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The Foden 6-ton C type steam estate tractor
PAGE 2

The starting point for the Foden is the chassis. Well, it could have been the boiler but it's six of one and half dozen of the other which is the best place to start. Having a rolling chassis seemed to me to be a better option. The scale of 3" to the foot makes the steel work more like a civil structure than a model engineering task. 2"x1"x1/4" is quite heavy stuff to deal with.

The photo gallery below is a selection from many photos taken during the build.
Click on the thumb nails to get enlarged picture

The front axle is shown here almost complete . It measures just over 15" between kingpin centres.

The spring leaves are plain mild steel bar rolled to curvature. They had to be heated to get them to bend. Bottom two are 3/16" thick the rest 1/8" thick.

  
     
 

The steering box ........

An interesting challenge as the column has a two start 1/16" 4 TPI square 3/8" diameter thread to be cut. This I have to do on the Myford which has an 8 TPI lead screw. This has now been successfully completed as can be seen:

The connecting rods and bell crank have been done and the finished assembly is shown further down.
     
The completed chassis and given a coat of rust preventing primer. A view of it (upside down) looks like this:  
The near side radius rod bracket missing in this picture but it is now fitted.  
The rear spring slipper brackets have been given a coat of paint underneath but not on top until the rear springs have been made and trial fitted.
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