Brace Position

I've been busy fashioning a few more of the most obvious features of the KMX tamper, such as the bracing girders and bars which stop the machine vibrating itself into oblivion as it goes about its work on the Welsh Highland.

In the picture below you can see the tie bar which runs across in front of the tamping head and to its right a rather more substantial lump of metal (or in this case styrene) across the smaller compartment which is yet to be filled with techy bits.

The blocks that the bar is fixed to on either side took a while to be knocked up with quite a few small tiny triangles to be cut and glued into place while there is some accurate drilling required as well.

You can see the same bracing structures mirrored on the other side of the tamper at the far end as you look at the picture above.

In the foreground in this view are the engine compartment doors. I made this as a one piece laminate structure which will be glued into place in the final stages of the build.

Oh, and in case you thought the cab roof looks a bit wonky, don't worry, These are just off cuts of styrene which are shoved in there to help keep the sides nice and square for the moment.