I’m looking to rebuild a pair of my Walthers Trainline locos to a higher detail spec, however, I am in a bit of a pickle.
I need to cut out some precision square holes in the body shell, but am unsure of the best way to go about doing this
Does anyone have any recommendations, suggestions, or comments?
For the record, the reson I don’t just go buy a newer, better quality model is 1) so that I can get practice building my own stuff, 2) because I already have the Walthers models, and 3) because even with a newer better quality model, I’d still end up hacking it up!
I’m trying to build a VIA F40PH-2D in the post-2006 rebuild design (with the rear HEP cabinet, which I have already designed and 3D printed). I just need to cut precision squares in the body for grills and to move some paneling around.
The sure-fire way is to put the shell in a milling machine, and use smaller and smaller end mills to cut the holes. At the finish, you have, hopefully tiny, curved corners to cut or file out. Pretty much failsafe.
If’n you don’t have a mill, I’d recommend laying the holes out on the sides with pencil and then very lightly scribe the lines for the squares. Well, don’t scribe too light, or you won’t see them. But too heavy can be regretful, too. There’s a company called C-Thru Ruler Company. They make what the name says. I’d get one of their 6" rulers with as fine a spacing as possible. Also, a metal square:
Then drill a center hole–too big and you damage the scribe lines–too small, and you have more filing.
Filing: you’ll need them. I’d recommend one or more flat files small enough to fit. And the same for square files. And X-acto knives will also be handy at the corners.
Anyway, you file the round hole into a square hole using the scribe lines as a guide. You keep looking and checking to see how things are going. You might put some white paper inside the shell to help see the “squareness”. The C-Thru can be very useful, too.
If you want to be assured of things working out, practice on some scrap, first. Until you’re confident you can pull it off.
There’s two things to watch for: all the squares (or rectangles) that are in a row have to line up. Exactly. And all have to be square (or rectangular) exactly.
The word “patience” keeps popping into my head, for some reason.
Those are both the tools for making square holes (well technically there is a square drill that has a drill bit inside a square punch for use in a drill press).
However, if you are cutting holes in a body shell they might not be what you want, unless the hole is larger than the tool and you can get the tool in the right spot. The punch requires support under the material being punched and the nibbler requires the handle portion to have access and then part of the nibbler has to come in contact with the shell.
You may have to scribe the outline of the hole on the shell and old school drill, cut, scrape and file it to square.
There are several ways to do it, depending on the size of the rectangular hole you need to make and also if there are fine details nearby that you do not want to destroy.
If the rec-hole is conviently large enough, I drill a hole just inside each corner that is large enough for a jeweler’s blade to fit through. Not sure if you have experience using a jeweler’s saw, but the rest is self-explanatory if you use one. You basically saw from hole to hole at each corner to remove the panel. Then you use a jeweler’s file to square up each corner and dress the rest of the edges.
I know folks use a razor saw, but I do not get the control I have with the above method.
Now for smaller rec-holes that make it impossible to use a jeweler’s saw, I just drill a series of closely spaced holes just inside the line demarcating the panel you want out. Next it is just a ma