casting was slightly warped, so I had to file some of the metal on the pivot away to get the chassis to sit level.
Modifications started with cutting away the fake engine and motor detail on the chassis rear to make room for the vertical boiler. The opening was cleaned up with a file and covered with a piece of 0.040-inch styrene to form a base for the boiler.
A pair of 1/16-inch channels run from the top of the drum tower to the rear of the chassis to provide more rigidity and a place to mount the winch engines. I also added 1/16-inch channels to the edges of the chassis deck to hold the su- perstructure, which is a bit wider in its rebuilt form. Finally, I added an open-air opera- tor’s station on the left side, complete with seat and a group of control levers with brass grips. Since these photos were taken, an improvised shelter roof of 2x4s and galvanized sheet tin was added by the shop crew. Operating this unit is not a popular pastime in the rainy Pacific Northwest.
Boiler
The main body of the boiler was turned from ½-inch lucite rod mounted in a spin jig (a small machine tool that makes a handy light-duty lathe). The smokestack was cut from 3/16-inch sty- rene tube. The various boiler details, as shown in the photo to the right, are ei- ther scrap box items or formed from sty- rene rod. The injector is on the left out of sight behind the doorway. The pop valve, in particular, is a short piece of 0.060- inch styrene rod mounted on top of a 0.040-inch diameter rod and painted Brass. It emerges from near the base of the stack and is held in alignment with small styrene spacers. A pair of steam cylinders with fly- wheels and old fashioned slide valve box- es were fabricated from scraps and glued to the chassis sides. They can just be seen when looking carefully into the rear access way of the model. These made it necessary to widen the superstructure slightly.
Boom The Walthers boom has molded-in cross braces on the top and sides, but it is open on the underside. I used 0.040-
Below: The verti cal boiler includes feed door, pressure gauge (presently showing about 100 pounds), bronze water glass with window, safety valve at top, and injector mounted on the left side (not shown). Note the bird droppings on the roof and how the builder’s name beneath the open doorway is all but obscured by a heavy layer of soot.
inch square styrene to add a set of low- er cross braces, mounting them so they criss-cross the upper braces as shown in the photo above. The Walthers model uses thread for steel cable. I backdated with fine jewel- er’s chain — heavy for the main boom lift, and light for the riser cable. I anchored the heavy chain to the boom swing arm
by cutting the end of the arm open with an X-acto saw and gluing the chain end between the two halves. The other end was draped over the top roller of the drum tower and secured behind the baf- fle plate. It actually holds up the boom. I wrapped the light chain around the take-up drum with the other end loose. The slack is taken up with the weighted
NOVEMBER 2015 91
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