Distracted

Well, with all the best intentions I ventured out to the man-sion yesterday afternoon to work on Paekakariki (which has now acquired italics to show its importance). Unfortunately I was distracted.....

'The enormous DCC chip is 19mm long'

I have made a few alterations from previous pictures. The rear underframe has been built up from a couple of bits of 0.4mm PCB. The spoked wheel has been replaced by a plain 7mm one though I might replace it with a smaller 6mm one as it doesn't quite look right at the moment. I was pondering how to arrange the power pickup from the front bogie. There is quite a bit of swivel required for the tight curves and I was not happy with soldering a wire onto the pickup as I had done with the Cb. A moment of clarity gave the solution. I have some bits and pieces of syringe needle as it is a good source of small tube. A short piece of this was soldered to the pickup stub, and then a piece of phosphor bronze wire was slipped into the hole (a loose fit) and the other end soldered to the frame. This set up actually works, and the mech has taken its first stuttering steps on the layout. I still have to sort out how to run pickups off the rear wheels without inducing too much friction.

One thing that the test run demonstrated is that it will need as much weight as I can manage to fit in. Talk amongst the peanut gallery had suggested that plasticard should be the medium of choice for the top. However, having a long history with making small locos work in this scale, I picked brass to get some more weight in. I need to get as much weight as possible forward of the rear wheel for traction.

I sweatted 2 pieces of brass together and then glued a paper plan on as a cutting guide. Fret saw and file were employed for the shaping. I've now realised that I may need to buy a second decent file. Also compered with making track where I might go through a fret saw blade every 2 days or so, I've gone through 5 in an afternoon.