Custom Hot Wheels: Steampunk 2-4-2 #4

Made the stack with a little piece of copper pipe and flared it with a flaring tool.



Not sure about using the hood.



Time for some nitty-gritty figurin'. Enter the glass and sharpies! Planning phase on how to bolt it all together.This was my first idea- laid it all out, bent it all up and didn't end up liking it.



The goal was to hopefully get something along the lines of my penny engine in there so it could actually be POWERED...



The first attempt at the frame:



Looks like a pooper scooper.

Attempt #2. Frame rails.



Liking this- lots more room to tweak and adjust as I go, and I think in this case less is more.



Yeah. Starting to dig that.

This Old House #11: Thanksgiving and Dining Rooms.

What, y'all thought I gave up? Spent a portion of Thanksgiving break sucking up leaves...



Then the snow hit, and it got COLD.











Then we had a poop-load of people over for Thanksgiving dinner...







And the day after Thanksgiving, my wife decided to enlist everyone that stuck around in ripping the dining room to shreds. Something along these lines:



That left me to the simple task of peeling the wallpaper strip off the ceiling, cause, you know, I'm the tall one.







I scraped, I rolled, I sprayed, I sanded, I tired everything under the sun and that stuff DID NOT want to come off... Finally what ended up working sorta okay was the iron- yup, I spent the first three hours trying things out, and the last 2 hours holding that iron over my head while standing on a ladder, heating the strip up and scraping it off an inch at a time. Barf.

Moving on. Starting to look pretty good! One problem- never ask an "artist" to help you "paint".





Alas, it was in an awkward spot and had that green showing from behind so it got painted over.

Some of the help.

Custom Hot Wheels: Batbuild 6.0!

Here it is: Batbuild 6.0!  The latest build-off is finished and looking for your votes.



Several entries. Please follow the link below and vote for your favourite by "liking" it. DO NOT attempt to figure out who made what, just pick your favourite and VOTE!

https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.1497568640552444.1073741832.1459737441002231&type=3

Custom Hot Wheels- Steampunk 2-4-2 #3

And in the category of trying something new, why not spin some walnut wheels up for it on the lathe!





First attempt at the skinny sets. Didn't work out the way I wanted so they got remade.


Drive wheels were a different story. I wanted some tractor lug style patterns but have never been able to find anything close, so here's what I came up with.



See the wire? Yeah. Thats the lug burner...



Result:





Didn't like these ones either, so I redid them with a bigger chunk of walnut and a different lug burner made out of a sliver of sheet metal. Pattern came out great.

Here's roughly what I'm shooting for.





Don't care to count how many hours I already have into it at this point... *sigh*

Custom Hot Wheels: Steampunk 2-4-2 #2

Steampunk. Copper, right? Lets see what we can find in the scrap bin.



Look like some useable bits here.



Start with the boiler.

Custom Hot Wheels: Steampunk 2-4-2 #1

Starter pic. Started out as a decent looking old Chevy. I've noticed that there are a few "standard" cars that people use for builds, and I'm trying to not get stuck in that rut so I went with something a bit off the wall for me. Well, it's a Chevy, anyways... Old trucks are kind of my thing.





Chopped.



Stripped.



Hacked.

 

Winter's here.

So after like 2 years of dealing with the stupid buggy ignition switch, I finally got fed up with it and swapped it out. Also borrowed the battery from the 316, and now it fire's right up without the song and dance. Got our first snow so I went out and put the Plow on. Also got to test the lights out for the first time ever, and WOW are they bright!





The middle lights leave a little bit of a dark spot but not to bad!



Now that the plow's on, we probably won't get any more snow for the rest of this season...