I've been doing a number of projects over the last month. More on the etches for the 4mm J17 and also playing with the electronics for my level crossing.
Meanwhile as a more practical modeling activity I've made a start on the shed which is my 16mm photo plank project. The sides of the shed were laser cut in 6mm and 3mm ply. I've deliberately made the back wall in two parts to give me some reasonable thickness for the wall. I have just sanded the outside and have the option to produc
Over the last week I been able to build up the road surface around the level crossing and but in the Sculptamold between the road and river. I also 3D printed some picket fencing and the wicket gates for the crossing and fastened these in place. The overall effect doesn't look too bad.
But then I looked back the the river and saw that what had initially looked like a perfect pour of Woodland scenics 'deep water' now looked horrible! I think the issue was that I poured on
I'd spent a fair amount of time trying to solder up a belpaire firebox and despite many attempts I really wasn't that happy with the results. So, as much as an intellectual exercise as with any practical expectation of success, I thought I'd try and model the firebox, boiler and smokebox up in CAD and try to print it. This is very much a 'work in progress' but the results are rather encouraging. The layer lines at a .03mm layer height are virtually invisible to my eye and will disappear even fur
I've been working on and off on making a level crossing for some years now. I've bounced between the electronic and purely mechanical option but finally come back to the electronics using an Ardiuno to drive a pair of stepper motors with simple micro-switches to detect the limit of travel. There is a 3D printed unit under each gate which can actually drive the gate nearly 100 degrees, this allows some over-travel in each direction to take account of the back-lash on the gates caused by there bei
I modeled up the alternative battery box which had the peaked roof rather than just a flat top. I also completed the second chassis, which had a couple of little modifications over the first version. This time I added the spring tags onto the High Level hornblocks and added supports for a length of sprung steel wire. The result is that the axles are now properly sprung. As the sprung wire connects electrically to the hornblocks and the wheels I used it to feed power up to the motor. I've also m
I know I said I wasn't going to make much more progress until a boat from China delivered some tiny bevel gears but I got a bit bored waiting. I decided to see if I could actually print some. Turns out you can, I'm not sure how hard wearing they will be but it is at least a prove of concept. Given that current issues with the Suez Canal (blocked by container ship which has run aground - probably the weigh of all those tiny bevel gears it was carrying!) it was probably a good idea not to wait.
Commercial 16mm scale figures tend to be a bit cartoonish and rather limited in terms of style and pose. My tiny new locomotive requires the driver to tuck his knees in to be able to fit in the tiny foot plate, in a mine he'd probably also be fairly hunched to avoid bang his head. I found myself following the same route as Mike Trice in the 3D Printed Passengers thread.
Makehuman is an impressive bit of free software and is not too difficult to use. It is obviously intended mostly f
Having worked on repairing my Lister thoughts have turned to building a new locomotive for Fen End Pit. I'd rather taken a fancy to the tiny battery electric locomotives built by the likes of Wingrove and Rogers and I thought that one of these engines might be worth trying to 3D print. A recent video in the 'Lawrie goes Loco' series on Youtube also rather drove my project along.
There are some superb plans available on Flickr from J. Tilston. I purchased a number o
Some time ago my Lister stopped working during an exhibition, it was returned to its stock box in disgrace and, in the absence of any exhibition outings to provide the impetus to repair it, there it had stayed. However a birthday present of a copy of 'Picking, Packing and Processing of Peat' by Paul Webb published by the Moseley Railway Trust spurred me into action. It contained too many nice photographs and drawings of Lister locomotives for me to ignore the overdue repair. Dismantling the lo
Some more progress on the larger of the two bridges at the Haverhill end of the layout, Ironically I'm building a model of the Stour valley but neither river is actually the River Stour. This is actually a mill race rather than the main river.
I had to purchase another set of Woodland Scenics deep pour water to finish the job. Excellent service from Hattons, ordered on Sunday night, delivered Tuesday morning. Mind you, the price of the stuff probably implies that is it ma
I've been working on the second of the two river bridges on my model of Clare. For most of the building I've been using the laser cutter to make the brick work but the centre pier of the bridge has two different shapes at the ends. The upstream end is rounded and the downstream end is shaped to a point. The curve is impossible to cut flat and then bend and the multiple corners on the pointed end would have a some nasty joints to hide. I thought I'd give it a go on the 3D printer.
As I mentioned in my previous blog posting, the splashers on the J17 kit were designed to accommodate the most steam-rollerish of flanges, being almost 4mm in diameter larger than scale. Well I've managed to take them back off the foot-plate. file them down to size and refit them. They look to be about .5mm too large now but I'm ok with a little extra clearance for the springing.
Missing from the kit, but visible on the plans and photographs were the beading around the ba
So there I was feeling quite chuffed that I'd managed to get the wheels on the J17 chassis. There is a video which includes it running on youtube.
