Didn't get the lights done today. There's always tomorrow. I did get the newly grown wheel lathe painted and ready to install. It was the right thing to do; making a new face plate component. Again… I'm a broken record… having a 3D printer means, "Break a part, grow a new one" kind of like a salamander.
You will notice that the anchor bolts are now both there and the locking screw is fully extended. I also added some ridges on the front bottom edge of the bearing supports to positively key into the groove on the lathe bed so it's perfectly parallel to the x axis. I'll glue it together tomorrow. I'm thinking about disassembling my 3rd Rail J1a and switching out the non-traction tire wheel set for this one. It's a very slippery engine and could use the traction tires. Even though it is a 2-10-4 with five coupled axles, on curves most of the middle ones aren't doing anything. This will give me a driver set with real steel tires to decorate the lathe. Notice also that both hand wheels now have handles on the right carriage. But… the front one did break off and I replaced it with a piece of 0.022 phosphor bronze wire. I made the hand wheel robust enough to drill and accept the wire.
The lathe is sitting on the base which I will also finish tomorrow after painting it concrete gray.
There were two reasons why I didn't get more done today. The first was a call from EPIC Powder Coating today that the air plane was finished being cleaned up. I picked it up and it is exactly as I would have wanted to be. It will be much easier to solder. They charge 130 an hour, but it only took 40 minutes, so it was $80. It would have taken me a week to clean that metal by hand and it would have been AWFUL! Sometimes you have to know when to have a professional do something.
Just enough of the solder remains to guide me where the parts must be re-attached. Too bad I can't keep it natural. There's too many non-bronze parts going on that would ruin the effect. The glass beading also exposed one of the two large slotted-head screws that holds the two halves of the fuselage together. I really didn't know how that was done. The other screw appears to be capped. Putting this humpty dumpty back together is actually to going to be fun now that the horrific stripping job is behind me.
With the worst part of this job done, I really didn't need the angle grinder that I bought from Harbor Freight so I returned it today for a full credit. I hadn't even opened the box. I'm keeping the portable power band saw and the oscillating multi-tool. The latter was terrific in removing excess solder from the joints I had already made.
I need to get some good reference information about the S-38's landing gear so I can draw up a set and print them. My plans show them, but it's very, very sketchy. I will prevail.
