pressed on and installed the brake shoes and basic rigging to the two E3s and the E7. The latter has an issue where the rigging interferes with the vac cylinder, so I'm pondering a sneaky adjustment there. Incidentally, I'm still pondering on a method of preventing electrical shorts if the wheels contact the underframe.
Here's one of the E3s, with the suspension clutter and step boards installed. I had a comment on Facerag about the nice blue roof! Working out the clerestories is next on my agenda once the underframe bits are done and dusted.
The E7 has brake gear now. Isn't it funny and b****y annoying that you often only work out the simplest and best method to fit something on the last one you do. The brake shoes/hangers have to literally hang from the pseudo bogies. The etched parts in the kit are of variable length, design for the original suspension system. As I'm bodging them to fit a different setup, I tried a couple of methods of extending them, bending them, and so on, and eventually hit on the best method as the last pair of bogies were on the bench. Oh well. I'll know next time.
Happily, the castings that were missing arrived today, so that's my next job. Lots of drilling holes, fitting 'ooks, and assembling things on underframes. Before I do that, though, about that vac cylinder that's getting clobbered by the bogie swing...
Here's one of the E3s, with the suspension clutter and step boards installed. I had a comment on Facerag about the nice blue roof! Working out the clerestories is next on my agenda once the underframe bits are done and dusted.
The E7 has brake gear now. Isn't it funny and b****y annoying that you often only work out the simplest and best method to fit something on the last one you do. The brake shoes/hangers have to literally hang from the pseudo bogies. The etched parts in the kit are of variable length, design for the original suspension system. As I'm bodging them to fit a different setup, I tried a couple of methods of extending them, bending them, and so on, and eventually hit on the best method as the last pair of bogies were on the bench. Oh well. I'll know next time.
Happily, the castings that were missing arrived today, so that's my next job. Lots of drilling holes, fitting 'ooks, and assembling things on underframes. Before I do that, though, about that vac cylinder that's getting clobbered by the bogie swing...