Siemens Class 700 EMU - 3d print/scratchbuild

[newbryford]

Hi Tim,

 

Excellent work.

 

Pity the 700 isn't in my area, I almost feel the need to make a Southern layout...........

 

Cheers,

Mick

[mikeharvey22]

Hi Tim,

 

Excellent work.

 

Pity the 700 isn't in my area, I almost feel the need to make a Southern layout...........

 

Cheers,

Mick

 

Or Midland main line or GN? 

[newbryford]

Or Midland main line or GN? 

 

 I live north of Wigan, so both of those are South to me............

 

Cheers,

Mick

[tjf4375]

Hi all - a quick update on how things are going. I was finally able to confirm the geometry of the chassis plate last week when the coupling pieces arrived from Keen Systems. Shapeways's amazingly quick shipping time means this part arrived on Thursday and I've been able to paint and assemble some of the other parts. I've also added the windscreen and headlight lenses to the cab part and although fiddly, this did finally work ok and I'm quite pleased with the result. The cab won't be fixed to the chassis for a while yet because there is some wiring/circuitry associated with it which I need to get in place before I fix it down. With the rest of the coach, the roof won't be able to go in until I've installed the interior lighting but I will try and get the sides fixed on. The pics are not as clear as before as it's now moved to the workshop area for assembly but hopefully you can get an idea of how it's going together.

 

Overall view of assembly from front end. The vestibules and end piece are in place, and also some of the brass stringers have been installed.

 

Close up of the cab section - the headlight lenses were fiddly but fitted ok once they were pre-curved the right shape. I made them by cutting a piece of masking tape over the aperture, and then transferring that to a piece of 0.5mm clear styrene. The headlight apertures are surprisingly small, so a tiny multicolour LED will sit behind the lens, showing a bright white when going forwards and a red at the rear.

 

Overall view of the assembly looking forwards. The brass rods are providing rigidity for the moment, until the outer skin is attached. The roof air conditioning module will sit in the space between the two vestibules.

 

 

 

 

[Wigan Wallgate OO Gauge]

Good god! That's brilliant

[njee20]

Yes, I must agree, superb.

[Wild Boar Fell]

Very Good Indeed, just capturing the curves of the cab is impressive.

 

Certainly Inspired.

 

Wild Boar Fell

[tjf4375]

Thanks for the kind comments guys, much appreciated Work's proceeding steadily now so should have more to report soon. I am confident that this method is working ok now so will shortly be proceeding to order the parts for the remaining 5 coaches from Shapeways. The hold-up will be the bogies, as I've still not been able to source some suitable wheelsets. I may need to seek some advice on the forums on that one as it's proving to be a bit of a stumbling block!

[croydon junction]

please can you link to your shapeways account?

[tjf4375]

Hi there Croydon - I don't have these items for sale on Shapeways at the moment. I will consider doing that when I've made more progress with the model - I'd quite like to have my own unit completed before I see them running round other people's layouts!

 

Thank you for the interest though

[croydon junction]

Hi there Croydon - I don't have these items for sale on Shapeways at the moment. I will consider doing that when I've made more progress with the model - I'd quite like to have my own unit completed before I see them running round other people's layouts!

 

Thank you for the interest though

No problem, would it be possible to have a cut along the bogie so if you are attempting p4 you could add an insert? I'm going to be trying to build it to p4 (hopefully!)

[tjf4375]

Oh right, that sounds interesting! Yes I can certainly build that in. The bogie design isn't set in stone by any means yet, as I'm still awaiting the inside bearing wheelsets from the supplier. This could be a bit of a pain, but hopefully once I've got them I can try and get that done. When I get to that stage I can talk to you again about exactly what you need.

[Southern_Trains_Fan]

Amazing work, wish I had that level of skill! Shame nobody has rattled up an electrostar in 3D-printed form yet!

 

Keep up the great work,

Matt

[njee20]

Amazing work, wish I had that level of skill! Shame nobody has rattled up an electrostar in 3D-printed form yet!

 

 

They have, in N gauge. I imagine it could be scaled up comparatively easily, but it would be prohibitively expensive as full body shells in OO are, let alone 4 of them.

[KeithHC]

Hi Tim, the model so far looks great as does your layout. Just a quick question what is the aircraft in the picture behind your model.......

 

Keith

[tjf4375]

Amazing work, wish I had that level of skill! Shame nobody has rattled up an electrostar in 3D-printed form yet!

