I have been avoiding the next steps..... the pilot steps for some time. I can do angles, I just hate the math. Usually I wing it and get things close enough. These modern GE's have 6 steps and the older MTH Dash 8 version only had five. I was going to just go with five but there's other details on the pilots that I'd like to model.
So.... here I go. I figure that the six steps have a run that equals about 20 degrees from vertical. Sounded simple enough to model except that the pilot is not a square or even a rectangular box. It has sides that are at angles too. To make matters worse I believe the front pilot is different from the rear. I maybe wrong about that but I already cut the frame and have to custom build each pilot to match.
The front pilot is where I'm starting and the cab side of the pilot has an angle cut into it at 27 degrees roughly from the side of the steps. The steps appear to be mounted to side steel pieces like a modular unit that gets welded in?
So what angle are the steps rise changed to when the side is not a right angle? My brain fried and it probably is not that difficult to calculate????
If I can't figure it out mathematically I'll have to build a template and fudge it together.
