RogerBfastlane

Seems I have opened a can of worms. I agree that this may have been a wordy response re the GWR King project and could have potentially been better aired under a more general crowdfunding subject. As mentioned, there ARE some good results from crowdfunding, but longer term tech hardware start-up ventures do rarely succeed as businesses and the success rates do run generically at around 10%. Standalone tech crowdfunded ventures (as may be expected) apparently fare no better than this (why should they?) I would comment (re some responses) that any successes quoted at raising the target funding does not necessarily translate to delivering the project in full by any means for the very reasons I have mentioned . It is a hard road to complete to budget whatever the funding source and for the customer/investor/funder, only 100% success is really acceptable if you actually want that RTR specific model that you have invested in. Also, when looking at the listings for types of business success at crowdfunding Cos the majority are NOT for hardware tech. I do not need (or wish) to start a crowdfunded project to know the risks (as someone suggested) as I have nearly 50 years of experience of design and manufacturing across several tech industries in the UK, US, EU and Far East, including managing full planning and funding issues, so do admire the protagonists when getting good results (whatever the funding source) as it is tricky even with the weight of larger corporations behind you, let alone as an SME or group of individuals. I do see a fair amount of Revolution Trains activities (amongst others) in the N gauge Journal and I congratulate them on their successes - obviously guys who seem to be getting this essentially right. I agree that businesses that run their own crowdfunding projects are different than, say, "Kickstarter" and similar funding platforms and did mention that the quite large fees taken upfront by these platforms can reduce available monies for the project regardless of the nature of the development, so also agree that private business dedicated crowdfunding (eg effectively pre-orders/deposits) can lead to different results and SOME do get it right, but think all would accept that when funding by using pre-orders it can be very hard to amass enough interest to fund a seamless development through to production and delivery to deadline and target cost. If you get your numbers wrong you can burn cash with the best will in the world and have little to none left available to finish the project or refund if it fails to hit any of the critical commercial or tech targets. I do wish the best to any group that can deliver a good more modern n gauge model of the GWR Kings and am still a little surprised that the larger companies have seemingly ignored this class of loco. All down to sales numbers/costs/pricing I guess, in which case it may be doubly difficult for a smaller group to deliver such a RTR model. Squaring THAT circle is what it is all about. Covid, Brexit delays and now spiralling materials costs are making a perfect storm in the manufacturing world, but hope that some semblance of normality will return and delayed new models will be brought to market soon. As mentioned, this is just my point of view regarding the issues surrounding these more speculative, low volume ventures. The fact that some succeed - rather against the odds and often by sheer hard work, does not encourage me to voluntarily engage with them re an n gauge King Class due to the mentioned - often imponderable - variables, but have seen some good products delivered, so, never say never?

Thanks again Doug for the encouragement, the station is a 3D CAD model so theoretically buildable in one go (though canopy and brackets parts will be separate), but again expect to break-out the window frames and doors to get better detailing if printed on a sprue in a horizontal plane. Oh, and those extra doors to add plus the small signal box. Will be good to try and get a bit of internal detail as well. After reading that RM article I bought some DAS clay but have not got round to trying this out. BTW. this is pretty cheap at "The Works" so not much lost if it takes a few goes to get some decent models from it. Probably too fine in N gauge to detail much without a microscope so probably going the 3D print route for the station building - just got to figure out how to get the stone texture for the main wall sections, though may resort to printing some dedicated stone paper sheets with accurate profiles cut out to allow for the corner stones (quoins). I do have some Ratio textured sheets but cannot see how you create decent quoins when using it (?). Look forward to seeing Mr Wolf's outside framed Toad model even if "just" a WIP . Just looked at an old pic and the home signal at West Bay was at one time operated (when the earlier wooden square post) so making this work would be rather nice. There seem to be a few Signal Posts up the line on the WBMap attached, so more to model . As a challenge I am looking at the old McDonnell rail section as this lasted in some locations so would be nice to emulate this in one or two places, now that would look interesting........ Best, Roger

