The small start to something new...

I've been talking to a friend for some time about learning how to produce CAD drawings that can be laser cut. It struck me that something relatively simple might be a good start. I downloaded some open source CAD software called LibreCAD and began with drawing up a simple box!

The box in fact is a fuel oil tank from a Hunslet Waril. After their life at Deptford when they arrived at Sand Hutton they were converted to burn coal, and so the oil tank was removed from the cab. This photo gave me the idea that one might be an interesting scenic item on the tramway.

The design was very straight forward - laser cut in 2mm styrene, although perhaps it would have been better a touch thinner. I then glued it together and smoothed and rounded the edges. A few rivets and bolts show where the heating coil inside was connected. The lid isn't modelled as presumed lost. Here posed with my Andrew Barclay, you can see that it would have been a perfect fit in the cab, so perhaps here too, on the Dyfrdwy tramway, the locomotive has been converted from oil firing? More soon...