Taking a break from Friday afternoon to post two little additions to my steampunk outfit / collection. The first is a pair of loupes scored off of eBay and the second is a bolt and wingnut pin or collar tab, of which I plan to make a second.

Now then, I’ve got two emails from VP’s in my inbox. Back to it!

(Blackberry provided for scale)

Disclaimer time! Let it be known I am not glorifying firearms, violence, etc. I love a good bit of gun play and I look pretty cool in a trench coat, Fedora pulled low and revolver at the ready, but I’m a big proponent of gun control. Why? Simple. I can’t trust your average person to operate a motor vehicle safely, let alone posses a loaded firearm. Also, I’m pretty much a poster child for gun control. I will never own a gun in my life out of concern for my fellow human beings. Trust me folks, you don’t want me owning a gun.

So, disclaimer out of the way, on to the build.

The design is loosely based off of an old CO2 pellet revolver that’s been sitting unused in a side table for time immemorial (see last picture). I’m tempted to get a new cylinder for it, but honestly the amount of missing screws and loose joints is enough to put safety in concern. The original idea was to build an actual revolver, just steamed up, complete with a break – the stock is split and has a hinge, even. In the end, I couldn’t come up with a retaining method I was satisfied with and simply changed the focus of the idea to a ray gun, or electric pistol, if you will.

The stock/frame is (obviously) all wood, cut out on a saber saw. The barrel is a simple length of 1/2″ copper tubing with an adapter at the end, held on with brackets. The trigger is a coat hook. The Brass piece on the top is actually a damaged throttle manifold from an Accucraft Ruby. The piece where the hammer should be (it is a raygun, after all) I’m not too sure about but has a screw on the end that can be adjusted for different power settings, or the like. The bit at the front of the stock, under the barrel, is a simple piece of brass with a spring over the end and mounted through the tip of a ball point pen. Added an eye hook to the bottom of the grip to attach a lanyard to and thumbtacks to the side of the ‘tumbler’ for extra texture.

Overall, I’m very pleased with the result; it’s a good size, just a bit on the big side and has a modest amount of heft to it. The detail is sufficient but not overdone, avoiding a major irritation I have with most of the steam punk subculture. I’m really not looking forward to taking it apart for painting, though. The plan is to leave everything metal as it is (except the thumbtacks) and give the stock a nice hammered iron look. Between the painting and a bit more filling and sanding, I’m thinking there’s another six hours ahead of me and it should be done by Monday night.

Edit: Oh, plus the labels need removing and the inevitable weathering with a dremel tool.

The idea was not to replicate the British Railways red and cream livery of the fifties, though I did draw inspiration from it. One car – the first behind the locomotive – is a noticeable shade lighter, to me at least. It’s probably because that was painted almost a year ago, hence a variation in the paint mixture. I plan to rectify that and the many touch ups this weekend to come.

Oh, yeah, need to figure out what to do about the roofs, too.

I’ve decided I’m not a big fan of the cab steps. I’ll probably replace them with stirrups tomorrow. Also, I still need to find something for the exhaust and paint needs a bit of touch up. Other than that and the aforementioned name and number, I feel pretty comfortable saying it’s done at this point.

1. The temperature has been above freezing for several weeks on end.
2. When out to procure a hot beverage at lunch, I did so, having a blast, bombing around in my 3 with the windows down and the roof open.
3. Even though 60cm+ of snow fell on the railway since the last post, 95% of the track is now passable.
4. Because I say so, gods damnit!

And just in time for the imminent opening of the running season (I’m thinking this weekend if not sooner), the Boxcab is now officially in a state of near-completion and will take to the rails soon. There’s still a few small things to do (lettering, minor roof details, paint touch up, not too sure about the steps), but it’s ready enough to enter service. I won’t take up much more of this post with words, so I’ll fill in the awkward silence with pictures.

Now, to settle on a name…

At the west end of the circuit is the only visible, and to a far lesser degree, only transitable section of track.

The track snakes through these bushes in a broad S-curve from the top right, down to middle then finally bottom right. The path is just almost visible in the shape of the snow. A bridge is at the bottom right which will hopefully survive it’s third Canadian winter. As of yet, there is no sign of it. The snow at this point averages approximately 50-70cm in places.

The eastern passing loop is between the three control boxes (submerged in the snow) and the foliage.

The foundation of the mine-head at the north end. The building was taken in for the winter and a major redesign/bash. The mine spur is immediately ‘below’ the foundation and further below that is the main line. This area is probably the least snowed in.

