Thanks to Brian Pate, and to Don Mitchell who suggested I call him, I’ve started vacuuming my castings when I pour them. Brian indicated that he liked to vacuum before and after pouring, but I’ve found the pre-pour treatment makes little difference. The post-pour treatment, on the other hand, dislodges all sorts of bubbles from the deep recesses of my molds. The resin is Smooth-Cast … Continue reading Closing in on wheel castings
The photo above presents the first four Proto:87 tyres to be found among the chips around my lathe. These are the 30″ pilot wheels, and their brass centres need to have spokes cut in before getting soldered into the tyres. They’re not perfect, but every wheel is better than the last, and I think these will be good enough. At least, if 622’s engine truck … Continue reading First four tyres
Parts for the first wheel rolled off the lathe this week. The engine truck wheels are only 8 mm in diameter, and have eight spokes. The spokes themselves are only a couple of millimetres long, and so, I have elected to make these wheels in two parts – a tyre and a centre. I actually formed six centres (a couple of extra never hurts), but … Continue reading Wheel Progress
Working fifteen minutes at a go, I’ve finally finished putting together the pattern for the thicker Nickel Silver sheet. I think if I’d been more cunning, I almost could have fit two whole models on there. As it is, there will be plenty of leftover etch and there are doubles of all the riskiest parts. So I can afford to mess one up. Continue reading Frame pattern for 622
I’m telling you this because, in a few months, you might be me, and we will want to take advantage of some of the cunning plans that we laid in the summer. We’re going to attempt to fold the crossheads up from etched material. I’ve put four of them on the etch because there’s loads of room and because it’s likely we will make at … Continue reading Mutually Assured Alignment
As I start work on the pattern for etching, there is good news and bad news. First the good news: it appears that OnShape have improved the compatibility with Inkscape, and so, now I can take flat patterns from OnShape and import them directly into Inkscape without traversing through QCadCam. Someone is still resizing the part along the way, but I suspect it is Inkscape, … Continue reading Etching pattern begins
In typical Panglossian fashion today, I uploaded the STL file for 622’s plastic parts to Shapeways. I might have hit the big “Print” button, if the bounding box hadn’t precluded the use of their highest resolution machine. It’s a good thing I didn’t because the pause gave me an opportunity to assemble all the parts in OnShape. There I found that the gearbox was going … Continue reading Virtual dry fit for 622
