Tuesday, September 21, 2021

New spacers

 

After a little head scratching, I decided that there wasn't any way I could accurately reduce the width of the frame spacers fitted to the chassis, it would be a lot easier to make some new ones up from sheet nickel silver. 

First job, remove the old ones - I could have attacked them with heat, but wary of disturbing the bearings, I opted to cut them in half with a piercing saw. This gave me much better access to the soldered joints, which were heated and the errant metal removed, followed by a good clean up with a file. 

Then I cut some strips of nickel 10.5mm wide using an Olfa cutter and ruler. Even I can get things reasonably accurate with those tools.

Using the Hobby Holidays jig, the sides were lined up and the spacers fitted between them. I know the axles are in the right place relative to each other so the spacers don't need to slot into the chassis sides, I can pretty much fit them where I see fit. 

This time the axles stick out both sides of the chassis. It even sits flat on a mirror when fitted with wheels. Success? Well they look like they are a bit proud of the sides. But I can shim this with some washers to reduce the side-play. 

Except that the motor won't fit between the frames, and these are deep enough that this is precisely what it has to do. I did contemplate putting cut-outs in the frame sides to accommodate the motor, but there was really only one thing to do...



2 comments:

James H said...

Spacers mark 3?
I salute your patience and tenacity to keep at it. As you say, this is the mark of an experienced modeller - and it's these experiences that make us better skilled as well as experienced - in future spotting where we may have gone wrong in the past. I think it's great to read your trials and tribulations - I hope it does encourage newcomers in a less obvious way than the 'how to' articles we seem to see in the mainstream modelling media.

Phil Parker said...

The advantage I have here is infinite space - in fact, I often have to look for ways to fill it. On the page, there are physical limitations unless you want minuscule photos, although I've often slipped in mentions of when I get things wrong in the past.

On here, I also get to build old kits I might have robbed bits from, and do projects only about 3 people will ever be interested in!