Jon020's Workbench Blog

Nice to see the speaker fits in the last shot! You're a brave man - I don't think I'd have gone quite so far... but it does transform the look of an engine. The Heljan 26/27/33 models always look great in this area around the fuel tanks as they literally feel like they're hung underneath the chassis - just as your Deltic does now.

 

I'm pleased to hear you're finding your feet again Jon. This hobby shouldn't be frustrating, or hard work. Sometimes life gets in the way, and even our escapes don't help. I know that's how I've felt in the past. Then it's definitely the right time to put down the project as you can spoil it. The Mojo always comes back, even if on a differnent modelling subject

James. Hi... and thanks for the comments.. yes, life can hamper progress at times. As for the speaker, when I spoke to Caroline at SWD, she said that theire advice was to open the tanks out and leave it facing downwards. I've some reservations about this, but there is limited space so I can see why it's been done as the norm - see Dave's thread on Waverley West.. of the whose sound for class 55s on the DCC Sound forum. However, others have mentioned that leaving the speaker facing upwards gives some resonance. For mine, given that the upper parts of the tank walls have been removed, the sound will escape reasonably well - anyone know the frequency so that we can check the signal wavelength and work out the best sized opening (it probably needs to be bigger than this, but this is a test). However, doing it this way leaves the speaker protected and enclosed ... the tanks are the bits I often grab when picking the locos up... and I was concerned about putting a finger through the speaker. However, to do this I had to remove a lot of material in the base of the tank... and then thinned the speaker housing a bit so that when the metal structure is reattached to the chassis there was no interference - so I think I got away with it. What I do need to do is work out how to add the intra tank pipework with the now reduced depth available... should be fun

This sounds like an interesting project, Jon . What I've seen thus far looks great, too!

Ooh that hard black plastic dust looks familiar! The front buffer beam looks excellent, it really does.

 

I will follow with great interest!

 

Kind regards,

 

Nick.