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 realized that the spring on the lever was effectively duplicating the one in the micro-switch so in the best traditions of trying to keep things simple I tried to build a version which doesn't bother using it. The revised lever arrangement is a bit simpler but it takes a little bit of adjustment to:-
get the springing in the lever right,
the micro-switch to change correctly as the catch handle is pulled and also
the screw which fastens the attachment to the lever not to foul the mic
I've joined an organisation in Cambridge called 'Makespace' who are setting up a public access 'hackspace' in Cambridge. These organisation seem to be springing up in quite a few large cities (see http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/United_Kingdom ) and are intended for people who want to build things to share the cost of owning and running tools. So for the price of a gym membership (and anyone who tells me that would do me more good is probably on the wrong forum) I can have access to tools which I w
So I've been thinking about a little 16mm project to keep up my narrow gauge interest while I can't take Fen End Pit out. I don't mean to distract too much from the construction of Clare but just have something extra to work on when I fancy a change.
One of my favourite places to visit is the Thelkeld Quarry Museum and I have long thought that the engine shed is full of modelling potential but I've not been sure how I could use its inspiration.
What I have be
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 l
I spent a few hours today fitting the TOUs and servos which I built yesterday. I'm hoping a step by step guide might be useful to some people.
The first step is to drill the holes which the TOU will go through to connect to the switch blades. If you are sensible and have planned ahead you will of course have drilled these before you stuck the point down or at least before you fitted the rails! However all is not lost as you can carefully drill a couple of pilot holes in the right place about
I managed to get the lever frame I'd printed painted (as per posting on the Anycubic photon thread) but additional furniture was required.
I found a website which had photographs of the tokens for the sections either side of Clare. These showed that the token apparatus was of two different types. A Tyer number 6 and a Tyer number 9, the web also furnished pictures of each type which I tried to model up in CAD. The results came out rather well, even the details of the pil
Thursday night saw the bodies of the wagons fitted and Friday evening was spent fitting weight and Alex Jackson couplings. Still need to fit the dropper wires for the coupling.
I realized that having removed the toy hinges for the side doors I needed to replace them with something more to scale. A few pieces of plasticard from the scrap box were enough to fabricate something suitable. Painting was by brush with Humbrol acrylics.
Transfers from the Modelmaster range were applied
As I mentioned in my last blog the next bit of workshop machinery I fancied trying to reproduce was a pillar drill. This proved to be quite a tricky bit of modeling just because there were so many features. I'd taken a photograph of this drill in the shed at Thelkeld.
It looked to me as if the drill was originally belt driven with a 'new' electric motor powering the original drive wheel at the bottom. There then seems to be a belt which takes the drive to the top of the
My clever wife bought me a new 3D printer for Christmas (how did she guess what I wanted?)
I was a bit concerned because the box was shipped direct from China by FedEx via what appears to be a puddle at Cologne Airport. Creality customer service were very helpful and we decided it was worth trying to build it and just replace any bits if we found they had been damaged. In the end everything went together very easily ( about 30-45 minutes assembly to first print) and I managed t
A bit of standard gauge for a change. I took delivery of a couple of the new Bachmann grain wagons which have been on order with Hattons for what seems like years. I've got a P4 wheel set in it now and replaced the coupling with Alex Jacksons. I can (just) remember seeing these being loaded at Sandy on the occasions when I used to cycle over there to watch some proper main-line trains in the later '70s. By then they were in a 'rust based livery' but I think they had been going that way for some
*This is the standing joke in my house when model railways become just too difficult.
I'm in the dumps as no matter what I try I just can't get a brick finish I'm happy with, I can see now why I stuck to using Scalescenes for so long, I just can't paint brickwork.
The desk is covered with dozens of little laser cut test sheds which are going to end up in the bin very soon at this rate.
I've tried painting a brick colour in Enamel and using an Acrylic to run the mortar into the c
I've been making slow progress on the scenics over the last couple of weeks. I've covered all the polystyrene with a layer of Sculptamold and got what I hope will be a suitable base for static grassing in a future.
I'd not used this stuff until I was recommended it by one of my friends, having always used modrock or other plaster bandage type things in the past. I've been very impressed as it dries quickly, forms a strong layer even when applied quite thinly and is very
I designed and printed a servo operated uncoupling magnet for the Alex Jackson couplings I'm using on my P4 layout. Many people just use an electromagnet to do this but I don't really like the current these draw and get worried about them burning themselves out if left on for too long while you shunt wagons over them. One solution is to use a permanent magnet and move it up and down so it that it attracts the coupling (or doesn't).
