Sunday, August 19, 2012

Living on the Edge


Necessity can be the mother of invention!
On Friday I slightly sprained my shoulder residing my mother-in-laws garden shed. Aren't I the good son-in-law?
Next on the bench are 4 Chooch O scale cars for a client. Nice looking cars when they're done, it's just that the castings can have overly thick flash which needs to be removed. The roofs in particular can be a real chore. So with an aching shoulder the prospect of sanding off upwards of 0.015" from the underside of the roofs was, to say the least, daunting.
So, I went out on a limb and tried something I've been considering for sometime now. I pulled out the sanding station, stuck in a new belt and with a little trepidation went for it.
Success!
The surface area of the O scale casting is enough to help keeps things in control and with a light touch and repeated checking of progress, within 2-3 minutes the casting is ready. Sure beats the 20 minutes or more that hand sanding would have required.
Now I only did the roofs this way and I would not attempt this with HO scale parts, at least not with 80 grit belts. And this is definitely an outdoors thing. The dust cloud is not welcome in the house.
Now what else needs sanding?
Wonder if I can do the cat's claws this way?
Maybe not.

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