BILLY BOYS’ WORKSHOP

Taranaki Daily News, 1 December 1934, Page 21 (Supplement)

BILLY BOYS’ WORKSHOP

A TOY RAILWAY SIGNAL. Here is a .working model railway signal which you can.easily make from a few odd pieces of wood. The upright is a piece of half-inch-square strip-woou ten and a half inches long, with a tenon cut at the bottom, as shown at A. Make a hole in the top end of the post, and glue in the stem of a small wooden knob as an ornament. Cut the base from , a piece of wood five eighths of an inch thick, to the sizes given in diagram B. Bevel the top edge all round, cut out the slot for the end of the upright, and glue this in place. To make the signal arm, shown In diagram C, use. a piece of hardwood, such as oak, planed to a thickness of one-

sixteenth of an inch. With a fretsaw, cut out the parts shown 'by the dotted lines. For the coloured signal glass, stick on two pieces of. thin: coloured gelatine ■ sheet or celluloid. Use a red piece for the top glass, and green for the other. Cut out the lever, D, from a thin strip of oak, and make three small holes near one end, as indicated. For the lever pivot-pin use a round-headed screw driven in the post two and oneeighth, inches from- the bottom, with a thick washer .between lever and post. The signal arm pivots on another screw one inch from the top' of the post. The connecting wire, E, which is looped at each end,- as shown at F, is connected to . the signal arm and lever ■by small brass round-headed screws. To work the signal a thin cord is looped through the hole in the end of the lever, an<J passed under a small pulley screwed to the base as shown in the diagram. To ‘weight’ the lever, screw on a thin disc of lead, three-quarters of an inch in diameter, as shown at G. So that you can limit the movement of the signal arm, drive two small panel pins, H, H, into the post in the positions indicated. To complete the signal, paint the various parts with enamel —the base green, the post white, the signal arm red with a white strip near the end, and the lever and connecting wire black. The Hut Carpenter.