Etched Brass Walkways
by Lee Wright

The walkways on the first hopper were machined from brass strips on the CNC machine. First; holes had to be drilled using a fixture for drilling . A second fixture was necessary for holding the parts a second time while the teeth were machined on.

Only 10 to 12 parts could be machined a one time making it a time consuming task not to mention difficulty in quality control. Having been home on disability for several months and no access to computerized machining, another way had to be found to make the walk way parts.

I was lucky enough to find a place called Photofabrication Engineering Inc. I sent them an Autocad drawing of what I wanted and the specification for the material. They did a fantastic job and returned the material you see in the following pictures.

This turned out to be very cost effective. The turn around time was just a couple of weeks. The parts were ready to be cut and soldered together. All the parts were identical which, was a major help. Now were are talking a couple of weeks to complete the project instead of four months as before.

The parts are placed on my fixture with pins for location. Some pins are removable so that different configurations of the walkway can be made, such as the over hang on the end of the cars.

The mounting blocks are carefully soldered in between the slats and the parts are bolted to the car frame from underneath to make a clean attachment;

This time the runners were only .200 tall and.025 thick. The horizontal wires were 3/64" dia. They made the whole assembly very close to the real scaled down size. I am very satisfied with the results.


Lee