Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Checking the dome


Checking the dome
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker
I always tend to leave the lumpy bits stop the boiler until the later stages of the build. Too early and I'll probably knock them off r they will get in the way when I'm doing something else. Anyway, it's only a case of inserting the spigot in the hole, once the later has been opened out as required, and soldering.

The worst part of the job is making sure that everything points properly skyward and doesn't lean to one side. Checking this is usually a case of looking at the model locomotive from as many angles as possible to see if any hint of wonkiness is seen. Trouble is that if you look too hard you can make yourself believe that there is trouble when there isn't. Even worse, you can miss a problem which then becomes obvious at a later stage of the build when it's much more difficult to fix.

This time I had some inspiration - I can use science, or at least empirical measurement, to help me. Sitting the footplate on a square, I used a set of calipers to measure one side of the dome to the square and the other. That way I knew how far out I was and could correct the lean as required. I just hope it still looks OK when the primer goes on, you can't trust numbers you know.

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