It’s a small, small world….

Time to make some of the internal parts (I was sick of clear resin at this point).

After trying to track down small, thin plastic or metal rings simliar to washers I decided to create my own. I created a circle cutter out of an old drafting compass by replacing the pencil with a finely sharpened steel pin. This made it easy to created the many circle cuts I would need, all smaller than 2 inches in diameter.

I started with the Emitter Shield….

I created a small jig for my drill press to make this a bit easier. Lots of fine filing involved in those oval vents.

Next, building the regulators and emitter brackets. Everything is carved from styrene at this point and glues with cyanoacrylate glues. I love CA….I use several different viscosities and epoxies but rely on the CAs the most. They’re very easy to control and predict because their speed of cure is so reliable.

I found some tiny scale screws and allen bolts that perfectly matched my requirements in my hobby shop’s scale railroad department. CA bonds them perfectly to styrene without the mess of epoxy. I also carved a few pieces from some sprinkler system hose attachments that were made of a very tough Urethane. One of these days I’m going to buy myself a lathe for this type of thing.