Hello

Its about time for a quick update. Things havent really gone as well as I would like but I am still getting a few things done...

1. Q1 Revisited.

I never managed to get the Q1 to run well enough the first time around to be totally happy with it, so after finishing the 42/52xx I made a start reworking a few bits.

I 'salvaged' a couple of gears from a tiny servo I had in a box and decided to redo the little reduction box I originally fitted to the engine to lower the driveshaft from the tender. The first one I made never really worked well enough plus it was a straight 1:1 so this time I have added a little 3.5:1 reduction. The above photo shows the gears plus the beginnings of the gearbox machined from a bit of square brass.

This shows the gearbox assembled. The cover is a push fit onto the main body and the black plastic is the socket for the universal joint which is a push fit onto the smaller gears shaft.

This shows the reduction box assembled. It has taken quite a while to get this far believe it or not! I have had lots of trouble with the gears slipping on the shafts which I only finally managed to fix with a little super glue and making some inserts for the gears.

This shows the reduction box fitted onto the Q1s chassis. Its a nice push fit and doesnt require any glue or anything (total fluke!) but I havent tried it with the motor yet, only turning it all by hand.

2. Station Lamps

I was getting cheesed off with the station lamps getting broken all the time because they were bouncing around in a box with other bits so I decided to make a simple carry case for them. Its just a thin piece of card cut out in the shape of the lamps sandwiched between 2 pieces of corrugated card. Nothing special but effective!

Missy