Wichendon Machine Shop (restart)

[deemery]

Dave looks like you proved the first floor is able to handle the weight!!

Jerry

Wood is strong in compression.   I did a quick check, the 2 floors seem to be nice and tight glued together.  There was a bit of warp with the 2 ends slightly raised, that's why they got the heavy weights.  I need to fish the 2nd floor wires down through the access hole, and then I can glue the 2nd floor ceiling into position, which will further strengthen the assembly.

From here, it's pretty much a straight "build the kit" project.  The instructions are minimal, I've had to carefully study the photos to fill on some missing parts of the effort.  And the freight door trim was too short, but that was easily fixed with stripwood. 

I'll be able to true up the two ends of the structure on my hand-powered large disk sander, and I can smooth out the long sides with a sanding sponge if necessary.  My previous test fit showed the long dimension to be a bit oversized.  Then the plan is to test-fit the 4 walls (3 wood and 1 acrylic) to see if I need to do any more finagling.  I can cover up some oversized width with trim.

dave

[Rick]

Dave, that's an impressively strong model you've built.
Interior details look fantastic.
Have fun with the wall attachment.

[Philip]

WOW!

[friscomike]

Howdy Dave,

The plexiglass wall looks great.  It's a clever idea and I haven't seen it done before.

Have fun,
mike

[deemery]

Here's how I sanded the framing smooth before attaching the walls:


And a test-fit of all 4 walls!

On the layout, I might see if I can add some indirect backlighting behind the structure (like that overhead lamp provides, only along the ground.) 

Anyway, I think the acrylic wall worked quite well.

dave

[Jerry]

Very nice Dave.  You have done a very nice job on this machine shop.

Jerry

[PRR Modeler]

I agree with Jerry, very nice.

[Philip]

Interesting display. Was the laser cut acrylic wall included with the kit?

A close up would be cool.

[deemery]

Interesting display. Was the laser cut acrylic wall included with the kit?

A close up would be cool.

No, I contacted LM3 and asked if they'd special-order cut the wall for me from acrylic.  They no longer produce kits, but I figured they hadn't thrown away the laser files.  

dave

[Philip]

Cool!

[friscomike]

Howdy Dave,

The foundry looks amazing.  I'm eager to see it lit up.  The acrylic wall and windows came out perfect.

Have fun,
mike

[craftsmankits]

This has been fun to watch.  I'm with friscomike, eager to see this lit up.  It's been so much fun to see this kit under construction.  Mark

[Pennman]

This looks like a great build Dave. I agree with the rest of the fella's.
The structure looks like it may be heavy due to all of the interior details.
Nice work.

Rich

[deemery]

Well, I said this project now turns into "assemble the kit", but of course that's not simple.  If you look really carefully at my last photo, you might notice that the front wall is longer than the two side walls.  The back has the same issue.  It's much easier to trim wood than acrylic, so I think what I'll do is add some wood to the bottom of the 2 ends to match the base of the acrylic wall.  Then I'll do whatever I need to do to get the back wall to fit.  

Also, I worked a bit on the boiler house, and cut the hole for the steam line through the right side end (that's the side the boiler house attaches to.)  There'll be more fitting for the steam line later, but for now that's enough I can think about gluing the two ends permanently to the frame/structure.  

No pictures today. maybe something tomorrow.

dave

[Larry C]

Dave the Shop is looking very nice and is really coming together. I agree the wood part would be much easier to fix than the acrylic.