After finishing the upper wing quite fast, I chose to continue with the fuselage. On the one hand, because I didn’t have enought material left to build the lower wing, but on the other hand, because I never had scratch-built a wooden fuselage before. Hence, this should become my next test of my endurance.
Tag: Construction
DelTang Tx22 Assembly
As I have already mentioned in my post on powering my porter loco with Li-Ion accus, I’d like to experiment with the DelTang system. There’s a lot of positive feedback from other model railroaders and all my requirements seem to be met – with further room for improvements.
Unfortunately, with the upcoming Brexit the demand for DelTang components has skyrocketed at the moment (meaining autumn 2019). I was lucky to get my hands on one Tx22 transmitter and two Rx65c receivers. It will suffice for the moment, but I will need further components, especially spares.
New Construction Report: Biplane “Joyrider”
About half a year after I started flying with my EasyGlider the desire for another model aircraft grew stronger.
I soon realized that I’d have to build my own models rather than buy premade ones. Especially larger models would quickly overtax my financial abilities. However, scratch building can consume a lot of money, too. So I decided to test my will: Do I really want to build a model aircraft from scratch?
Thus an old cardboard filled with balsa wood was ravaged, following the old saying: it only costs time. Taking stock, I realized that the materials wouldn’t quite suffice to build a whole plane. However, it would suffice to put my endurance under proper scrutiny.
Garden Railway: Removal
It’s been more than one and a half years, since I last posted on the garden railway. In the meantime I decided to remove it. The reasons are simple: no time, no money, too many ambitions.
Garden railways are expensive on both accounts. Paul Race recently published a very good article on his wonderful website: Which Comes First, the Garden or the Train? One of his core arguments is:
Initially you should plan to spend over twice as much on track as you do on trains. And over twice as much on your garden and landscaping as you do on the trains and track put together.
I concur. Besides the financial aspect I didn’t (couldn’t?) take enough time to work on the railway. And so it came during spring that my wife mentioned the perpetual construction site, which really was no pretty sight to see.
Road to Prime Lens (71%)
Three ironclad monsters eating through the rubble…
Picture 68 of 100 on the road to the prime lens.
Road to Prime Lens (51%)
Heavy crane lifting frontage panels for one of the hospital’s towers.
Picture 51 of 100 on the road to the prime lens.
Porter: Detailing and Knuckle Couplers
Since the first test run some time has passed by, but there have been only a few opportunities to make progress with the tender’s construction. Nevertheless I managed to slip into the shop now and then and today I’d like to summarize the progress.
The most important thing first: the tender’s got a knuckle coupler. On the one hand it seemed plausible to me, since I’m going to model a railroad at the beginning of the 20th century, as mentioned on creating the blueprints. On the other hand I’m hoping for easier operations. I’ve already got some experience with link and pin couplers and I find it quite cumbersome to pull and put the links and pins between the cars with a long set of tweezers. Knuckle couplers however allow for automatic coupling at the best of times, especially if you can set brakes on the cars. Decoupling is even easier if you have cut levers at the side of the cars or use an R/C-controlled servo to pull the pin.
Porter Tender: Stake Pockets
By finishing the tender’s frame (german version, translation pending) it’s about time to focus on the side walls. Quite an important part is to build the stake pockets, with the prototype they form the link between the side walls and the frame, with the models most of the time it’s just cosmetics. Since I’d like to build as many parts as possibly by myself and some prototypical pictures revealed that sometimes simple solutions prevail in the 1 : 1 scale, I chose the most primitive approach.
Correcting the Frame
Why do I always notice such things afterwards? There I was, building the smoke saddle with trouble and care, brazing the bracket to the frame, attaching crossbeams… and then the bracket is misplaced and the whole saddle sits lopsided on the frame! -___-
Saddle Construction
Hey everyone,
got some progress and some pictures!
I started constructing the smokebox saddle. Since I own neither a lathe nor a milling machine I’m trying to make virtues out of necessities and hone my manual skills. The first step was to make a gauge for the saddle’s curves, so I could construct two symmetrical and identical parts.