Tuesday, June 24, 2025

Wb 2 - Bodywork and a pipe band

Db continues his Wibbledeebee:

Scalpel please, Nurse.


This might look a bit brutal, but was done for two reasons. Firstly, I didn't have much luck straightening out the warped side tanks. And second, I needed to make some space for a DCC decoder.

Below you might be able to see where I removed a fair bit of material on the underside of where the boiler and top of the side tanks join. There is also a lot more space inside the side tanks now.


Getting the band back together after a fall off the bench onto concrete separated the front end into four pieces (one still missing but replaced with styrene):


Part way through applying filler:

The body was then spray primed (nice) and brushpainted (yuck) with weathered black, which is a bit green for my liking. This was to ensure that there would be some paint on the parts that would be hard to get to after the pipes and things went on:

The distinctive Baldwin Wb 'curved gusset' between the top of the bunker and the cab was added, the air reservoirs under the cab, steps on the side of the rear bunker, and a toolbox. This 3D print has one on the front buffer beam, which I've only seen in one of these on a very old pic, but I quite like it. 


A mess of air pipes (the more the merrier!) handrails and some stays behind the cowcatchers completed things. The piping detail was done using this pic from the NZ Railway Observer as a guide, and a few other Wb pics stolen from the web.


And to close, a pic that illustrates my frustration with putting way too small coupler pockets into tough and brittle 3d prints. Its going to be a squeeze:


2 comments:

Lewis Holden said...

Ok ok ok ok I'll re-do the cowcatcher for you if you break it inserting the coupler. Happy to re-design as well.

NZFinescale said...

The reason I left NZ120 (did anyone know I was there?) was because building steam engines seemed too hard.
These days maybe not, although the thought of valve gear freaks me out a bit. Which would make a Wb an excellent candidate as the valve gear is hidden away.
I understand Darryl's need for instant gratification precludes sophisticated solutions, but I think the 'rework proprietary chassis' route is possibly not making the process easier. The 2mm boys can make underframes and, with the techniques available to us, NZ120 steamers should be quite viable.