Monthly Archives: December 2012

Time to complete the rest of the framing. The footplate lays at the rear of the engine across the frames and forms the floor of the cab. Here, a thin sheet metal is being fitted.

Then the two sidesheets make up the side walls. The left sidesheet is metal plate like the foot plate, but the right is styrene because it makes cutting the arc for the reverse bar easier.

Those three sheets complete the “well” at the bottom of the cab. Also under the footplate is the rear air tank.

Then I went ahead and dry fitted the running boards and the cab just to see how she’s coming along.

It looks like pretty complete but there are a lot of details left. Plenty more of work to do.

Okay, time to update the model! I know it looks like there hasn’t been a lot of progress, but there’s just a lot more of the little details to put together rather than the large pieces. But today’s update is certainly a big one: the boiler finally gets set on the chassis, and the model now look significantly like the Holliday.

First, I realize that the lighting is not great. I’ll update the…the update…with natural daylighting later. Anyway, the above shows the mainly completed chassis, including the engine brace, forward tank, rockers and links, eccentric rods, saddle, and a simplified spring and equalizing system. But, All it’s all hard to see with everything painted black.

Here the drivers and pilot truck are fitted into their places.

And the boiler set onto the chassis.

The boiler jacket is painted a special gloss black with a drop of silver. In the daylight, the color is a dark gray with hint silver speckles–pretty convincing I think.

You might notice that the sand and steam domes don’t appear to be parallel, but I think that’s an illusion in the pictures. They seem to be upright in the real model.

When I was building the computer model, I posted the same milestone update when the boiler was set on the chassis. For comparison, here’s the computer model I posted in that update:

So, hopefully the next update will be the running boards set in and preliminary plumbing. Then, setting the cab should be about the end of the model.

It’s been a while, hasn’t it! I’ve been busy with school work and interviewing for jobs, so I haven’t had much time to put the model together. Instead, I’ve been prepping individual pieces here and there–getting them ready for the major assembly.

Last update I said that I redesigned the cab and pilot parts. So, I’ll show you that first.

I mainly redesigned the pieces to fit together better–there were problems with the first cab where the cab wasn’t truly squared. Also, the posts have been realigned so that their grains run vertically–previously they ran horizontally.

The new pilot now have the little bumpers on the side.

And here it is painted in special red: my custom mix of bright red and a touch of black and glossy lacquer.

The pilot truck is painted and fully assembled. A neat little feature is that–because it’s built like the real swing-type pilot–the casting piece actually does swing! But that’s of little consequence in a static model. Nonetheless, it shows how well the model reflects the computer model, which of course reflects the real engine.

The saddle is painted as usual, but the steam chest gets wrapped in real brass sheeting.

And the same technique was used for the domes. The brass will get cleaned and polished before they get placed on the boiler.

And to a larger extent, the boiler gets wrapped in thin steel sheeting, which will of course get painted glossy black.

The wrapping around the backhead was notoriously difficult. As is the result of working with sheet metal at such small scale, there are some scratches and bumps on the jacket that I’ll have to smooth out. But I think the paint can help hide them.