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Mounting plates are soldered onto the rear panel, onto which the bearings of the drive shafts are later screwed.



I drill the core holes for the M1 threads on the CNC machine.



I cut the threads by hand on the conventional milling machine. I have a small collet chuck in which I can clamp the tap. The collet chuck has a cylindrical shank that I can hold in the drill chuck of the milling machine. I close the drill chuck so far that I can just turn the collet chuck and move it axially. Then, with a lot of feeling, I can insert the thread exactly vertically without breaking off the fine tap.

The first angle profiles are fitted, ...



... then the first front panel can be test-fitted to the frame in its unfinished state. A few more angles as well as reinforcing and joining plates are still missing.



My dynamic colleague stood next to the tower to give you an impression of the proportions.

Thank you for your interest and the motivating comments!

In the meantime, I have made some progress. The front plates of the towers are too big for the rivet punching machine. I therefore have to solder in a few rivets as pins.




The rivets on most of the angle profiles are punched. However, I drill holes in some angles for the exact positioning of add-on parts.

Les, Glad you dredged this project back into action. It's looking very believable.

It's been quite a while since I last posted progress on the sternwheeler work boat. Now building the Ruston grab dredger at the bow. It in styrene though the two big gears I had 3d printed, the smaller gear is from the scrap box. There are other gears beneath the works which are those cheap plastic ones from China (200 for around £3!) that always come in handy. Currently working on the pipe work for the boiler.
Les   

Quote from: artizen on August 22, 2012, 03:29:34 AMSo what happened to number 1? 

Amazing work. Please keep posting.

A good question that has been unanswered for more than eleven years!
Work on number 1 has finally begun. It will start life as an engine dismantled for a main revision displayed in the workshop diorama described in the Shadowbox-thread

Looks great!

And further down the road, now the boat is about 80 per cent finished.
Now the finish what will I do?
First cleanit up a bit.

.

Kim, as always it is a pleasure to see your drawings and the transformation into a model.

Bernhard

For parts that are just lying around as decoration, the truck sides look really good.

Bernhard