 

Keep up the great work,

Matt

Thanks Matt - yes as njee20 says, there is an Electrostar on Shapeways, but it would be very expensive to print those out in OO gauge - around £135 per coach last time I looked! Thanks for the kind comments

 

They have, in N gauge. I imagine it could be scaled up comparatively easily, but it would be prohibitively expensive as full body shells in OO are, let alone 4 of them.

Indeed! There is actually a OO gauge version available on Shapeways. I did consider doing it that way for this project, but the cost is just too high at £135 per coach. I was also a bit worried about the stability of such a long piece of FUD. It did make me wonder how much injection tooling would cost for low volume production - certainly in the thousands, but it would be interesting to try and crowd fund such a project if there is no prospect of one of the 'big three' taking it on!

 

Hi Tim, the model so far looks great as does your layout. Just a quick question what is the aircraft in the picture behind your model.......

 

Keith

Many thanks Keith, much appreciated As for the aircraft in the picture, well spotted! It is actually a photograph of a main landing gear bogie of an Airbus A380. Years and years ago I embarked on one of the Heller 1:125 A380 model kits, which are huge and very challenging to build. Needless to say I got so far with it realised I didn't have space to carry on working on it once the wings were attached!  Therefore the fuselage, engines and landing gear have been sitting on the shelf awaiting final assembly since 2008. One day I will dust it off and finish it!

[Gerald Henriksen]

It did make me wonder how much injection tooling would cost for low volume production - certainly in the thousands, but it would be interesting to try and crowd fund such a project if there is no prospect of one of the 'big three' taking it on!

 

 

The unofficial, often repeated, amount to tool up a new model is £100,000, thought that will change based on how many molds are required, how many variations to allow for, and how difficult the prototype is.  There may be ways to cut costs for smaller production runs, but I would guess it would still be expensive.

 

For fun you may want to check out this video posted today by Rapido, which in addition to showing how models are assembled (painting, printing, adding details, prepping parts for future products) also has a 90 second segment on the tooling for an upcoming steam model where you can see both how involved it is to make the molds, but also just how many molds are required for a model(*) - the segment starts at the 2:51 point:

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ka7LC1jia64

 

* the model in question is a CPR Royal Hudson, if interested pictures of the prototype can be seen here to see what the molds will make:

 

https://rapidotrains.com/hudson-master-class/

[tjf4375]

That is an absolutely fascinating video, thanks for posting. It certainly does give an insight into what goes into producing these models. Particularly interesting how the tooling is made using the electrical discharge method - I did wonder how such small details like rivets and grilles were machined into tools with such precision - now I know!

 

I think that puts pay to any thoughts of crowdfunding a small project, unless someone could persuade Rapido (or someone similar) to take it on. I don't know how much they would want to look at such a thing, but by the sounds of it more than my house is worth!   

[Kelly]

That is an absolutely fascinating video, thanks for posting. It certainly does give an insight into what goes into producing these models. Particularly interesting how the tooling is made using the electrical discharge method - I did wonder how such small details like rivets and grilles were machined into tools with such precision - now I know!

 

I think that puts pay to any thoughts of crowdfunding a small project, unless someone could persuade Rapido (or someone similar) to take it on. I don't know how much they would want to look at such a thing, but by the sounds of it more than my house is worth! 

 

Well RevolutioN managed to get Rapido to produce a 9car Pendolino with crowd funding, so it can be done (ok, yes it was N, but still, OO has a bigger market).

 

Perhaps an 'expressions of interest' for a crowd funding project could be started, with enough interest it could work. But then what electrostar do you start with? 373 (3car iirc)?. 376 (5 car, different doors/windows) etc?

 

If you know someone who is a DEMU member, ask to have a read of issue 84 of UPDate, as it has an article by RevolutioN explaining the Crowdfunding process and their experience with it.

[tjf4375]

Hi Kelly,

Yeh that's a good point, I did see some articles about that pendolino project, it looked quite ambitious but they seem to have pulled it off!

 

There do seem to be quite a few of us who would be very interested in an RTR Electrostar, and the complete lack of any of the family in either N or OO is leaving a potentially profitable gap in the market. Just on RMWeb there are probably a number of layout builders who would order at least one unit and probably several, if they were available. Aside from my own layout I'm thinking of Dover Priory, Loftus Road, Tonbridge West Yard (maybe??), and several others I'm sure. I know that's still only a handful but it does possibly give an indication of the general level of interest.