Thanks Doug, yes that 6-wheel Toad is a WIP that I need to break down again into larger 3D printable parts. My own 3D Printer is rather old and low res - it struggles to get a 0.05mm layer height reliably and seems to be rather variable at printing these days, so fixing this rather than printing new models at the moment - maybe time to invest in a newer, better piece of kit? Else will maybe add to a sprue and make a few sets of the AA1 Toad via the usual suspects as an FDM or SLA - or may try a Euro print house that I have been using for my day job - rather a large MOQ though so may have to make quite a few or build more CAD models to pop in with that order to make worthwhile. Actually, I have been modelling West Bay Station in 3D CAD, really just to get the elevation detail/overlays for a card and plastic fabricated model, but could 3D print in a few components - I need to add some more doors and windows, tidy up the valencing and chimney stacks, see if can add some stone and slate textures, but getting there I think so maybe the way to go with that Euro print house? Nice to see your local Private Owner wagons - must see what is available in n-gauge for my efforts. Meanwhile, I have been tinkering with those 9 foot Toad prints that I made last year and never got round to using. Drilling the handrail stanchion holes accurately is rather difficult but a paper template sellotaped onto the sides helps (a bit) and a hand-ground spear drill of about 0.5mm dia with a sharp point kind of works......will have to try inserting the handrails and see how wonky they look. All on modified Peco chassis - pity they don't do a 6-wheel one for the AA1- suppose I could cut and shut a couple of 4-wheel ones, but would be nice to get all this fine detail printed in one go with a better prototypical appearance, so will definitely do the whole thing as a custom print. I have just profiled a set of 3 roofs for the Toads from tinplate (courtesy of a Tate & Lyle Syrup can) as this bends easier than card, so can now detail these with rain strips, end reinforcements and a guard's stove chimney. I will probably motorize the points on my n-gauge West Bay layout, but even at this small station yard there were quite a few - also keen to link any signalling - though think the West Bay station signals were fixed as this was mainly a single line and points operated from the frame in the (now demolished) platform signal-box. As it happens, I have dozens of nom 12v epicyclic geared motors left over from a development/production project from about 10 years ago. These are quite small and super torquey so may be ideal to improvise some sub-baseboard points and signal motors with a microswitch at end of travel - another project.........! Great to see all of your and other's very professional modelling efforts - most impressed with the quality of workmanship and particularly the paint finish. reminds me, I must get my airbrush and compressor sorted. Will post some more West Bay efforts when I make further progress.

Well, catching up after a while I see what a lot of great models are coming together and seeing decent pics of the model of West Bay station really helps as the old magazine article hardly shows the complete model - fantastic. In an earlier post, I said that I did not think a lot of netting or ropes went via West Bay, but in a recent (local) Marshwood magazine it said that some ropes and netting WERE shipped for a while via West Bay - though guess this was at most to N.Europe and perhaps other (mainly) SW coastal towns? A bit of industrial history to research on that issue. The raw materials were also often shipped in to West Bay and brought up to the Bridport factories - so maybe an opportunity to find some suitable wagons for sisal and hemp etc coming in from abroad and finished goods like nets and ropes shipped out? Not a lot of progress on the n-gauge layout, but further tinkering with some (not necessarily local) 9' wheelbase Toads that I 3D printed at home a year or so ago and a bit more detailing on the CAD for the AA1 Bridport 6-wheel toad (attached) - A work-in-progress and may fit separate handrails if I can make these OK from fine wire - a bit fiddly in "n"? Down at this scale the features often need beefing up to print OK then can look a bit gross so will play with my 9' Toads first and see what is possible. A happy and safe New Year to all.

As the Osbornes lasercut wooden version looks rather roughly finished I am designing an n-gauge 6-wheel toad brake van in CAD for 3D printing (a WIP so needs some changes yet!) and want to add NEM pockets to this. I have tried to track down the defined dimensions and locations for the these on a chassis , but am struggling to find anything definitive. I hear/see that Dapol supply ready made pockets so may use these to get the right materials/clipping action, but what dimensions must the mounting be to fit correctly? Can anyone help me with a link to this data please? Thanks

