Tuesday, August 01, 2017

Honking great big headlamp


The railbus roof should sport a great big headlight. If you are building the kit as intended, this is obtained from the Bachmann body. Sadly, it didn't come with my kit so I had to improvise.

Inspiration came from the book "Up Clear Creek on the Narrow Gauge" by Harry W.Brunk. On the cover is painting by the author and the steam loco sports a typical headlamp. Inside there are more photos for inspiration but this did the job for me.

Not having a suitable casting to hand, I loped the end from some tube using a plumbers tube cutter. Some thin brass was soldered over the back. The hood is a semicircle of the same brass marked with a pair of compasses and then cut out with scissors. It fits inside the tube. Not sure if this is how you are supposed to do it, but it works.

Support comes from more scrap U-channel. Once this was all soldered in place and to the roof, number boards (there's probably a correct name for these) were cut from U-section and superglued on the sides. Yes, soldering would be more macho but I suspected that all the heat would just make things fall apart again.

Not scale, but I think it looks the part.

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