Skip to main content

Reply to "Continuing Saga …"

Oh... and thanks Mike!

Happy Monday! I revised the lighting today to use the LED light strip bought from Amazon and put aside the n-gauge bus LED system. I didn't scrap that, just put it in storage. Before I could attach the light, which BTW already has a strip of foam adhesive tape on its back, I needed to reinforce the beams onto which it would be fastened. I cut out some styrene gussets to reinforce all the corners held with thin CA. I mounted the light onto a flat piece of styrene which also was reinforced laterally to keep it flat and give a good surface to hold the foam adhesive tape.

BH New Light Array bottom

None of this is visible so I'm not spending any effort painting it. The light's quite bright, but because it's centered, throws pretty significant shadows of the boilers to the side.

BH New Light Array top

I then started working on the flue adapter that is prominent on the boiler's front. This was a finicky bit of styrene work. Since my boiler is slightly different in aspect than the photo, I had to make my adapters slightly smaller. It started with the top piece with a 1/4" radius wrapped with a 0.015" styrene strip 1/2" high. It's always difficult to tease a piece of flat styrene around a tight curve so I pre-bent the styrene on a piece of 1/4" dowel until it was taking a curved set. 

Flue Adapters 1

I coaxed the top piece further into the curve after tacking it on the flat side, then clamped it and used thin CA to reinforce the joint. A back piece was added.

Flue Adapters 2

On the second (actually third) piece, I glued the back on before adding the curved wrap. This gave more surface where the wrap could bind and made it an easier build.

I again used thin CA to reinforce these joints. I set up the belt sander with a 45 degree fence consisting of combination square head, a wood block and a c-clamp. The square head is flush with the front of the sander's table. I used a pusher stick to hold the piece against the belt and not my fingers. My Harbor Freight belt sander's table doesn't have provision for a guide or fence. I always have to improvise.

45 degree setup

I then sanded the 45 degree front angle. Of course, there are two ways to hold the workpiece, the right way and the wrong way. And of course, the first one I sanded was held the wrong way. DOH! That's why I had to make three adapters.

Flue Adapters 3

After sanding, I trued that angled face up with the sanding block and then traced their contour on another piece of styrene forming the closure piece. After again gluing and CA'ing I sanded all the edges to make it look right. and then added another rectangular piece for the bottom.

Flue Adapters 4

I'm letting this joint dry overnight, but situated one on the boiler front to show how it sits.

FullSizeRender

Black and white? How the heck did that pic end up in B&W? It works!

Tomorrow I continue working on boiler details.

I'm thinking, now that I can resin cast, I'm going to cast some more telephone pole transformers that I built a while ago. I need to make more poles before installing them on the layout and don't want to have to craft each transformer, so why not cast them.

 

Attachments

Images (8)
  • BH New Light Array bottom
  • BH New Light Array top
  • Flue Adapters 1
  • Flue Adapters 2
  • 45 degree setup
  • Flue Adapters 3
  • Flue Adapters 4
  • FullSizeRender

OGR Publishing, Inc., 1310 Eastside Centre Ct, Suite 6, Mountain Home, AR 72653
800-980-OGRR (6477)
www.ogaugerr.com

×
×
×
×
×