Little Critters, Pt.2

I realized right after publishing yesterday's post, I had neglected to take a picture of the whole engine. So here is the progress as of last night. You can see the overhanging deck at the rear, and a test railing. The one problem of this overhang would be installing a new coupler pocket. Anyway, now it was time to drop the body into some paint remover and get rid of all that silver.

While the body was brewing in the remover, I decided to.............

What's this!? What's this!?  Just what is going on here!?

Well, what can I say? That coupler pocket issue was bothering me. And when I shortened the the deck, I was in a hurry and didn't do the best job of squaring all the cuts. Also, the super glue cured almost instantly (and I was using a slow-cure, thick glue) leaving some mismatched joints. In the end I decided to break it all apart and start over. Removing the tread plate was the hardest part. After breaking all the other joints, I laid a piece of 150 grit sandpaper on the bench and sanded all the flat surfaces smooth. Then I removed enough of the front  (the pointed parts) vertically to square it up, about 1/16th". I eventually clipped those points off.

On the rear, I moved the 1/4" overhang so it was between the kit parts. This eliminated any problem locating the coupler. At the top you can see how I used styrene strip on the inside to strengthen the joints. (Did this on the front, too.)

Again I used some styrene channel to reinforce the joint and hide a jagged seam.

Now you can see why there's a cut-out in the extension piece. The kit's plastic motor clip was broken, so I had to make a replacement.

Damn, I had hoped to re-use the tread plate I removed. Oh well.

Two up to the minute shots.

That's all for now. I welcome any questions or comments. Don