The air compressor is one of the appliances included in the kit, and comes completed as one piece. The only thing left to do is add some details to it and mount it on the boiler.
Here’s the compressor painted gloss black. Since the compressor operates on steam, the top part, where it receives the steam, gets hot, so a lagging and jacket is added to protect the crew. You can see the circular jacket at the top.
Then the brass bands and the builder’s plate (middle) were added. The brass lines on the side are steam condensation drain lines.
The headlight brackets are fashioned from the drawing in the plan book. If you have it, you might note that the dimension given for the bracket’s height, 11″, is given as the finished and curved height. (The front view shows that the bracket curves with the front of the smokebox.) So, simple math is used to obtain the actual height of the bracket, before the curve: the arc length is the radius times the angle of the arc, or:
s = r * Θ
Remember that Θ must be in radian!
Plugging in the values from the plan, the radius of 15.539″ and the arc angle of 44.72 degrees, or 44.72/180*pi radian, the arc length is 12.128″. So, starting with 12.128″ high bracket, bending it around the smokebox will give a finished height of 11″.
Taking those values and scaling them 1:20, the brackets are then drawn on a styrene sheet then cut out, and then mounted on front of the smoke box.
Meanwhile, here are some shots of the base and the beginning of cab painting.
The model is getting close to finish. Next week, I’ll work on posting detailed information like the parts included and price for the kit.
Seriously, that compressor looks awesome!