Bits, Pieces, & Clutter

[finescalerr]

I want to add my admiration. Most satisfactory. -- Russ

[Malachi Constant]

That is one helluva nice job of styrene fabrication!  The curves look even, the panels look rectangular and it looks like the proportions are good too.  I suppose you can just retire now, before you screw something up!    -- Dallas

[Gordon Ferguson]

 I suppose you can just retire now, before you screw something up!    -- Dallas

Could not have put it better myself Dallas  

Anyway, I promised an SBS .............. so here it is in all its complexity !

Various bits of plastic sheet stuck together and the internal shape of a 6 x 3 panel out-lined with alignment tabs to hold the styrene rod.

I have to admit this was the second one I made, on the first I had the proportions all wrong and the corner curves were miles out ......... the amended one has the corners with 2mm radius's



For the main frame tubing I used Evergreen 3/64" rod (1.2 m) which is just slightly too large for prototypical 1.5" tube used in real life.

Because of the tight radius, before bending rod around the mould I let it sit in boiling water for a couple of minutes just to soften it and then bent it around, leaving the joint overlapping on the bottom.



The overlap was cut of through both bits of rod to get a tight joint and then the mould was placed in boiling water , let it sit in it for a couple of minutes to let the rod have a chance to absorb the heat.
Then taken out and left to cool down for 3 or 4 minutes then rod removed from the mould.

After that it was just a case of gluing ends together, marking of and drilling holes through the bottom of the main tube for the verticals (20 thou rod) ........ then laying the piece over a drawing with a number of parallel lines at the right spacing ... I just butt jointed the verticals to the underneath of the top tube.

(as an aside, during this I discovered that Evergreen appear to have a +/- of about 4 thou tolerance on their rod ... not that much on the larger dia  rod but it shows up on this sort of work on 20 thou rod. My stocks varied between 23 and 17 thou)  

[Alexandre]

Thanks for posting the SBS.
Very clever way to reproduce them.

[Chuck Doan]

Almost missed this. Very nice rendition Gordon.

[mad gerald]

... Anyway, I promised an SBS .............. so here it is in all its complexity !

... thanks for the SBS, Gordon ... very much appreciated ...

... as an aside, during this I discovered that Evergreen appear to have a +/- of about 4 thou tolerance on their rod ... not that much on the larger dia  rod but it shows up on this sort of work on 20 thou rod. My stocks varied between 23 and 17 thou ...  

... I recently bought some Evergreen strips (1,5 mm thickness) - some of 'em have a few thou more (1 strip measures up to nearly 2mm!), others some thou less ...   ... so I make my choice using my caliper to make sure being within the necessary tolerance ...

Cheers

[Chuck Doan]

I have found Plastruct rods to be more round than Evergreen.

[marc_reusser]

Thanks for the SBS.

So the mold/form doesn't deform or warp after being heated in the boiling water?


Marc

[Gordon Ferguson]

Hi Marc,

No mould is fine as long as you make it sturdy enough .......... Think I glued 3 pieces of 40 thou card together and I also added a couple of lengths of 3mm square rod as well to the back

Typical old fashioned over engineering on my part 

[michael mott]

Gordon, Gordon, Gordon. What is your aversion to metal, other than Russ sending you to the corner!
Might I suggest a trip to the store for a pair of round nosed pliers to bend some brass rod a little practice and voila a frame that you could glue in some vertical rods.  Just sayin' or you could solder them.... a little more practice.
It would save all that aggro of boilin' water (potential of scalded fingers an all) and complex jigs that are only good for one size.

I guess bein' a Luddite I like using simple solutions for the job

Superb modelwork by the way!!!

Michael

[Malachi Constant]

When I grow up, I wanna model cool little gizmos like Gordon's always coming up with ... so, I'm tucking this one away in my Gordo folder!    -- Dallas

PS -- Only found the one photo:
http://www.catskillarchive.com/rrextra/loadbox.Html

[Gordon Ferguson]

Morning Dallas,

Don't worry that one is already on the build list, well actually a slightly earlier version , if you look under Clark Trucktractor you will find some more pics.

Edit, just remembered this can be a bit difficult, if you go to Clark Material Handling global page, and then select history you will see some more versions, and I think the the un-cropped version of your picture.

I have posted some shots of these before here, but blowed if I can remember on what thread?

[Sailor]

Since you've been asking for greater participation, here are some details I've done for a future diorama. It is 1/35 scale.



Feel free to comment, criticize or suggest improvements.

[Sailor]

A lathe from Verlinden:

Pelle

[Sailor]

And one more of the lathe: