Building a train - part one

Today I began work on the train. I like to start with the wheels, then the trucks and then work my way up from the frame. I printed out the drawing and then scaled it off to determine the size of the wheels.

It took me half a day to create the vector drawings in scale for all the pieces. It was done entirely in EnRoute.

Because it is a geared locomotive four of the train wheels have gears attached to the face. I started by creating the back flange of the wheel at 0.4" thick. I then selected the next inner circle, this becoming the face of the wheel. It was raised 2.4"

I then raised the teeth of the gears as a flat relief. I used the circle vector around the teeth relief to modify then using the bevel tool. this angled them upwards in the middle. Then I went to the front view and nudged them up into position vertically.

Then I merged highest to the original wheel relief.

The center of the wheel was made by making a relief 3" tall. This was then merged highest with the wheel relief.

To drill the axel hole I created a zero height relief 2" across. This would be merged lowest to the wheel, effectively creating a hole in each wheel.

That created the first type of wheel for the locomotive.

Tomorrow I'll show how we built the second style of wheel.

-dan