 

To be honest I am surprised that Bachmann chose to model the Desiro family instead of the electrostars, given that they had already modelled the closely related turbostar units.

 

As you say there are a number of variants in the family but I'm guessing the 375/377 4-coach units would be good to start with, as they are perhaps more prolific than the other variants? Perhaps it would be worth contacting Rapido to find out what degree of interest they would need to look into this!

[Kelly]

Hi Kelly,

Yeh that's a good point, I did see some articles about that pendolino project, it looked quite ambitious but they seem to have pulled it off!

 

There do seem to be quite a few of us who would be very interested in an RTR Electrostar, and the complete lack of any of the family in either N or OO is leaving a potentially profitable gap in the market. Just on RMWeb there are probably a number of layout builders who would order at least one unit and probably several, if they were available. Aside from my own layout I'm thinking of Dover Priory, Loftus Road, Tonbridge West Yard (maybe??), and several others I'm sure. I know that's still only a handful but it does possibly give an indication of the general level of interest.

 

To be honest I am surprised that Bachmann chose to model the Desiro family instead of the electrostars, given that they had already modelled the closely related turbostar units.

 

As you say there are a number of variants in the family but I'm guessing the 375/377 4-coach units would be good to start with, as they are perhaps more prolific than the other variants? Perhaps it would be worth contacting Rapido to find out what degree of interest they would need to look into this!

 

It will likely be a cost per number type responce. ie, you need 500 orders per livery to get it for a given price point. That price point will be the important bit, likely to be £250-300 for a 4 car unit unless a lot of orders were made I expect.

 

Unfortuately, the only units I currently personally would be interested in is the 376s, though some of the others might run into the layout plan I'm currently building (the plan the 376s would be right for is on hold).

[tjf4375]

That sounds logical. To be honest, £250-£300 seems to be the price point for 4 coach units these days. I see the Bachmann Class 450 is going for £320 on their website (although it can probably be found a lot cheaper elsewhere). The 376 units - they're the non-corridor ones that have the inset doors and run on the outer London lines if I remember rightly? I always wondered why they went with that awkward 3-windowed front end design, when they already had a non-corridor cab design with the Class 357s!?

[Kelly]

That sounds logical. To be honest, £250-£300 seems to be the price point for 4 coach units these days. I see the Bachmann Class 450 is going for £320 on their website (although it can probably be found a lot cheaper elsewhere). The 376 units - they're the non-corridor ones that have the inset doors and run on the outer London lines if I remember rightly? I always wondered why they went with that awkward 3-windowed front end design, when they already had a non-corridor cab design with the Class 357s!?

The current 4cep runs are around,£250, the 4TC is around £290, so it seems to be the price point for four cars, probably being made in much smaller batches than previously. Though I am happy to have picked up a 350/1 for£99, some of the /1s ran on the southern metals for a short time, so will be rather unique and unusual.

 

As for the 376s, they share more with the London Overground 378 units, which iirc are called capitalstars, so that would explain the difference. Certainly the oddball one. Edited to add, they're also 5 cars!

 

Doing the one most used on the network with the most livery options would be the logical thing really. But aiming to make sure that the tooling is flexible enough to cover some other varieties (that does increase the costs though).

 

Personally I think more than £75/coach approaches the point where selling enough would be troublesome, especially for a 'hum drum' commuter unit. But then the new birdcage coaches are £60/each.

 

It is certainly doable though and if someone was to go ahead with the idea I'd certainly be interested in getting one if I'm able to afford it at the time.

Edited September 19, 2017 by Kelly

[Kelly]

Of course another option is to crowd source the printing and professional casting of it as a kit.

 

If you look on eBay, there's someone selling sides, ends, cabs and roofs for 507,508, 314,315 units. Releasing the parts gradually (£17.99/side for example).

[tjf4375]

Yeh totally agree - I think £60 is certainly the maximum that most people will pay for an unpowered coach, and that is pushing it. £40 seems more reasonable to me, but then I remember going into my local model shop and buying a Hornby Mk2 coach for £12, and a Lima Class 50 loco (state of the art at the time) for £37! That was probably in 1990/1991 - nowadays you'd probably pay the best part of £180 for both of those. Scary!

 

I think going down the kit route might not be a bad idea - it does leave a lot of work for the end user, but those determined enough can get good results. 3d printing has certainly opened up a whole new world of possibilities!