Packing up.

Yesterday I flew back up to Qld and returned to Toowoomba to collect the remainder of my things and (most important of all) my XR6 ute.
Today I made a quick dash out to the outlaws place (thank god none of them were home) to finish up the PV van wheels, as I now loose access to a lathe until I buy my own. So today was the day the wheels had to be finished.

Completed PV wheels.

As I mentioned earlier on in the post I have returned to Toowoomba to pick up the rest of my gear that is at my girlfriends house. I now have a job back in the home land of NSW where I have begun working for a company that repaires and maintains diesel loco's for SSR and IRA.

I have spent the afternoon packing up the tools and material that I have in the shed and tomorrow Ill pack up the rest of my stuff in the house and load up the XR6 for a early morning departure on saturday for Sydney.

So next week its back the real estates where I hope to rent a house soon and set up the new Waratah Wagon and Loco works (Western Division).

The Prototype and the Model.

On the weekend that has just past I Travelled to Robertson on 3642 as apart of the NSWRTM's "Southern Highlander". It was a great trip a fun day was had by us service crew and the loco driver and fireman as well.

I managed to take a couple of photos in between attending to the needs of 3642.

3642 has been prepaired for the run to Eveleigh. 8.7.11

3642 has been watered, banked and shares the roads outside the LES at Eveleigh with Goodwin-Alco group's 4486 and 4473.

Goodwin-Alco's latest loco to return to trafic, 4464 poses with 3642 out the front of the LES.

Standing at Robertson 3642 has been serviced and is ready to return to Sydney via the south coast.

Well that was my weekend with the prototype. Now its time for the model. Hot off the press comes this photo of the latest tender progress. Here you will see that the floor pieces in the coal space have been cut out. Now its time for the fun part of tender construction. RIVITS.

Oldmate Lazercutting and sheet metal has been busy again more tender parts.

New floor in the coal space.

Thats all for now.

S Truck, PV and Tenders!

Theres been plenty going on since the last post.
Over the last few weeks Oldmate sheetmetal, Welding and Lazercutting has been busy programing various tender parts into the lazer cutter to further progress with the construction of our two tenders for a NSWGR 36 class.

 

Here we have the main tank and baffles cut out. Allthough the photo doesnt show it the holes for the rivits have been cut out as well.


Soon the remaining parts of the turret will be cut out and we can begin riviting both tender bodys.

There has been plenty of S truck progress since the last post. The S truck is comming close to completion,as it stands this afternoon there isnt much left to do on it.
All that remains on the S truck is: Drill holes in the knuckle couplers and fit to the wagon, Make a trip to bunnings to buy bolts to hold the couplers into the coupler pockets, Fit dummy hand brake wheels (this wont happen until later because those parts are in Toowoomba....) , final coat of paint and lettering and numbers. I think the photo below can best show progress.

Allmost finished! Wheels and axlebox's fitted.

We also cant forget the PV explosive van..... I now have the underframe parts for the PV. It is one of Warrick Sandbergs S truck Underframes. The parts will now have to be sent to Oldmate welding for welding before it can progress any further.

Underfame parts ready for welding.

Thats all for now. But I will leave you with this video i found on Youtube last night of me, my engine and freight train passing the cammera at hotpot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V5rZ-iAUaZg

A wheely good time.

So over the last couple of days theres been a fair bit of wagon progress.
I had the task of getting at least the wheels for the S truck on axles, profile the wheels and turn down the axle ends ready for the bearings before the end of this week.
The reasion I have to have the S truck wheels finished this week is because im heading back down to mum and dads place in Sydney for about 2 weeks for various things.

Anyways the wagon has to go to sydney to join the fleet, even though it isnt finished yet I will be able to complete the rest of it in Sydney.

Well the plan was to fly down on saturday..... But the ash cloud has kinda brought an end to that for various reasions i will not mention here. So now tomorrow is a trip to Sydney on the XPT for me because its fairly important to be in Sydney this weekend.

