Ordering parts for 622

I’m all a-tingle! Today is the day when the designs for 622 start to get realized. I just uploaded the first files for 3D printing at Shapeways. I’ve broken the printing in orders parts – the first for the engineering parts required to make a working model, and the second will be for the details. […]

622 Etching Pattern

I believe I’ve just completed the patterns for 622’s etched parts, although I shall have to go back and check them for certain. It’s funny how time flies; I last worked on these files in July! Anyway, for those who are interested, here are the files. Go ahead, build it!

Soldering wheel centres

I dragged out the resistance soldering unit this morning to solder those centres into their tyres. On the first wheel, I experimented with solder paste and a torch, but ultimately settled on the RSU. So, with only twelve joins to make, I started work with the RSU again. This time, I found that after the […]

Spoke filing fixture

I didn’t write about it before, but filing that first wheel centre was like trying to wash a cat – slippery and occasionally painful. There seemed to be no good way to grasp it. Worse, as I was filing bits away, the challenge levelled up! By the time I was at panther level, I was […]

Any wheel I want

Looking back on 2018, it would be easy to despair about the amount I didn’t accomplish on Pembroke. Two floods put a damper on things (so to speak), and many non-rail projects also ate my year. However, the singular achievement of the year came on January 1st of this new year, when I pulled the […]

Christmas Post

Among the dwindling count of cards arriving in our mailbox this Christmas, there appeared a plump envelope with a strange foreign stamp. It was from Dave Doe, that stalwart defender of Proto:87, that Englishman living in Holland-now-France, that dear old friend. Along with a card, Dave enclosed some wheels that he has discovered. Astonishingly, the […]

Insertion cast wheels

On Wednesday, I managed to get away from the Christmas concerts for a meeting of the North Shore chapter of the local NMRA division. It was Graham Stokes’s annual “Trains and Scones” evening, and as usual he had a little table to show off progress on our current projects. I wanted to show the wheels, […]

Flat car loose ends

While I was happily installing flat car decks at VTEX, it was John Green who noticed that the ends of some of the boards were lifting. Thank-you John for pointing this out while it was still relatively easy to fix. As I’m finished with casting experiments for now, I spent tonight’s modelling minutes on fixing […]

Decking demonstration

The Vancouver Train Expo filled the PNE Forum this past weekend. Unlike last year, I’d actually coordinated with Doug Hicks to have a time when I was supposed to be helping at the Craftsman’s Corner. He usually likes to have two-hour slots, but I find that is barely enough time to get my tools out […]

Flatcars painted

Despite all probability, those flatcars have slipped into the paint booth over the past couple of days and received not only a coat of primer, but also some paint. Truly, when it came to painting, the odds were not in their favour. Not only did I have to mine Mount Deluge for the airbrush and […]