As this post is written, the 4-4-0, American locomotive needs only a front pilot. The other two locomotives need boiler top appliances and pilots. Omscaler was out of town Saturday for a family visit and much needed break from the routine. Hopefully Monday will be a very productive day for the locomotive assemblies. Getting so close, omscaler
As of last week, all boiler and cab assemblies are attached to wheel frames. This brings us a lot closer to completion. It is expected that the additional locomotive parts will be done somewhat slowly. Most of these parts are already made. This being the case, time will be saved. Other components are a new design, and this normally takes a little more time to make and install. Until next post, omscaler
By the time this is posted, final locomotive assembly should be well underway. Omscaler feels compelled to correct some things regarding the previous post. What should have stated was that cab “side” walls were attached. Also, only one locomotive, the 4-4-0 has scalloped rear roof areas. Omscaler in fact decided a small corner cut would suffice. Much simpler. Trust me. Omscaler knows that the comment process is a little “unhandy” but readers should feel free to suggest a future project. Doing the good work, omscaler
Omscaler is happy to report that cab walls are attached to cab floors. The next step is cab roofs. Hence the phrase written above. If one studies the shapes involved, you will see compound curves. Also, you will see compound curve cuts. All of these provide more fun than one can imagine. First, a piece of sheet card stock will be cut to cab length. This is the easy part. Then the piece must be curved to the shape of the cab roof. Not so easy. The curve right above the window is a relatively small radius. This radius becomes somewhat large toward the center of the roof. On each side of the rear of the cab roof are the aforementioned compound curve cuts. When omscaler completes all these, he will pat himself on the back. Working toward self congratulation, omscaler
Yes, dear readers, omscaler has had to solve a rather sticky production problem. Everything started out well enough. Scan in a drawing that was done on a master drawing sheet. As a point of fact, the new drawing was of a set of locomotive cabs needed for the current project. The drawings were added to a sheet of previous drawings used for storing the same for laser cutting when needed. The scan went well as usual. Then the idea of copying and pasting the new cab drawings from the master file to a new blank file was done. No problem. The cab drawing was “cleaned up” (more on that in another post). Then pasted into the laser cutting file. The laser was readied. The cut was started. Then something strange happened. Omscaler noticed that the cut time seemed unusually long. Not good. When the same was finished, the finished cab side was huge. Looked four times larger than it needed to be. What went wrong? Omscaler began to investigate. All looked well. Let’s try another cut. This time span seemed better. The finished cut was too small. A night’s sleep was planned to avert frustration. The next day, a plan was tried to clean up the cab drawings “in situ”. Then just one drawing was transferred to the laser cut file. The cut turned out on spec. Oh happy day. Then the rest were done correctly as well. What caused the original dimensional deviation? Omscaler does not know. Since we found a solution, we will repeat what works in the future. Sticking to the plan, omscaler
As of this post, most boiler-top parts are complete. Modifications may have to be done at point of installation. The locomotives still need running boards, air compressors and air reservoir. Also, just prior to writing this post, omscaler drew cutting drawings for the cab sides to be done on the hobby laser. Then the drawings were scanned in and stored with other laser cutting drawings which are kept for future use. Omscaler believes that the fence has been crossed as far as procrastination. The weather is hot and humid here and contributes to a lack of progress. This week will have some chores needing to be done as well as more progress on The Omega Scale Railway. We will keeping pushing forward. On the point, omscaler
This last week saw omscaler digging into parts making. We believe we now have enough parts to fit out the tops of the boilers. Three each of front number plates, headlights, smoke stacks, bells, sand domes, steam domes. We now need cabs, air reservoirs and air compressors. As you can see, still plenty to do. The plan for the cabs is to cut them out with the laser. The final decision on this has not been made. The cab sides are probably the only parts that will be cut. Until next post, omscaler
