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TS's lockdown diary

A blog by TurboSnail in RMweb Blogs

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About this blog

A brief summary each day of the often limited modelling I've been up to in the last 24 hours. Keeping light hearted and hopefully keeping myself amused!

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Day 92: AEC shunter back on the bench

To be honest, I've neglected this project a bit too much. But it's back on the bench now, with handrails, a driver and a couple of other bits added last night. The chassis (version 4? version 5?) is now working nicely too, so looking like we're on the home straight at last. That paint job is really rather gaudy isn't it? I fancied a change from the nice refined dark blue I normally use, and I think it'll look a lot less toylike once it's been weathered.

June 23, 2020

2

Day 51: irritatingly close to success

Ah, the joys of 3D printing. The first test of the SER brake van (diag. 1553) looks to have come out ok at first glance - but a closer inspection shows that the print lifted from the print head on one side, meaning the footplate is warped up in one corner. Throw out, try again! This is probably an issue with the print head levelling, which I triple-check before starting every print these days, as it's been so unreliable. Looks like I'll have to have another go.

May 13, 2020

2

Day 41: controller PCBs

Along with the measuring thing that turned up yesterday were the PCBs for my prototype controller. The quality is pretty good for cheap Chinese-made boards, although I've noticed a few errors already! This was only ever supposed to be a prototype to run my test track though, I'll do an updated version when I get round to needing a controller for the layout. So now I'll have to find my SMD soldering tip and crack on. And think of some kind of case to put it in...

May 3, 2020

2

Day 28: More controller testing - with locos!

A bit more development on the controller concept - PCBs have been ordered, so I'm doing some more work on the software. It's now set up to respond to the throttle using centre-off (so no clicking a reversing switch every few seconds while shunting) and it seems reasonably smooth. I had to incorporate a bit of a dead zone in the centre otherwise it was a bit twitchy - it seems pretty smooth now. I've also wired in a light-dependant resistor, which stops power to the track when it senses dark - fo

April 20, 2020

1

Day 99: laser cutting experiments

One of the potential solutions to the chassis issue for my 3D printed locos was to make frames from something else, with spacers - one of the materials tried is this laser cut Delrin - stable, low friction and pretty strong, and relatively cheap. However, it hasn't cut particularly well and is susceptible to warping, so I think this is a non-starter. Definitely worth an experiment though, and it provided the inspiration to try another method, which I think has worked well. There's al

June 30, 2020

2

Day 100: finished (ish) projects and wrapping up the blog

Right, that'll do. Enough of this blogging nonsense! Finishing the Bagnall (for now) feels like a good place to stop. It needs varnish and weathering, but those will wait until the name and numberplates turn up. Overall, I'm pretty pleased with it, the modified bits have worked well, so I'll probably do something similar for more locos in the future. Another project that's come up every now and then over the course of this blog is the AEC shunter, which now runs! Needs a flywheel ad

July 1, 2020

3

Day 98: un-warping 3D prints

I've been trying out a technique several people have told me to try, one which I haven't managed to get working in the past. For some reason, it now seems to work - don't know what I was doing wrong before, but at least it's another technique to add to the arsenal. It involves boiling water, and dipping the warped part of the print in for a few seconds. Then bend it to shape (with something heatproof) and hold until it cools down again. It's not perfect, you do end up with a slightly

June 29, 2020

1

Day 97: Bagnall roof and bits

Today has mostly been tidying up - I've made a roof for the Bagnall out of plastic sheet and strip (some nice therapeutic old-school modelling!), added a whistle, crew, ungummed the buffers, and just generally tidied it up for final assembly. I've also fettled the AEC to make it fit its chassis properly and added a very bored-looking driver!

June 28, 2020

0

Day 96: KESR Ford Railbus overview

Since I've finally finished with the railbus, I put together a quick video looking at the construction in a bit more detail. Not much, but hopefully useful to see how it works!

June 27, 2020

0

Day 95: back to CAD

Not a lot to report for today, I'm back to the CAD in a big way, with a couple of projects on the go that I'm not going to share for now... But good progress is being made, based around a couple of RTR chassis that arrived recently. I've also had more bits turn up to convert a couple of locos with custom chassis to belt drive, which will hopefully make them a bit less fiddly to set up, and hence more reliable. It sacrifices a little bit of smoothness, but I think it will be worth it for better o

June 26, 2020

0

Day 94: LCDR Martley F

Another project that's been stalled for ages is this Martley F Class, also known as the Second Sondes class. It was printed long enough ago that I was still using the orange resin, but has been sat awaiting a chassis before I build up the body any further. I never attempted building the original chassis design, as it was a long, 3D printed one, so would probably end up at warp city - this needs a redesign! I've got a couple of ideas for the frames, so this might be a good loco to try them out on

June 25, 2020

2

Day 93: Bagnall progress

The Bagnall 16" takes another step forward - the majority of the painting is done now, the cab interior added, the chassis finished. I'm hardly the best painter in the business, but it's passable from 30cm away, and weathering should hide a few sins. Next jobs are to make the cab roof, add a whistle, and then wait a few months for the nameplates that are on order! I'm quite excited to get a coat of matt on this, which should make it look a lot better, then weathering, but I'll have to wait until

June 24, 2020

3

Day 91: Ford Railbus finally finished

This mostly completed railbus has been sat around on my workbench for absolutely ages, just waiting for figures to add to the interior. Painting people is another task I don't particularly enjoy, so I did a whole batch in one go for this and two other locos. Then stuck the roof on, which is loaded up with lead to try and keep the unpowered front wheels turning. This works on the whole, so I'm happy to call it done and it can take it's place on the layout (once the layout is eventually done) as t

June 22, 2020

7

Day 79: SER brake progress (at last)

I've finally managed to print an SER brake without too much warping - there's still a bit, but much less noticable now. So here it is in primer. I've already broken off and re-attached one of the buffers, so I'll have to be more careful with the rest of it. Next job is to fit all the handrails, which is not going to be fun as there are a lot of them...

