Having got a bit bored of fiddling about with all the little odds and ends of problems that were thrown up by the first exhibition I just couldn't resist the primal urge to build something new for any longer!

At the TTTT show the chap next to me had a whole display of 3D printed models and on going through his shop on Shapeways when I got back, found that there were quite a few things that would fill gaps in my roster. A few days later a remarkably light parcel arrived from Holland. First up was a Kerr Stuart Joffre.

Which I was going to put on a Roco BR80 chassis

Well that sounds simple doesn't it? Think again! The amount of material I had to cut out of the body shell was remarkable and even more remarkable was the fact that the material put up with all of the abuse and that the shell still holds together. There was also a fair amount of work to do on the chassis which led to the blood and sweat. The chassis has a huge block of diecast metal on it so at least adding weight into the body wasn't a problem but cutting it although possible, was quite an effort - hence the sweat. The blood occurred when, having got used to the ease with which the 3D material cut, I attacked the plastic on the chassis which immediately repelled my blade straight into my thumb. The rather good rust effect on the white body is not a method of weathering I would recommend! Rather than leaving the couplings to last as is my usual habit, I tackled them at this stage. Good job really as a fair amount of machining was involved to get them to fit inside the chassis.

After realising at the exhibition that you could hardly hear the sound in my locos, I have decided to save a bit of money and effort and just fit standard chips for a while at least. The same thing goes for super detailing as well as just want to build up a selection of locos that will primarily work well and keep all the good stuff for playing with at home. So, after a very small amount of detailing it was off to the paint shop;

Not a bad finish in the end I think and relatively quick to achieve. There are a couple of other 3D things in the pipeline and, just because I can, something that goes back into the super detail camp.