E-paw's duff challenge for 2013

[e-paw]

Almost had the chance to paint them today, , but it started to snow just as I got home from work. So I'll post what I've been up too.

I had this idea floating around in my head now for a few months and decided to use it on this model. I wanted to give a try at building one of these...<!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://www.gingerb.com/LNE%20Bethlehem%20Tender%20Booster%20Truck.jpg">http://www.gingerb.com/LNE%20Bethlehem% ... 0Truck.jpg</a><!-- m -->
A Bethlehem tender booster truck. My big hang up was to come up with a way to make the side rods turn with the wheels. My solution was to start with one of the Kato freight trucks that have the spinning bearing caps, and modify it for side rods.

I started by putting a file to the side frames to get as thin as I could, that way I can add styrene over them to build the new side frames.    


I next cut some thin styrene in the shape of the new side frames and attach them to the trucks with Model Masters ca glue.     this stuff works great for bonding to the slippery surface of the Kato trucks. The important thing here is to make sure that the new side frames clear the bearing caps and to not glue them to the trucks either.

For the counter weights, I cut them from the same plastic as the side frames carefully marking the center point. I filed off the details from the bearing caps and drilled out the center hole from the back side out so that it would be a close to dead center as I could make it.     Here is a front and back view of a pair of them to help you understand what I am doing. I used a plastic rivet from Tichy to act as a centering pin and glued them together with more of the same CA. when it was all dry I drilled out the bearing caps to the original depth and sanded off the head of the rivet.

I cut the side rods from some U-channel sanded the ends flat and drilled them out to accept some Bowser valve gear rivets     I also drilled the other end of the counter weights for the same valve gear rivets. then it was all put together, and tested for binds. I'll post a video of it in just a few.