My Model build to start 2021

Spent the day fixing yesterday's little oops.....if you note the picture of the wood stove.....oops?.....what oops? LOL. Either way, I worked on the lower gear and cog assembly and managed to get the gears meshed and the cogs in place as well as got the two large chains dry fit on the assembly. I still need to fine tune them and hopefully, by the end of next Saturday, I will be done with gears, cogs and racks.

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I spent some time today adjusting the two large chains again as I didn't really like the way that they fit. They were a little too tight. So I spent some time fixing that problem and then, the more I thought about it, the more I didn't like the hydraulic pistons and decided to just scrap them and remake them. I wanted to get one more inch of height from the pistons and I just wasn't going to get that with the original ones. I am often asked on my youtube channel why I wear a full face shield while working on the table saw and the second picture here demonstrates why. While making the new pistons, this piece broke away from the top bracket and shot out from underneath my Grippers and proceeded to shatter against my face shield with enough force that I could feel the vibration of it through the head harness. I'd hate to see the damage caused if I didn't wear a shield. And THAT is why I wear one. I then spent some time fine tuning them and getting them working correctly and then finally glued in the drive shaft. There is some sticky spots in the drive shaft gear that causes the differential to kick in and I'm not a fan of that so I will be filing the gears tomorrow to fine tune them and get them to fit better. I then glued in all the cogs and made and glued on all the end caps of the dowels that were sticking out of the body. After that was done, I installed the steering rack and got that working and then, I added some front panels, mud flaps and headlights. At that point, 9 hours had passed and I decided to call it a day.

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Worked on getting the side fenders installed and some rear trim pieces. I then spent a ridiculous amount of time cutting the pieces and installing the interior walnut grill and then the maple exterior grill. I also got the handle for the tilt mechanism mounted and glued the front steering wheel in place. That was it for the day.


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Ok, now I am completely discombobulated! Front steering wheel mounted on the grill? Googled up lots of pics of dumps, mining dumps, and underground mining dumps and looked at a couple of equipment magazines and used equipment fliers and could not find a one with a grill mounted steering wheel. Then thinking it may be a Canadian "thing", I did the same searches for Canadian dump trucks - again with no luck. What type of truck is this? This inquiring mind would like to know! Looking back on previous posts it seems like it should hook up to the steering rack.
 
Ok, now I am completely discombobulated! Front steering wheel mounted on the grill? Googled up lots of pics of dumps, mining dumps, and underground mining dumps and looked at a couple of equipment magazines and used equipment fliers and could not find a one with a grill mounted steering wheel. Then thinking it may be a Canadian "thing", I did the same searches for Canadian dump trucks - again with no luck. What type of truck is this? This inquiring mind would like to know! Looking back on previous posts it seems like it should hook up to the steering rack.
One thing that you have to remember with this build is that it is a toy to play with, not a model to display. The steering wheel on the front of the truck is so that the child who is playing with it can steer while they are backing in to an area to dump their load from the truck. There will be a matching one on the rear of the truck for driving forward. They are linked by the wooden U-joint in the middle of the shaft. I hope this clears it up.
 
One thing that you have to remember with this build is that it is a toy to play with, not a model to display. The steering wheel on the front of the truck is so that the child who is playing with it can steer while they are backing in to an area to dump their load from the truck. There will be a matching one on the rear of the truck for driving forward. They are linked by the wooden U-joint in the middle of the shaft. I hope this clears it up.
Got it now! Makes sense! Gotta stuff Pragmatic Mikey back under his rock.
 
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Didn't get as much done on the model as I would have liked to today for a couple of reasons....One, I had to serious work on the steering gears and the drive shaft gears. They just weren't meshing the way that I would have liked so I spent a couple of hours to file down each and every tooth to get the gears to mesh nicely. I have them about 95% done and I will finish the filing on another day to fix up the drive shaft gear. The steering now works great though. So I got the rear steering wheel mounted and as well, started work on the cab of the truck. I got a couple of uprights made and glued in place and I also made a few deck pieces. Other than that, I got delayed as well because a certain little girl needed her pink chair repaired and what kind of a grandfather would I be if I didn't fix it for her? Hopefully, more progress tomorrow.

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Started off today by cutting the maple piece that I needed for the truck's roof. I had plenty of walnut trim to cut and glue in place so while I was waiting for glue to dry, I made a little driver / operator. I managed to get the roof glued in place and then finished off the day by starting building the truck's bucket. That was the day.

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I spent the day today, working on the bucket of the toy. (with some gear filing in between pieces) There was a lot of trim pieces to cut and a lot of angles to figure out and a lot of sanding. I also made the guide blocks for the bucket and the front brackets and retaining pins. There's still quite a bit of work to go on the bucket but hopefully, but the end of tomorrow, it won't look so rustic. More to come.


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I spent the day today, working on the bucket of the toy. (with some gear filing in between pieces) There was a lot of trim pieces to cut and a lot of angles to figure out and a lot of sanding. I also made the guide blocks for the bucket and the front brackets and retaining pins. There's still quite a bit of work to go on the bucket but hopefully, but the end of tomorrow, it won't look so rustic. More to come.


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See some sawdust on the front tire, glad you finally had some time to test drive it.
 
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