by Jack Hamilton
The first 4th Division Make-and-Take (MaT) clinic will be constructing a truss-rod flat car in wood. We will offer a choice of three scales for the project: O, HO and N. The clinic will provide the raw materials (wood, plastic parts, and metal for rods) as well as appropriate detail parts. The clinic will not provide trucks or couplers. The intent of the clinic is to address scratch building techniques and procedures, not to create a car that will be featured on your layout (if it does fit into your era and home road you get additional benefit from the clinic).
You will need to provide basic hand tools to complete the project and we will provide a list of recommended tools to those who intend to participate. Attendees will be required to measure, cut, fit, and glue up the pieces needed to complete the car. The clinic will have on hand several miter boxes and razor saws, a couple of electric model chop saws, and a variety of glues and adhesives that participants may desire to try out. The clinic will have a nominal cost for materials and we are targeting between $10 and $15. We will have a supply of additional materials on hand in the event of an “oops”.
The date for the clinic is March 4th, and the clinic will start at 9 AM with an anticipated 4-5 hours run time. The clinic will be in a Tacoma location and we will have room for up to 20 participants. The scheduled clinicians are Di Voss and me (Jack Hamilton), with others possible.
Please let me know if you intend to participate, which date(s) work for you and which scale you would like to work in. Reply to gradiver@wavecable.com. I will e-mail you the specific location of the clinic, along with other necessary details.
This is a fulfillment of the intent of the 4th Division to initiate a periodic (and traveling) MaT clinic series outside of our normally scheduled local clinics. We are now ready to move forward with the first of what we hope will be a continuing series of opportunities for our members to gain knowledge and either learn or polish skills.