Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Axle Boxes

Progress on the wagon from the Sand Hutton Light Railway is slow but steady. As with physical modelling, building the rough structure is relatively quick but adding the details, especially odd shaped ones, takes a disproportionate amount of time and effort.

I've had a bit of a rethink about which bits are printable and which aren't and so a few more details have been added to the body of the wagon. I'm probably going to print a couple of different versions of the wagon with different levels of detail parts to see what works and what needs to be modelled in some other way than printing. The main obvious difference to the body are the lifting straps which, after ignoring the works drawings, and looking at photos I've decided may be printable after all. These were easy to add so it makes sense to experiment with them.

Having finished detailing the body I've also started on the underframe, specifically the axle boxes. The axles boxes on these wagons are unusual in that they are cast in pairs. It's difficult to tell exactly what shape they are from the drawings or from the photos (they tend to be in shadow under the underframe) so I've made a number of guesses. Hopefully given their small size they will at least "look right". Now I just have to finish adding all the bolts to the underframe and to round the dumb buffers and then I should be ready to order a prototype print or two.

2 comments:

  1. I hope that I never have to sit an exam when I am requitred to put a name to each of a number of your model wagons in front of me.

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    1. At least I can spell the name of the railway for this one. For the Welsh ones even I'd have trouble accurately naming them without having to look them up!

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