So having started the day with a post on another body detail I thought I'd focus on the chassis for Canopus in today's second post. The last time you saw the chassis I'd added all the overlay detail but had yet fitted the wheels and soldered it solid. Well I've now added the wheels (including the insulating washers) and soldered on the cylinder bracket and the front cross-member to complete the basic rolling chassis. Rather than a photo I thought I'd show that the chassis runs nice and smoothly even without the extra weight of the body.
While I'm happy with how well it moves now, I'm hopping it still moves that freely once I've fitted the fly-cranks and coupling rods. I'm a little worried about fitting the fly-cranks as I've just realised why reaming out the axle holes was such an involved process.
The instructions mention that the fly-cranks should be an interference fit on the 1.5mm axles. I had a quick look to see how well they would fit only to find that they don't... at all. A little bit of measuring and I've discovered that the supplied wheels (which a packing note explained differ from those in the instructions) are actually on 2mm axles. Clearly the bearings that were supplied fit the axles, but the chassis etch obviously hadn't been updated so rather than just a small amount of reaming to get a push fit, I had to remove 0.5mm of extra material. On the chassis and axleboxes this wasn't a problem (other than being time consuming), but I'm a little worried that once I've removed the extra material from the fly-cranks that they might be a bit fragile.
So having started the day with a post on another body detail I thought I'd focus on the chassis for Canopus in today's second post. 
Well at this stage it has a very satisfying look and sound to it.
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