Heather Kay
Western Thunderer
On their wheels at last!
The tie bars are simply wire poked through holes drilled in the axleguards. The guards, being cast, are immensely thick and over scale, but that’s an advantage here. Parts, again, were missing, such as the inner axleguard thingies. I happened to have some spares from a previous build. i doubt they’ll be noticeable under normal circumstances. Several of the brake hanger lugs decided to break. Happily, most were on the bolster side and won’t be expected to handle any brakes. Some deft low-melt soldering repaired them - but I expect they’ll ping off again before I’m done.
Until the frames are painted the axle keepers remain unfitted. Here’s the selection of plastic brake shoes, with four adapted as a test. I’ll leave them off the frames as long as possible, due to fragility, or in hopes something better might turn up.
Anyway, that’s enough bogies for the C31. Attention should return to the underframe construction and figuring out how to fit the bodies to the floor.
EDIT: I forgot to say I’m also going to be scratch-building step boards. They need to be formed from brass strip. I’m building up to digging out the machine tools to convert some brass channel into the right shape.
The tie bars are simply wire poked through holes drilled in the axleguards. The guards, being cast, are immensely thick and over scale, but that’s an advantage here. Parts, again, were missing, such as the inner axleguard thingies. I happened to have some spares from a previous build. i doubt they’ll be noticeable under normal circumstances. Several of the brake hanger lugs decided to break. Happily, most were on the bolster side and won’t be expected to handle any brakes. Some deft low-melt soldering repaired them - but I expect they’ll ping off again before I’m done.
Until the frames are painted the axle keepers remain unfitted. Here’s the selection of plastic brake shoes, with four adapted as a test. I’ll leave them off the frames as long as possible, due to fragility, or in hopes something better might turn up.
Anyway, that’s enough bogies for the C31. Attention should return to the underframe construction and figuring out how to fit the bodies to the floor.
EDIT: I forgot to say I’m also going to be scratch-building step boards. They need to be formed from brass strip. I’m building up to digging out the machine tools to convert some brass channel into the right shape.