Thanks Kim and Matthew! It took me close to two years to build the tender, so I guess it will be at least four years or so to build the engine. A box to protect the tender in the mean time is probably not a bad idea.
I made an indirect start on the engine by first making the headlights for the tender and engine. I was wondering how to make the curved aluminium reflector, until I consulted Kim's build. Using pre-calculated X and Z DRO coordinates for a ball nose cutter gave excellent results!
The same technique was used with a 3mm ball nose cutter to round the tops of the top covers, as these will be very visible.
The lenses were made from 1mm thick clear polycarbonate sheet, which I could cut with my CNC router.
Two headlights ready for painting:
I modified the inside of the headlights behind the reflector to make room for a PCB that carries a coin battery, a push button toggle switch and a LED. A small hole on the side of the headlight gives access to the switch with a piece of paperclip wire. No need then to route wires from external batteries and switches.
Here is a 3D model of the layout:
Now I just need to figure out how to layout a PCB. I noticed that Fusion 360 now has an Electronics module...
And then I can start to fill in the bits underneath the engine headlight!
