Work in progress: Westinghouse boxcab electric

[lab-dad]

Geese!
And I thought I was nuts putting the Vector cut .5mm nuts on the ends of .015" music wire bent up to represent brake levers on a Nash Quad in 1:48.........

Amazing and inspiring work Hawk!
I never tire of the fabricating I see here!
-Marty
feeling like Blind Willie Miopits right now

[Malachi Constant]

Agree with all ... the pantograph is a true work of art and fine craftsmanship!

Marty ... where'd you find the .5mm nuts on VectorCut site?  I see a set with 1.0 and 1.5 mm bits ... so curious if that's a typo or if there's a smaller set available I'm missing somewhere ...

Cheers,
dallas

[Philip Smith]

missed this from the beginning...., Super nice build Hawk!

philip

[lab-dad]

Dallas, Likely a typo then, all I know is they are friggin small! perfect for what I was doing.

[Hauk]

One of the things that I have struggled with is a concept to keep the contact shoe of the pantograph flat against the overhead wire.
For some reason I have avoided the obvious: Do it like the prototype!
The prototype uses four springs and two vertical levers to keep the shoe in place.

I think the reason for ignoring this was the problem with obtaining reall small springs. And again, i missed the obious solution. Sommerfeldt is probably the largest manufacturer of pantographs in all major modelling scales, and when I finally checked their spare parts list, I found springs with a diameter of 1 mm and length of 5mm. But they were a horror to work with, countless times there was a little *ping* and the little bugger flew across the room .

Things started to click, and last night I built a prototype for the centering mechanism. It was a lot of trial and error before arriving at a working solution, so there are a few traces from failed attempts:



And that in fact concludes the work on the pantograph!
With the prototype done, I can move on to the *real* ones...

Regards,
Haavard

[finescalerr]

I see no evidence of failure; only evidence of success. -- Russ

[lab-dad]

Most excellent work!
I can see lots of uses for those springs.......and a need to buy a lot "boing"
-Marty

[Chuck Doan]

[JohnP]

OK so I've seen the big pennies but now it's 12" long rubber fingers!

I really like this work. It is miniature mechanical perfection. Next we'll hear Haavard is using carbon nano-tubes for the perfectly scaled power switching circuitry.

John

[Hauk]

Thanks a lot for all the kind feedback!
Those pesky little springs left me more than a little cross-eyed, so I am seriously considering getting one like this:




http://www.optcorp.com/product.aspx?pid=94-95-1150&kw=&st=0

Have anyone tried using a stero microscope as a modelling aid?

-Haavard

[Ray Dunakin]

A stereo microscope might be handy for some of my projects, such as sculpting figures of real people. But the price is far out of my range, so I'll have to stick with the ol' magnifying lamp.

[Ken Hamilton]

Those pesky little springs left me more than a little cross-eyed, so I am seriously considering getting one like this:
-Haavard

After working with those springs, the rest of us would be getting one of THESE:

[JohnP]

Ken, that looks familiar but it must be the long sleeve version:


John

[marc_reusser]

WOW!...you are truely insane Havard!  Beautiful work.

Glad I don't have your level of skill.....I would go over the brink completely.


Marc

[Tom Neeson]

Is he getting ready to eat that thing?

Tom