Fig 10 |
The firebox was really simple to do. I cut the
sides out of wood, tapered them to the boiler and glued them in place.
Then I traced the outine of the rear of the boiler and cut that out from
the same piece of 1/8 inch poplar.
Once it was glued in place, it was pretty strong. This firebox just sorta slides down over the old Bachmann one which is part of the chasis casting. Figure 10 Now its time to focus on the cab deck. I cut it
out of 1/8 poplar as well, centering it on the boiler and giving it the
proper indentation to accomodate the cab and the trailing truck.
As you can see it does have a bit of a step up off the main deck to the
area where the seatboxes will be. Figure 11
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| In this photo you can see the basic framework that was
applied, its not highly detailed because its out of sight for the most
part what is there was to help keep the cab deck level with the boiler.Figure
12 The large block in the center of the deck holds a nail as
well that fits into the rear of the firebox. The tolerances are such
that its a nice snug fitwith a little glue to hold it all in place.
Here you can see up inside the firebox. The square hole in the PVC
boiler slips over the top of the Bachmann firebox to allow the boiler to
sit lever on the chasis, the round hole to the right allows
the motor and gear box to slip up inside. The internal weights havn't been applied at this point. The plan is to us some square or hex bolts through the new firebox sides into the old one to hold the rear of the boiler in place. These will then be disguised as washout plugs! Now her lines are starting to become apparent. Figure 13 with the boiler sitting on the chasis and cab deck in place, I was able to take some basic measurements. I used a CAD program to draw out the front, sides and rear and printed them out on cardstock. Cardstock is great fer templates such as this, its more durable than paper and easier to trace because it doesn't bend or tear as easily while cutting and tracing, but its thin and light enough to run through the average printer.
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Fig 11 |
Fig 12 |
Figure 13 |
Now its dome time. I use rounded plumbing caps (1
inch fittings in this case) for dome construction. the base of the
dome is taken from a coupling, I shape the bottom to fit the contour of
the boiler then cut the piece off on the bandsaw. I thne use it to
trace out a baseplate for the dome and glue it on the bottom, leaving an
1/4 inch or so to allow for a taper. Figure 14 I use a short
section of 1inch PVC pipe as a coupling and glue it inside the base.
The upper part of the sand domes are pretty much stock, just sanded to
remove the cast in lettering on them. I did spin them on the bandsaw
to give them the appearance of having a parting line in the sheet metal.
On the steam dome I sliced the top off and used the resulting hole for
the whistle and pop valves to mount in later. Figure 15
Fig 14 |
Fig 15 |
With the domes mounted and the generator casting cab, and stack roughed in, she's really starting to look like a locomotive!