June 10, 2020

9

Day 88: which SE&CR wagon livery is correct?

So, no big question then. I've been struggling for a while to find a decent colour for the early SECR wagon livery - I've previously been using the darker grey here (though it looks a bit darker than it is in reality). However, the Illustrated History of Southern Wagons III suggests the shade was lighter earlier, before being made darker with the switch to the later Wainwright lettering. Other sources don't acknowledge a colour change at all, so it's all a bit confusing! The lighter shade I've u

June 19, 2020

6

Day 90: SECR wagon livery, take 2

Now that the wagon is weathered, I'm much happier with the shade used, it's darker than it was. Unfortunately this wagon has come out in stripes! It was a reject from the current batch I'm printing for this reason, so it didn't pass QC. I thought I'd build it up myself to test the livery and the new brake design, and it's not nearly as bad as it looks in the photos, so will probably join the layout fleet. Not that I need another ballast wagon, I have three of these now, all in different liveries

June 21, 2020

0

Day 89: experimental printing

A while back, I printed some more experimental bits and pieces, to really test the limits of my printer. Here are the results - a few trees... Not much to look at really, but it illustrates the level of detail you can get out of a resin printer, at least when they behave themselves, which is not a high proportion of the time. Still, I need quite a few trees to hide the transition to backscene on my layout, so this will come in handy - and the useful thing is that I can scale as much as I like in

June 20, 2020

0

Day 87: trying Revell paints

Some experimenting with Revell paints this time - and overall, it's pretty positive. I've been using the enamels for the black on the Bagnall and the grey, brown and black on the ballast wagon (though the ironwork is done with a Sharpie!). All done with a brush, I don't own an airbrush. The paints seem fairly thin, but give good coverage, everything here has one coat only, though I need to recoat the black in a few areas where the primer got oversprayed with the main body blue. The next one to t

June 18, 2020

3

Day 86: production printing (+issues)

I'm in the middle of trying to print batches of wagons for people, and I'm getting some good results, but the printer is still trying to fight me! I'm still only at about an 70% success rate, which is slowing me down, and doing long days at work doesn't help, but we're getting there. I've been thinking about upgrading the printer for a while now, but I'm still well away from having the financial clout to do so - there's the very cheap hobby end of the market (about £300), the expensive pro stuff

June 17, 2020

3

Day 85: scary jobs

I've come to the conclusion that the job I hate the most while modelling is removing lead weight from previously finished locos. It's difficult, potentially poisonous and there's a big risk of breaking the loco, as the lead/glue is often stronger than the loco itself. So far, I've had to attempt this with three locos - the only one that's survived is this one, so maybe I'm getting better at it. Incidentally, the reason for doing this is that I'm fitting a new chassis to a different

June 16, 2020

5

Day 84: light weathering

The SER 3-plank open needed a bit of weathering, so I took the opportunity to do my freelance Planet loco at the same time. A more lightweight job this time than some of my previous weathering attempts, to try and add a bit of variety - not everything will have been filthy all the time.

June 15, 2020

0

Day 83: Bagnall chassis reassembled and working

Well, @Compound2632, it works again! Not too much of a complicated job, just failed to notice that not all the conrod screws were the same, which meant a lot of head-scratching until I figured it out. Here's proof, complete with my flatmate's Call of Duty commentary in the background.

June 14, 2020

1

Day 82: Bagnall/Peckett chassis repainting

I hate having to repaint an RTR chassis, with all the risk of damaging it or gumming up the works etc. But still, it has to be done for the Bagnall to fit in with the rest of the locos, so here goes painting the frames, conrods and the under-boiler block (I picked one with the right colour wheels and cylinders to start with!). It's not actually too bad with the way Hornby have designed the Peckett B2 chassis donor, it's just a few screws, and no trailing wires to get in the way anywhere. Still p

June 13, 2020

1

Day 81: more building work

More work done on the small building end, all the plasticard bits are now ready, but I failed to notice until I needed it that the tube of UHU is looking a bit sad, so that stopped play and I'll have to wait until a new tube turns up. In the meantime, I'll have to work out how I'm going to make the cutouts for the door and vent in the plasticard sections - they need to be much more accurate than the holes in the base card as any gaps will show. At present, the plan is to stick it to the card, th

June 12, 2020

0

Day 80: Hunslet powertrain swap

The tiny Hunslet has had a simple change - from the original geared drivetrain to a belt driven one. The lack of a decent supply of tiny gears led to the choice to go to belt drive, even though the engineer in me protested. It's predicatably a bit more 'frictiony' now, but seems to work and is compensated for somewhat by the now lower gear ratio, so it's a bit slower too. However, there's still one major issue with this loco. Weight! It's not heavy enough to get consistent pickup ye

June 11, 2020

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