Crest for 3”scale Foden Steam Wagon.

[thehomeengineer]

Hi All
Not a tool but hopefully will be of interest to a few HMT subscribers.

This was made from an etched brass plate purchased from the original Reeves model engineering supplier at Birmingham, England. Roughly 30 plus years ago (so almost an antique )

The model is a long way off from requiring this part but what is the saying “sometimes a change is as good as a rest” (I think that is right)

I also thought it might be a nice challenge as a lot of these models don’t have these fitted.

The brass sheet was firstly drilled at the relevant positions with my homemade drill. These piercing holes were needed to allow the blade to be placed through the material. The next operation was to rough cut the basic shape on the guillotine.

The fretsaw I used was originally my father’s and has been in storage in my sister’s garden shed. So after a day of maintenance and adjustments the saw was ready to cut the 1.2mm brass sheet.

This was a time consuming exercise and the use of good light and magnifying glasses made the job a lot easier. Once all the internal cutouts were finished the profile was cut.

A bracket was made and silver soldered to the back it the crest which was then dipped into my sulphuric acid/water bath to clean up the remaining flux. Unfortunately what I didn’t take in to consideration was the fact that the back of the material had been exposed to a photoresist and etched a small area away at the back. As the original would have been a casting I wasn’t to unhappy that the back was no longer perfectly flat.

After a final clean up the crest was painted and will be lacquered. The back and bracket will be painted with black paint to finish.

The photos below show the Crest
Fretsaw used to cut crest

Slowly cutting out the crest.

Crest bracket which will attach to the smoke box chimney saddle

Silver soldered bracket

First coat of paint

Almost finished needs small amount of paint cleaning off and another coat of paint and lacquer.

Hopefully this will be nice prominent part at the front of the engine, once engine is finished.

Thank you for viewing

The Home Engineer