As usual there were a few iterations in the design to get t
I did a bit of 3d modelling in CAD this weekend and produced some rainwater goods. This included some of the castings that hold the pipes onto the walls, some spouts for the bottom of downpipes and some hoppers for where one pipe goes into another. I also drew up some chimney pots and some suitcases, just for the laughs.
They came out pretty well on the Anycubic photon.
The holes in the drain components were drawn at 1.3mm and drilled out easily to fit some plastruc
First up, here is a picture of what I've done with the top of the water tank. in the absence of pictures or drawings I'm hoping I've got something which is plausible. I stuck some plastruct angle inside the tank and then tried to model some tie-bars to hold it all together. The water is clear acrylic with the bottom painted black.
Next is a little experiment on one of those things which is just so much easier to make when you have something that cuts accurately! I drew up this wagon tur
Over the last week or so I've been inspired by an article in the MERG magazine to have a go with an Arduino. These little micro-controllers are ridiculously cheap and can be programmed to do all kinds of things. I've chosen to control a couple of stepper motors to make a pair of level crossing gates.
David
I made a start on the etched chassis for the Slater's simplex. The etch is quite thick material so a little filing needed to remove tabs and cusp. Very pleased with how well the parts fitted. A fair amount of heat was needed to get the solder to flow but the resulting chassis is strong and square.
The horn guides are cleverly made from the etched parts and form a slot which allows the horn block to move vertically. Again the fit the very good just requiring a few strokes with a file to
One of the things about keeping a blog is that it makes you photograph your models and one of the things about photographing your models is that every time you do you just can't avoid seeing the faults in the results - things that somehow the eye only picks up when blown up on the screen when you look at the photograph.
So, here is the current state of the E4. I had to go back once and clean off around the dome which I didn't really pick up until I took some pictures last night. Tonight I ca
I've made a start on the point rodding for Clare. Before anyone asks this is NOT functional! It has been great fun trying to work out the rodding runs from photographs as they changed over time at the Cavendish end when the coal siding was realigned. The prototype was built using round rod rather than the more modern square section - typically I had bought a load of .5mm square brass wire from Eileen!
I've used cranks from Brassmasters and rodding stools from DCC concepts. These rodd
This is one for those of you who fancy building potato or sugar beet railways, or maybe a drainage board line taking clay to strengthen a bank. I took these pictures a good few years back during an afternoon driving around the fen. Some of these magnificent buildings are still standing though most of the engines inside them have long since gone.
First up is Hundred foot bank, near Welney.
Like several of the engine houses you have a tall central section which
I had a go at cutting the building again, this time in the more conventional 3mm MDF, using .7mm ply for the quions. The result fitted together quite nicely, though I probably shouldn't have turned the 'corner power' down so far on the ply as I had to resort to a scalpel to get some of the parts free.
Before discussing painting here is a picture of Clare station to give you some idea of the colouring. I'm not convinced that four decades of no trains and possible cleaning haven't chang
I finished off my P4 conversion of the Hornby horsebox. It is a lovely model and I am very pleased with how it looks. The original W-irons were filed down to wafer thin and then I stuck a set of Bill Bedford sprung W-irons behind them.
I purchased some of the new Lanarkshire models Jackson coupling droppers and fitted these. I've always hated trying to make droppers for Jackson's as I never seemed to be able to either bend iron wire to the right shape or solder iron wir
Friday night saw the ends of the Wickham trolley assembled and then Saturday saw the roof bent to shape and the parts soldered together. At the moment everything is just resting together but you get the general idea. The wires sticking out the front are to the motor.
The plan is to stick a DCC chip under the roof and run the four wires up the each of the corner posts, the power from the track up the rear posts and the drive back to the motor down the front ones. The seats were mighty fi
Having finished soldering bits on to the loco body it was out with the glue to fasten on the boiler fittings, Westinghouse pump and lubricator.
The Westinghouse pump casting broke in half as I was trying to clean it up so the middle section was replaced with lengths of brass wire. The hole in the footplate for the pipework from the pump didn't match with the drawing or photographs so it got filled and re-drilled.
I had a slight 'Oh $h1t' moment when I looked at the plans and saw two snif
