At 03:16 PM 10/10/06 +0000, you wrote:
>from sheet brass without much difficulty. You will need a Oxy/Acytlene
torch to braze it together though. The smaller propane tources wont handle
it.
I disagree. Model platework is easy to ruin or irrevocably alter.
Unless this involves a boiler or other pressure device you will run a great
riskl of burning up or severly disfiguring your brass platework with
oxy/acetyl. Platework does not need to be silver soldered unless it is to
come into direct contact with flame, or be continuously subjected boiler
heat where the heat can migrate through direct metal-to-metal contact and
bring the platework up to boiler temp. Even then a common solder joint
will normally only be weakened and not fail except in the case of a severe
overheating and then you'll have more important problems to worry about. A
silver-bearing soft solder will do for most platework.
>I'd make a detailed drawing (CAD) and . . . . have it laser cut
Every once in a while I am asked "What's your most used tool?" The
answer is always my FILES. Files are the most basic metal removal tool and
the sooner you learn how to use them and what they can do the further along
toward becomming a scratch builder you will be. This is a perfect "learn
how to use your files" job and by the time you go through the
learning/searching curve for a Cad-generated kit of parts, unless you are
Cad-proficient already, you could have filed up two or three sets of motion
parts.
This will require tools, but it's all going to require tools, such as
needle files and some kind of small vise, such as a jeweler's vise, and
speaking of jeweler's you should probably get familiar with a jeweler's saw
and sawplate (which you make yourself). With practice these will do very
fine work.
My recommendation for the material is mild steel. Yes brass will be
easier to file, but not that much easier, and brass it will also wear more
quickly in the pins and it shows errant file marks more easily than steel.
I think you will be surprised at what you can do, with a little patience.
>Most plates are so small that you can't readily read them anyway, so find
one that is close and use it.
Here's another chance to develop some scratchbuilding skills. If you
do some sluething it is possible to learn exactly what was on those plates
but you may have to reach out a bit and contact builders or historians in
(gasp!) foreign lands! If you have a basic computer graphics program the
plates can be laid out and a file sent to be etched, or have an
orthographic negative made and etch your own using circuit board etch kits
available at Radio Shack. There is lots of information about these
processes on the web.
Good builders, those who do the work we all admire and wish we could
do, aren't heard to say "Aw that's close enough, nobody will notice" very
often.
Harry Wade
Nashville
<http://community.webshots.com/user/gwrdriver>
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