Since I built my J17 by scrapping most of the parts of a PDK kit and making my own etched and 3D printed bits I have been thinking about the possibility of turning the result into a kit. A first draft of the artwork was turned into nickel-silver by PPD with help from my good friends at Brassmasters. (If this turns into a kit that will be where it will come from). The intention is the use etched metal for the chassis and thin bits like the cab and foot plate while 3D printing the complex shapes like the boiler and tender.

The first test etch has turned out pretty well and I've had my first go at putting the chassis together, after the external Walschaerts  valve gear of the Ivatt this was nice and straight-forward. I've opted to design the chassis using what I have learnt from the design of Brassmasters' Easichas(sis). I've used their square hornblocks and run them in the chassis cut outs, adding an overlay which combines the cosmetic leave spring below the axlebox and a continuous springy beam (CSB) wire carrier above. Rather than have to solder hand rail knobs or the like into the chassis for the CSB wire pivots I have just located the chassis cross members in the right places and added holes for the wire. The result is a simple to assemble sprung chassis.

Inspired by David Lane (BigCheeseplant) I had a go at 3D printing my own centres to convert Alan Gibson 16 spoke wheels into 15 spoke GER wheels. He kindly sent me a 3D model but in the end I went back to the Great Eastern Railway Society drawing and made my own. A friend with a lathe produced a nice little jig to allow me to assemble the wheel and tyre ensuing that everything is concentric. 

The resulting chassis runs, I think I might have to look at pinning the wheels to the axles because the resin is not as 'grippy' as the Alan Gibson plastic. As per normal power is provide using High Level Models superb gearbox and motor.

I printed the body work out yesterday. Five and half hours on the Phrozen Sonic Mini 4K produced this lot, I will go back and do some modification in the slicer to modify some of the support, some is not needed and there are some bits where moving it would make removal easier. Still not bad for an afternoons' printing.

Bearing in mind that the photograph above is BEFORE I've done anything to the surface finish, there really isn't that much required. After removing just a bit of support resin.....

.... I was left with these pieces for the body and tender.

and these for the inside motion (I've since realized I need to split these again because of one of the frame spaces)

So now I have to solder up the footplate and cab etches and make the etched tender chassis.

The etchings will allow for multiple variants of the body, I've already drawn up one version as vacuum fitted and one as steam braked only. I've got versions of the tender with and without the cut out for the token exchange equipment. It should be possible to do non-super heated version (shorted smokebox without rivets) and even a round topped boiler J16 version. I'll be interested to hear what folks think about a 'mixed media' kit like this so please let me know.

David