Now back to the wheels. I spent a bit of time at the outlaws on Saturday and a part of Sunday arvo on the lathe making progress on the wheels. Ill let the photos do the talking.

This photo shows the disc wheels I have chosen to use under the S truck instead of the spoked wheels that came with the kit. It fits with the prototype S truck to have disc or spoked wheels so I decided the spoked wheels in the photo will go under the PV.
The Disc wheels came with a LCH kit I baught on ebay. The wheels were faced on both sides and bored in the centre ready to recieve axles. All i needed to was turn up axles! In the photo you will see the wheels have been fitted to the axles and I have faced and bored the spoked wheels.

In this photo I am heating up one of the spoked wheels on the BBQ so I can fit the wheel to the axle.

In this photo you will see the disc wheels are all profiled, finished and painted ready to go under the S truck. The next set of spoked wheels have been roughed out and the end set is un touched and ready for profiling.

Today I managed to get the first coat of colour onto the S truck.

Well thats all for now. I had better pack for my overnight trip on the XPT to Sydney tomorrow.

More Hotpot Photos.

Photos from the Hotpot run are starting to be posted on the Illawarra Live Steamers picture page.

The link to the picture page can be found here: http://www.ils.org.au/picturepage.shtml

I managed to find a couple of good photos of my engine and freight train on there and I will share them here.

This photo give those who have never been to hotpot what its all about. Scale freight trains and fellow model engineers having a yarn.

 

My engine 1248 and my small goods train in the yard.

Over the last couple of days ive been working on wheels for the S truck and the PV. I will post some photos later.

The PV begins.

Yesterday I couldnt get much done on the S truck so I decided to make a start on the PV explosive van body.
Originally I was going to build a ABV. For those who are playing at home the ABV was a 4 wheel van that was used by the NSWGR to transport Arnott's Biscuits around the state.
I had a drawing of a ABV blown up to scale and I was getting all the bits and pieces ready to start building the ABV when i came across this photo on facebook.

This PV is being rebuilt by railcorp apprentices at Eveleigh.

I came arcoss this photo and thought to myself....... 'I can build one of them". So its gone from there.

Yesterday I made a trip down to the local photocopy joint and got the drawing for the PV blown up to scale, and made a trip to bunnings to get some timber for the body.

I then spent the afternoon marking out the body on the new 3mm plywood and then roughly cut out the pieces.
I also had some left over 6mm marine ply left over from the KF flat wagon project so i will use this for the floor of the PV body.

 The PV body. On the left is the floor in marine ply the middle is the body sides and on the right the ends all marked out.

So tomorrow its off for another trip to the outlaws...... But that means I can turn up the wheels on the S truck and hopefully get them underneath it and make a start on the wheels for the PV.

Thats all for now.

HotPot 2011.

On the weekend just past myself and the girlfriend flew down to Sydney for the trip to Wollongong for the annual Hotpot Run.
The trip began on friday with a flight down from Brisbane to Sydney and a train trip to my mum and dads place to get a few things ready with 1248 (that now lives at my parents place again) and to load everything up to head out on Saturday morning.
The only way to describe the trip down to the gong is Wet and Rainy. I was thinking will it rain the whole time or wont it????
We arrived at the track and the steaming bays were FULL, No one was interested in leaving the steaming bays because of the rain. It took about 30 mins to get 1248 out of the ute and another hour to get a spot in the steaming bay just to light up!
Eventually the rain stoped and a few engines started leaving the steaming bays for a run.

Over all as with the previous Hotpot runs ive been to it was a great weekend to attend. I do think the rain did stop a few people from attending but.
I didnt get to take many photos but here is some I did.

My engine 1248 sits in the yard enjoying a rest.

Rodger Kershaw's latest engine 3510.

Looking forward to next years hotpot.

Well thats all for now. Its time to finish my second S truck and start on my next project. A NSWGR PV explosive van.