7mm 18000 Kerosene Castle

[thruxton]

In response to a question offline regarding which side of the MDF to cut from.....

The laser 'head' tends to be conical, focusing on the far side of the sheet being cut. This means the rear face will have a finer cut than the front.

I take advantage of this for teeny weeny holes etc (eg for rivets) by flipping over the vector drawing.

I'll try to illustrate this with pics of chassis version 2- drawings presently being prepared

 

[simond]

if anyone is interested in GT locos, the Russians have announced this...

Russian Railways GTh1-002 main gas turbine locomotive enters service

Looks rather like a fuel tank with an attached locomotive...

best
Simon

 

[thruxton]

An update of sorts.

Laser frets for the bodies of 18100 and GT3 are now ready to assemble together with a new iteration of the roof for 18000 and 3D bogie parts for the same loco. Should my friendly 3D er cooperate, the rather complex ( read confusing) axleboxes for 18100 should follow.

New to me 18000 material has been found on a Swiss site of the loco builders archive with an incresingly expensive photo digital copy service (Iwonder why).

The APT-E model is about to enter its 5th version, mainly due to interpretations of a very small scale Rapido scale drawing (from their 4mm version) which has resolved a number of outstanding shape issues (unbeknown to Rapido who declined supplying a decent resolution) . Most of this concerns the cab- from my onsite measurements, a number of Rapido's published dimensional interptretations from their 3D scan are open to question; of course this may be a deliberate ploy to identify fraudulent copy.

 

[thruxton]

3D renderings courtesy Tony Massey via Tim at CR Railways. These are just some of the bits and show the centre axlebox of 18000 and the two axlebox/spring styles of 18100 as built.

 

[thruxton]

Short update;

Things on all fronts were getting a little difficult without some in-house 3D drawing skills- so with the freebie oppoortunities presented by Fusion 360, I set about learning some new skills. This 18000 bogie being the first venture. The frame is all mine, and my first 3D drawing, other bits courtesy of earlier assistance- mounted to an ABC mechanism and shown the pre painting stage and sans brake gear.

For info, the printed parts fit to magnets glued to the ABC frame.

 

[simond]

I like the magnet idea. The bogie looks excellent. Well worth the efforts invested!

Best
Simon