I made mine out of a thin card and used a 6mm drinking straw cut to 30mm lengths for the new chimney. This allows the catchers to be positioned 60mm above the rails. The chimney caps from the Märklin 7288 roundhouse kit can be made to fit in the top of the drinking straw.
Construction Steps
- Printed the shapes on thin card from a CAD program.
- Cut each item out using a sharp work knife.
- Scored the fold lines to create neat edges.
- Used wood glue to fasten each side to its neighbor
- Acrylic paint was used to create rusty exterior and sooty black interior.
- Paint straws black
- Straws glued in using wood glue.
- Drilled holes in the roof panels (7/32")
- Paint underside of roofs black
- Push straws up through roof so that base of catcher is 60mm above rails. (This removes a lot of paint)
- Repaint outside parts of straws
- Glue chimney caps on
They work best when the smoke stack of the loco is directly below the chimney so that the puff from the smoke generator is strong enough to push it up the chimney. The smoke itself is not hot and thus does not rise of its own accord.
Related:
Second roundhouse with smoke catchers...