08 kit building - Part 5

This Friday we had balsa wood (courtesy of Dave Stratton) so I could add the wires cut during the last session to the brakes. At this point we noticed that there are another set of brakes on the thinner etch. I presume these would have been easier to fold and drill than the ones on the thick etch, but maybe not so strong in use, so we will use the thicker ones.

Threading in the wires, and soldering up, as per the instructions,was straight forward enough, and the photo shows them with most of the wires trimmed and cleaned up. I will cut the remainder later, as I expect the length will be critical to hold them in place with the outer frames, without fouling the gear chain on the one side.

The next stage will be to paint or blacken the frames and wheels ready for final assembly before progressing with adding the cranks and connecting rods. There will be a few weeks gap before the next session, as we have our own Basingstoke Exhibition coming (March 10th/11th - very good value) and then we are helping Jim again at Nottingham.

08 kit building - Part 4

Last night's session started by me having to free up the rusting worm tube and extract it from the bearing. I cleaned it up again with emery paper, and got everything running freely again, but left it dismantled this time. I must put some oil on it to stop it rusting again.



Having dismantled everything, this evening was a less-than-exciting session of drilling .35mm holes (the smallest surviving drill I could find in my toolbox). Twelve holes in the chassis, and another 18 in the folded up brakes. However, Dave Stratton and I managed to complete all this without breaking a drill, which makes a nice change for me. I then cut 18 half inch lengths of .3mm nickel-silver rod ready for soldering,but as we did not have any balsa wood, that will wait for the next session.