Part of the same area as the second photo plus more to the west, looking at the S-curve from the other side.

The weather was an unseasonably warm -2 Celsius this afternoon which made my thoughts turn back to scenes such as this photo from July of last year lurking around on my hard drive. Oh, those were the days, and those days will come again to be sure, but the waiting is the problem.

[Note to self: build a weed-trimming car for the new year.]

[Note: Yes, the remaining parts of the Raising Ruby saga will continue in time.]

Early last year I stumbled upon the Ezee line of laser-cut wood kits in 16mm scale by IP Engineering and had a small roster shipped across the Atlantic. What they lack in detail (what do you expect for a budget line, after all), they make up for in versatility, ease of construction and good old fashioned fun. They come with everything necessary – including wheels, motor, battery box, gears etc. – except paint, glue and AAA batteries. Now, naturally, me being me, I had to go and complicate things. The locomotives, for instance, are not just limited to on-off operation, but have a SPDT switch wired in place to provide reverse movement, as well. Plus there’s also the mandatory detailing required by such simple (yet lovely) models.

Ever since way back I’ve included Boxcabs among my eccentric interests; I like to think this started while on a work term with GE who once produced a vast line of Boxcab diesels and electrics, but I think it goes back further. As such, I saw an opportunity with the Ezee line ‘Daisy‘ railcar to bash it into a box by swapping some of the body pieces with the matching Guard’s Van. In spite of the two models being approximately the same size when complete, the ends of the Guard’s Van are slightly narrower, owing to a curiosity of the construction process. This was rectified with a thin (1mm, I believe) wood shim on either side of the offending ends. This was applied to both and means that the floor/frame of what’s left of the Guard’s Van is now slightly narrower than the body itself. But that and what will become of it is another story.

In it’s original configuration, Daisy has a rear bed (railtruck-esque) where the battery box with it’s on-off switch resides. Since I was enclosing all the guts and didn’t have room to mount the box externally, a removable roof is a must. It’s worth noting that the reverser is also a centre-off switch and can be reached easily enough through the windows. I tried several ideas for a rigid roof that could be opened or removed easily including an earlier idea of having the side doors hinged for access, but that became evidently impractical early in the process. In the end, most ideas including a scissor-lift system remained entirely on paper and I came down to two options. The first was, in all honesty of hindsight, stupid. The plan was to take a piece of plywood, cut to the right shape and sand it to the contours of the roof. Yes. I attempted to sand a block of plywood the the shape of two much thinner and much softer pieces of wood. I even tried to dremel tool it down a bit, but was left with a bit of saw dust and a lot of a smokey, burnt-wood aroma in the workshop. (Mmmm!) Forty minutes later, with progress being practically non-existant, I resorted to plan B.

I think the end result is probably one of my better feats of construction, sad as that may be. The solution ended up being to cut three forms to the shape of the roof line that fit snugly in the body and held together with two beams. I abandoned the thick styrene roof that came with the kit (and is too thick to bend naturally enough) and replaced it with a piece of thin, single sheet plywood, tacked and glued to the formers. While he structure keeps the roof from shifting laterally, the roof itself keeps it from falling in. In trials this method works very well and the roof hardly moves while running, but can be pulled off easily enough to change batteries, kill the power, etc.

To further complicate matters, I ordered the four wheel drive conversion kit along with both locomotives (‘Cricket’ will receive it’s own post, in time). Given that my track has some… interesting grades at certain points, this was a necessity and well worth the extra cost. The battery boxes both in this case and on Cricket are held in place with Velcro, which allows me to easily remove them with just enough slack on the wires to change the batteries without feeling like I’m pulling against a connection:

Before this weekend past, this model was a hollow body with a motor and wheels in place (and it’s worth noting that said motor and wheels were improperly positioned and bound too much to move under it’s own power). A lot has been done, but the to-do list is still very extensive, including:

• Add radiator to the front. This seems superflous now since the prime mover is supposed to be in the back and there’s nothing behind the grill but the driver’s legs, but it looks good.
• Add a headlight as soon as I can find the proper resistor so as not to burn out the LED.
• Add roof details including exhaust, muffler, horn and bell.
• Paint, including touch-ups to the frame.
• Add window glazing – maybe, not sure on this one yet.
• Add name plates. And I’m very pleased with the name I have picked out, but that’s kept under wraps until she’s ready. Also, considering this unit is intended to pull the company varnish and the prestige of the name, I think I need something more substantial for name plates than Cricket’s label-maker produced stickers.