The goal of this hobby project is to build a 1/8th scale working live steam model of a South African Railways 23 class 4-8-2 locomotive.
The first step was understanding and scaling the 1930's SAR drawings of the full scale locomotive. These were in imperial and obviously far more complicated than the detail required at 1/8th scale. Although not really designed for this task, Tekla was used as it was familiar.
1) It has make it possible to produce more DXFs for laser and water cutting.
2) It has helped with understanding the approx. 500 pages of imperial drawings, with a 3D view which would have been unable to be done at the time in 1930.
3) Although not a STL file feature, the DXF files were then converted by a third party for 3D printing.
The current model is about 2 1/2 years’ worth of work and is added to almost every week, and 2 1/2 years has also included making components, not just drawings. It even gets edited, as I make parts and adjust the adjacent component, if required.
Planned construction period time is, hopefully, another 2 1/2 to 3 years.