Then I started work on the footplate, I got the buffer beam and valancing on quite nicely and then turned to the splashers. I felt quite good about the job I'd done until I put the footplate onto the chassis and realised that the kit had exactly the same issues as the previously built J20.
Now I don't exac
A little package of wagon bodies was posted off last week and my friend Phil has put one together with its chassis and sent me a photograph.
I think it rather looks the part.
He just has another eight to do now, should keep him busy for a while.
For those who don't know what a J17 is, here is a picture.
They were a James Holden designed locomotive built for the GER between 1900 and 1903, a sort of half-way house between the lighter J15 and heavier J20.
As I hinted the J17 kit from PDK is also quite 'old school' by today's standards. The frames just had simple holes for the bearings, not even a half etched line as a nod that some people might spring or compensate their locomotives.
Progress today
Having put the J20 together and painted it I spotted that I'd missed a couple of important bits off. The first were the front guard irons which were easily soldered onto the front of the chassis. The others were, it appears, completely missing from the kit, these were the two large lockers in the cab, one of which has the reverser mounted on it. The kit appears to not have parts for these at all and they are not mentioned in the instructions. Photographs of cab interiors are notoriously hard to
I have been making some more coal wagons for a friend's Irish project. The first attempt were slightly too narrow because some idiot (me) got the dimension wrong on the 3D model. Having fixed that we now have a models of 3 different types of wagon and the beginnings of a coal train. The wagon chassis department is apparently working at peak capacity assembling etched underframes.
The 3 wagons are subtly different, one design has two doors in the middle while the other two have a pair
Over the last couple of days I managed to get a coat of primer followed by a coat a Stratford's finest black. This was a heavy freight locomotive and getting towards the end of its life so I've got a fair bit of weathering to apply. On most of the prototype photographs it is almost impossible to see the BR insignia on the tender! I've noticed I also need to paint the bolt ends on the brake-gear.
I'm very pleased with the way the different components came together. T
This one really has been a long time coming! The Crownline kit has a 'checked' date on the box of 1997. I've had it 'in progress' for almost five years and most of the last two it has been in the naughty box threatening to be drop kicked out of the window. I'd left it socially isolating in south Cambridgeshire with one of my friends so long he was probably going to start charging rent. It looks like it I last mentioned it on this blog almost two years ago. The kit came back home in a socially di
So Phil asked 'Could your gadgetry print wagon bodies' and attached a photograph of a Cavan and Leitrim 3' gauge 4-plank coal wagon and a 2D drawing he'd made. Well I couldn't let that challenge go could I? Over the course of the festive season we have bounce various images and drawing back and forth as I hopefully got closer to the prototype. Photographs are somewhat elusive, I don't think many people who got to travel on the C&L bothered taking pictures of mundane old coal wagons. This one
There has been a bit of progress on my model of Clare in Suffolk over the last few weeks. The goods yard area around the cattle dock is coming on and I've planted the shunting signal which protects the exit from the yard (just in front on the J15)
Looking the other way and the castle mount is coming on with the start of some walls on in. These have been molded in sculptamold and I've had a go at painting lots of 'dots' to represent the stonework which seems to be lots of
Work on the lathe continued, I had several more pieces to model up and a couple of changes to some of the first attempts at detail parts. The final CAD drawing looks quite attractive.
To those who think 3D printing is 'cheating' I think I should point out this was more of 'home kit production' as the lathe has almost 30 separate pieces. The parts almost filled the build plate on my Anycubic photon twice over and each print job took about 4 1/2 hours.
I got th
I've started making a lathe for my model workshop. Boy does it have a lot of pieces! I've still got the gearing on the drive end to do and the bracket which holds the top set of pulley wheels. I'm not slavishly copying this photograph but trying to make something which looks lathe-like.
The main bed of the lathe worked out to be too big to print on the Anycubic photon in a single piece so, as it was a relatively simple shape and could be sanded easily, I printed it on my
Taking onboard the comments on the mound I added the best part of another couple of inches to the top. I also altered the shape to I hope better match the rather pointed shape of the original. I've added an initial layer of static grass and made a couple of trial little bits of wall from Sculptamold (I just wanted to see if I could make a wall with it, I need to get the shapes better)
I've got the goods shed bedded in a bit better (obviously still needs windows, capping stones etc. e
Clare station was built in the bailey of Clare Castle (you could do that kind of thing in 1865!) and the castle motte is still present behind the goods shed. I don't have the space to model the whole mound but need to try to make something that gives the right feeling. There needs to be a bit of forced perspective going on too which complicates things. This section of the aerial photograph gives some idea of the scale of the real thing. To those who have visited over the last few years it will b
