The Beginning

The beginning of building a 1/3 scale CASE started almost 5 years ago after selling the ¼ scale CASE that I had built 10 years prior. Selling the little CASE was probably one of the worst things I have ever done and the beginning of my “great” depression. The posted picture is what I use to play with at steam and tractor shows.

 

Anyway, upon receiving the blueprints for the 1/3 scale CASE, they looked very familiar. I found a set of blue prints for a Cole Power 2 inch scale CASE that my father had purchased in the late 50’s. Upon comparison, sure enough, the line drawings were exactly the same. The originator of the 4-inch scale CASE had taken Charles Arnold of Tiny Power drawings and copied them and then multiplied all the dimensions by two to come up with a set of drawings for the 4-inch scale traction engine. The original 2-inch scale drawings were dated 11/20/53. So, starting in January of 2004 I began redrawing the 50-year-old drawings. I generated over 200 separate piece part drawings and many assembly and sub-assembly drawings. After about a year and a half I purchased the castings and was ready to rock and roll. I was not very far into the project when it became quit apparent that my drawings and the castings were not matching and I was starting to machine by the seat of my pants. It was also very apparent that the pattern maker had not interrupted the original drawings correctly and major mistakes were made in several castings that caused major problems down the line. I will share later how I resolved those problems. Many of the castings did not line up from side to side. The foundry was way to aggressive in removing the excess material and they wound up grinding away some of the details and/or material that needed to stay with the casting. As pointed out by other model makers, many concessions have to be made in working with model castings. One has to consider alignment issues and establish that all-important datum surface or hole.