Make axle converter shaft for Land Rover.
Geoff started with the shed siding, taking time to remove excess flock and plaster.
Geoff also started to introduce troughs and dents in the adjacent road surface.
Make sub-roof panels for factories.
Tidy-up re-flocked siding.
Recreate area under lorry tipping point.
Stephen had been progressing his Land Rover shunting vehicle at home and now needed a favour. The Corgi car axles are 2mm dia. and the output shaft in the gearbox is 1/8". Geoff kindly offered to make a brass transition axle to accommodate both requirements.
Stephen then moved onto the factory roofs, cutting laminated grey card sheets to size. At the same time, checks were undertaken to ensure that all panels had right-angle leading edges to ensure that the corrugated cladding could be correctly applied. He then moved on to making the substructure for the loading bay roof. For this he used offcuts of some 2mm MDF strips that Geoff had thrown away. These came from packing case sides, which were soon found to be an excellent replacement for thick cardboard, as they were solid and flat, but easy to cut with a craft knife.
The water tank, swivelling engine feed pipe and underground tank feed pipe were discussed and confirmed again. Geoff moved on to the lorry tipping point on the quarry edge. He was keen to create a solid edge and was planning to use sleepers. Stephen suggested a rock face, using the same mould used for the engine siding area. The mould was partially filled with plaster and left to dry. After lunch, the old face was cut away and sections of the cast rock fettled and fitted into place. Additional wet plaster filled the gaps. Geoff is still concerned about how the rock angles can be accommodated with the surface debris to be re fitted to the perspex. He will try and reconcile this query next week.
Land Rover update:
As well as a drive unit, the car needed a guidance system and track power pick-ups. A PCB panel was fixed to the bottom of the car to allow for experiments. The pick-ups would be on a strip of PCB that could be adjusted sideways, to suit the guide positions. (Wires would go through the car base to the motor).
The track in the yard had check rails, which would provide a slot for guides. Initially, brass rod guides were to be fixed to the PCB between the wheels. This soon changed to more robust brass flats, mounted on the chassis, but still between the wheels.
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| Between-wheel guides (shown on the wrong side). |
To test the guidance system a short section of road/track was built at home and lightly glued guides fitted. After a couple of test runs, it seemed far more practical to have the guides in front of the wheels (running forwards and backwards), so new guides were glued in place (on the side away from the spectators!).
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| Guides before the wheels and on the correct side. |
All that was needed now was a working drive unit to test the guidance system, and then some pick-ups.
