Class 26 Build

Been busy the last few days - feels longer, modifying the bulkheads, to include the handrail recesses. York Paul found the construction of these three parts troublesome trying to keep them all aligned.

Hand here is the result

This is where the bulkheads fit

The original design was flat and prone to warping - something to be wary of with resin printing as the finished print are soft until fully cured. To counter this I also added additional supports to the rear, this and adding the pockets at the side stiffened the whole printed part.

Perfect fit anyone would think I measured up the parts

Paul

 

York paul advised doing the chassis frames before fitting the body ..... so here we go

There is a upper and lower side the the chassis, the lowerside has the half etch around the edge.

Lower side

Upperside - no half etch around the edge

First to be fitted is the buffer beam, these were cut off the frets and cleaned up. The chassis was also pinned down to a flat stell sheet with magnets.

The buffer beam was gently bent to shape

Then tag soldered in the center

Then the two ends, finally ran the seam between the dots

Repeat for the other end.

Next up the bogie bearing plates

Again with the chassis held flat additional magnets were used to help hold the side frames in place

Then each end was tagged in place

And again a fillet ran along the length, the second side was added

This was repeated for the other end.

These provide vertical surfaces to help retain the side frames

These were gently tagged in place - holding a soldering iron too long in one place would cause the side frame to expand and bow.

I found the best way after tagging the side frames in place, was to run the soldering iron tip along the chassis main frame, with the edge of the tip touching the side frame.

Next up was to fit the bogie bolster tops.

There are two locating tabs in the middle, that the top fits over.
The top has half etch lines and slight bends were made to the plate.

I first soldered the centers, then held the ends in place on the side frames and solderd them. The completed the solder along both sides.
Much filing later

And there's more .........

 

Next the cross beams for holding the Water and fuel tanks were soldered in place, following the diagram in the instructions

View attachment 13032

The note is for the Class 27 which has an additional lower height cross beam - not required on the Class 26 (the confussing bit for me was I had the wrap as part of the standeard etches, but no reduced height beam, remember I have the Class 26 and this is the proto type build.

Next the support plates were added to the buffer beams, I didn't add the cross beam here as Yorkie found it restricted the bogie movement.

After all this. it is still flaf,and all the holes line up with the skeleton

and the body

Time for a well deserved brew

Paul

 

I have been busy working on the pick-ups, I did think of plunger pick-ups but was a bit wary of drilling holes in the chassis frames, especially as I had built up the inner bogies as part of Toto's test build.

So I decided to go for wiper pick-ups, and came up with the following design



The larger hole is a passthrough for the securing screw to join the inner and outer bogie assemblies - that part will follow - Yorkie is way ahead of me.
The channel is for a piece of OO gauge copper clad sleeper, which is super glued in place, then drilled through via the holes in the mount for the pick wires to passthrough , and finally Phospour Bronze strip is soldered to the copperclad and bent up behind the wheels the wings acting as insulators.

The print came out a little dodgy, I used the black resin, which may need a bit of playing with cure times, but good enough to test.

Then with the copperclad fitted and a test fit

Now where did I put my phosphour bronze strip.

Paul