workbench update

A toolbox

Mrs A is very generous. She happily lets me spread my tools and projects out all over the coffee table with nary a complaint. On two conditions: as long as there is a space for her tea cup, and whenever we are having guests over, I release the coffee table from it's workshop duties.

It occurred to me during one of these tidying jobs that I spend a lot of time gathering up my tools and carrying them back to the train room. What I needed was a toolbox.

So I tried out a few ideas, asked google for some inspiration, thought about laser cutting something, etc etc, but in the end I just put all my tools on a piece of paper and rearranged them till they were nicely grouped. Then I took the measurements, drew up a quick plan and headed out to the garage.

I chopped up a few bits of pine, ply, and MDF and after a bit of planing, and a bit of sanding, I came up with this:

Fun with lasers - pallets

Something lasers are very good at is cutting out fine details. I've been trying a few little experiments to see what I can and can't do. One fun little project was to make up some pallets:

These are straight off the laser with no paint, though the singed look is remarkably realistic, and the dark edges give them good depth. These are made as a lamination of two pieces of cardboard; thicker card for the base, and thinner card for the top. Simply take the two squares, glue them at right angles, then once dry use a sharp knife to cut along half-etched cutting guides. Four cuts later and you a perfect shipping pallet.

Breda LRV - Decals

Work continues on my Breda LRV project ...

One of the final things to do on my LRV is to decal it. This meant printing some custom decals. Luckily Luap had given me a sheet of clear decal paper to try out.

First step was to get my printer working. That involved a lot of cleaning, replacement ink cartridges, aligning print heads, etc etc. Quite a palaver! It took a while to find the right settings to print on the decal paper, in fact I'm still not sure I worked it out. Perhaps it's just the printer, but I ended up with some very slight smudging/streaking, meaning my nice crisp black lines weren't that crisp. You can see how the black is kind of "balling", and vertical lines are quite fuzzy. Also note all the little black specs of ink over the page! Quite a dirty printer!

Breda LRV - Flexible gangway connections

Work continues on my Breda LRV project ...

So the correct term for the wiggly bit between carriages is "gangway connection". I'm not sure though if that applies on trams since there is no gangway? Anyway, I needed something to bridge the gap between the two halves, as this is obviously not the look I'm after:

Please forgive the cruel close up photography!

I've been pondering this for some months now, knowing that sooner or later I would have to tackle it. Luckily I came across a technique involving carefully folded paper in a magazine a while back and so didn't have to invent something myself.

Making folded carriage gangway connectors First prepare some paper. I took a sheet of printer pa...

Breda LRV - Flywheel

Work continues on my Breda LRV project ...

No train is complete without a motor, and so it is time to motorise my LRV. I've used a chopped up Kato B-train shorty chassis for the power bogie on this train, but the motor it came with wasn't amazing. No flywheel, and pretty high speed. So a quick rummage through my motor bin netted a very long and skinny motor, 6mm high and 8mm wide, and about 20mm long. But it still lacked a flywheel...

Which brings me to my other new toy, a lathe! Xmas was pretty good to me this year, with a very large box under the tree waiting for me. All this came about after I had a brainwave to sell a few unused models and tools, and after a few lucky (for me!) bidding wars on my auctions, I soon had more than enough for a brand new lathe.

Breda LRV - Laser-cut window masks

Work continues on my Breda LRV project after many many months of silence...

After a rather long break from Utrainia I am back and building things again. Perhaps I should explain the gap... first we rebuilt our bathroom, then as Christmas approached I built a garden railway, then I discovered we had a free laser cutter in town, and then I caught the bug and built my own laser cutter.

It's a little rough & ready and needs some fine tuning, however the important thing is, my 2.5W laser cutter is surprisingly useful. I am easily able to cut out cardboard up to 1mm think, and my offcuts of 1.3mm picture framing mat board cut beautifully. I can cut out thin balsa and basswood up to 1.6mm thick, as well as pap...