Sunday, July 19, 2009

Inside the cab


Cab inside - front
Originally uploaded by Phil_Parker
Plenty of plasticard noodling here. As I mentioned before, the control panel is an etched part but had to be supplemented with lots of levers 'n stuff.

Most of this is from scraps of plasticard - I keep a little drawer with reasonable sized off-cuts in for the purpose. Some digging through the stores revealed a few packets of micro-rod which looked pretty close to the linkages between the various levers.

The red thing, which I suspect has something to do with brakes, is a plastic disk, bent bit of wire and whitemetal wheel discovered in the "leftover white metal castings I couldn't bear to throw away" drawer. I think this is from the coal tank, it needed the edge thinned and a handle removed. Even then the fit behind that top lever thingy is very tight, probably one is too close and the other is too large.

Cab inside - backAt the back there is a bench and noticeboard. Again, just bits of plastic. The top of the bench is scribed and has hinges fitted. The board has a notice run up on the computer which was taken from one of the prototype photos - hence the odd light areas which I couldn't work out how to darken.

All this of course is hidden away in the gloom of the cab once the roof is on. That's why I can get away with pretty basic modelling as these photos are the only chance you have to examine it in any detail. Despite this it all look (to me) the part and is certainly better than an empty cab in this scale.

2 comments:

Dodgy Geezer said...

"...hence the odd light areas which I couldn't work out how to darken...."

Use The Gimp - just select an area of the right colour, and copy it over the lighter colour areas....

Anonymous said...

"The red thing, which I suspect has something to do with brakes" - I'm a bit late in commenting here, and it's likely that you've found this out already, but the red wheel is part of the starter.
The Ruston 165hp engines are compressed air started, and that valve is the master air control which runs the starter, and isolates it so that the starter tank can be replenished from the engine driven compressor.