2-8-0 progress

After the better part of a week with no appreciable progress, I've resumed work.

I cut out a piece of 0.020" thick styrene for the boiler. I then wrapped it around a slightly undersized metal broom stick. I used at least a dozen rubber bands to keep it tight. I then submerged it in boiling water. Boiling water softens styrene but doesn't melt it. After I removed it from the water I cooled it...just to make sure I didn't ruin it while removing it. Once it was off, I cleaned up the ends and glued them together. I added a piece of 0.010"x0.060" stryene to reinforce the seem.



Next I produced a few stiffeners from styrene sheet using a homemade compass scriber. I glued them into place.



With the boiler's glue drying (in my pin vise to keep it round), I started on the rods. First I made a test run with styrene...and learned that the bearings need to be 0.030" oversized. I then cut them out from 0.025" brass sheet using my trusty vice and jeweler's saw. I located the crankpin holes with my caliper and used my auto-center punch (worth its weight in gold).



While verifying that the frame had the proper dimensions, I learned that I'd messed up a little. The drivers came from a Broadway Limited Imports On30 2-8-0. I'd re-gauged them with a gear puller, but chose to disregard its rods due to the spacing being off. For some reason, BLI decided that instead of the proper 4'2"-3'1"-4'1" driver spacing, they made theirs something along the lines of 4'-3'4"-4' (my Cooke 2-8-0 should be 4'1"-3'2"-4'1"). 2" off of correct for a Cooke doesn't seem like much, but the center wheels are supposed to nearly touch...and it really looks bad to me if they don't. My mistake was that I'd somehow managed to duplicate BLI's spacing on the center drivers. I rectified this and made a few slight changes to bring it within +/-0.002" of being correct.