Going bush

Well, after the wrapping up of my current project (well, the 10 hour day parts of it), there is a bit more energy for some modeling. in the previous week my modeling sum total has been to cut 6 rails. Tonight I managed to replace 4 of those rails before I ran out of fish plates.

I then turned to the bush tramway log bogies. The prototype was OK but I was not looking to burnt fingers with the next 5. From the depths of my brain muttered a distant voice 'use a jig'. having dismissed the possibilities of interpretive dance, I grabbed a bit of plywood and made the following item. This held the pre cut bits of brass in the correct orientation tightly enough for me to solder them together.

A little bit of solder and everything went together as planned. 5 times no less. That will be enough for 3 log wagons to start with, and I don't think that the Cb will haul many more. I still have to sort out how I'm going to couple them together.

Next will be to add the axle tubes. Maybe some sort of jig might do the job....

I've also been thinking about track I did have plans of hand laying code 40 rail. However a comment over at NZ120.org by Mr Trackgang gave me a bit of a rethink. He is correct in that there is a lack of NZ120 layouts on the show circuit (such as it is). 20 years ago I would have had a layout knocked up in a couple of weeks probably because my standards were a bit lower. I now think that I over think a lot of things, when I should just be making stuff. I'll now see if my inner finescaler can be tied to a chair in the broom cupboard out the back for a couple of months.