Continuing this series and moving on from the frame and drive (see this article), it was time, finally, to begin building the body.

The Cab

As I was still getting comfortable with resistance soldering, I decided to start with the cab. There is a joint to solder, and I wanted to add a square brass rod to strengthen the joint. I puzzled how to clamp this and hit on the idea of why not just try blue painters’ tape? And, actually, it worked fine in this context.

I also used painters’ tape to help position the small steps.

The hood — cab end

There are some critical angles to hit with this part of the build. The first one I addressed was the slant of the hood toward the cab, and I soldered scrap brass inside to solidify that angle. The next step was I used a large nail as a mini-mandrel and used that and a small hammer to tap the curved angle into the sides of the hood. Finally, I soldered that all together with the painter’s tape helping to hold things in place.

In relation to further smoothing operations later I probably should have used a bit more solder at this point, but this part is very solid.

The front

Then we get to the front of the locomotive. I was really puzzled what the maker was thinking I was supposed to do. The edges are so square and need to be rounded.

Finally, it occurred to me that the “extra” pieces seen in the photo above were to solder behind the hood end – inside the engine! — and then you have to file it to final shape, a shape as seen on the green HO SW I hood in the photo

For soldering I set up the parts as below. Would mention, after about this point I used that metal clamp and the vice to set up every part for soldering, it held things securely and gave a place to clip on the electrical connection.

After soldering the part very solidly I then put it inside the hood, clamped that all up well, and used plenty of solder to make the area very solid.

It needs to be really solid because we have to file the corners to shape next.

Turning the hood over and setting all the parts on the frame, now the engine looks like this. I’ll fix the square ends issue in the next installment of this series.

Continue reading the SW8 series