Heather Kay
Western Thunderer
I ought to thank Percy Veerance for helping me beat the misgogs and the motion, and Best Beloved for ably assisting by pushing things while I held the camera!
it looks to me as if your pony truck is tilted fowards
If you shorten the top strut so that it meets the lower one where it should then that will tilt the main structure backward and retain the current pivot location.
That would seem logical. Having had a discussion with someone more clued up than me, I have, however, taken a slightly different tack.
Simply packing the pivot to get the bottom strut nearer horizontal proved a near miss. The issue was there would be a fairly intrusive bolt and nuts fairly visible from low angles. I trimmed out the etched parts with a view to seeing if an amalgam of the etched struts and cast front might work. It wouldn’t, sadly, as the etch design doesn’t work like the cast parts.
However, it did make me wonder. What if the bottom strut casting was adjusted with bends to mimic the etched parts?
View attachment 94312
Forgive the humongous bolt. This will, of course, be trimmed back, and I might as well file down the nut as well. My shonky soldering let the V-struts fall off so I could work at them more easily. I formed a bend on the bottom struts, as you see, which shortened them slightly. The top V-strut now sits a bit further aft, misaligning the cast bolt detail. I can live with that, as like the vertical stiffeners, which are no longer touching the upper struts, this will be lost behind the cylinders in due course. The pony itself now sits pretty much horizontally. I think I’m happy with this. I shall now see what needs to be done with the rear pony.
your previous posts show a 'pivot' to secure the pony truck with Ozyo commenting on having to shift the point of contact did this not work?
Some excellent work there Heather, amazing challenges you have to contend with working in S7. I suspect all these tolerance issues would stump the majority of modellers, possibly why so many stay with bog standard O Gauge. Carry on the great work.