Putting Daylight Under the Locomotives

Today's project was using a Dremel tool to put some "daylight" under the three Peter Pig locomotives for my Old West game that's building.

 Safety first, especially the dust mask - don't want to breathe those tiny particles of resin.  The two pieces of wood are for use in the vice - to prevent crushing the resin.  I used one other tool, a reamer with a smaller point, in the Dremel.  The cone shape was most useful of the other three seen here but I used all three.

 Here is what the engine looks like, a block of resin with a locomotive on top.  My goal was to improve upon that without ruining anything.  Hopefully!

 Here is the first victim in the vice.  Ended up doing the other two in my hand because I had more control.

 Here you can see the dramatic difference between the unit on the right and the unit on the left.  To my eye at least, this is a considerable improvement.

 And here are all three after the work was 'done.'

 And a much closer shot showing there is now daylight under most of the engine.

 Here are those same three on a piece on HOn3 flex track - the rightmost isn't crooked, I just didn't notice how far off the track it was when I took the photo.

And a last closer view - a bit out of focus.

Not everything went perfect.  I will have to do a little repair on at least one each truck wheel and drive wheel but I'd rather that than put the blocky resin version on a game table.  Besides, if I'd ruined one of the engines I'd just order another one and then have an extra tender to use with one of my Glencoe locomotives and then re-purpose a flat car.  You might even say I was a little hopeful that might happen - but not tempted to force it.  I may go back and do a little more work on the under carriage but probably not.  Hopefully, once fully assembled and painted, they will look just fine.

Progress.