I was drawn to this topic as I am quite interested in obtaining a decent model of an immediate prewar GWR era King Class loco. The DJM/krmodels ventures seem to have drawn a massive number of comments so will add my own, if rather belatedly. 1. As an industrial designer and project manager who has worked on multi £m projects and tooled in various countries I do not agree that it is "normal" for Chinese factories to retain tool ownership if you pay the full price for the tool - some toolers insist on this and I shy away from them as you always need to obtain full IP and tooling rights to ensure clarity of ownership and ability to transfer/remove the tooling if you run into any supply/quality issues. So, you CAN go that route if you want cheapness, but have little control over what happens to the tool or moulding/product rights, so would not recommend this unless you already have a very good relationship with a tooling and production company with a reliable history. Basically you do have a choice if discretely assigning a contract. If however you go to a 1 stop shop with tooling through to production there maybe more strings but 100% tool ownership is obviously the "gold standard" and one I always follow for my own work. 2. As someone has to do the product CAD, then the tooling CAD (usually quite different entities) the relationship between these two parties has to be very good and reciprocal to get all the final edits in place on time and to quoted cost, with the added issue of the product manufacturer in the loop this can become a 3 way problem 3. I won't comment on DJM as I don't know the guy but sounds rather like the Norton Motorcycle debacle on a much smaller scale, but still as a consequence, i gather that in at least some cases pre-payments were received and no product delivered, so there is problem with the business models in that there is no protection for the "investor". This is not news for speculative investment arrangements, but when offering a specific outcome - eg product vs a deposit (whatever %) tends to imply this is a pre-purchase deposit that should be clearly stated whether it is refundable in case the project does not go ahead. In this case it appears in effect to have been a speculative investment in the company/man as much as a deposit vs a specific deliverable (whatever was said at the time) so "caveat emptor" really applies and pre-payment is not something I would ever do by choice (easy to say after the event I know) without a signficant (excuse the pun) track history. 4. Although Crowd Funding occasionally works, the actual rate of success of PRODUCTS as opposed to services or other activities is LOW and probably just as low as new UK startup company success rates, eg around 10% at most. For this reason and reading the T's&C's of the various Crowd Funding sites where usually their fees come out of the investment upfront there is even less cash to enable the project to succeed, I would generally steer well clear of any crowd funded model project altogether. Let's face it, if there was a big demand for a model it would probably be recognised by the current RTR manufacturers and put into production, though do understand that some models will never be very popular so some alternative means must be found if you want to buy one OTS. However, in this case, how can the monies be raised? 5. Budgets for production of mixed tech products must be carefully costed. This is difficult to do and requires a lot of forecasting and contingency as there are so many areas of expertise required to get a market-ready product completed. Often CAD designers are not skilled at project management, manufacturer selection, price negotiation, OTS/custom component sourcing - eg electric motors, quality systems methods and requirements, jig and tool manufacture for assembly, test and training etc etc, so one-man-bands who can do a bit of CAD are fools to themselves and others if they think they can deliver a full working product at a fixed price, quality and timescale. Without a believable financial plan and project plan the budget required and hence a realistic fund raising target is a "finger in the wind" and just not likely to deliver. Hence, I think at least some "honest but deluded" people think they can deliver a product but run into unknown territory and so are massively underfunded at critical phases of the project. On top of this of course are the scammers who think the public don't know the above so go ahead and take the money anyway. 6. So, we need good designers, good toolers, good project managers, component suppliers, assembly houses, QA and test engineers and all the other skilled personnel that bring about reliable consumer products including the costing engineers and financial guys. Yes, it is hard and complex. I am probably more risk averse than many because I have seen these sort of problems over several decades and have had to resolve them at director, manager, technical design and production level stages with smaller and large companies. 3 main issues can always arise and require mitigation: a) Budgets too low because of poor forecasting/planning OR not enough cash AT THE RIGHT TIME so delays occur. b) Tech & supply problems that were assumed to be simple but are actually "show stoppers" that can delay/stop or affect funding and delivery dates and/or product reliability, durability or performance c) Poor quality - initial or rolling - where the supplier does not get it right for a plethora of reasons - usually the product is more difficult to make right than anticipated. This can be a design issue whereby the manufacturing method has not been considered, yields are too low because of fiddly construction/assembly methods, poorly designed or issues with bought in OTS parts, OTS parts obsolescence, component shortages etc or just sloppy work by sub-cons etc. Quality issues arising due to poor understanding, documenting and application of test and QA methodology and equipment. Amazing really that any complex detailed products actually get to market, but there are actually a lot of very good people and companies out there that know what they are doing, but this strength in depth comes at a price. A kitchen sink designer may think the job is done when they have a bit of good looking CAD on-screen. Actually this may not even be manufacturable let alone be their springboard to worldly riches so any offers to punters before the other 99% of the work is done really is a leap of faith. Comments about Shapeways or similar print houses are relevant here because many models available in their shop look good in CAD but are not anywhere near as good in the flesh. Often they are designed to be made using porous or crude detail 3D print materials/techniques, use the wrong plastics for the application (too brittle or too spongey etc) or require so much rework you might as well have scratch built. I have used Shapeways and others for some of my n gauge models and found that as they batch build these components they may choose the wrong build orientation so get excessive stepping, have sub-contracted the 3D print due to bottlenecks on the machine you need and not got good results, having much poorer than advertised build quality etc. However, Shapeways are very receptive to discussion and do replace/refund when this happens. However, QC is not always as good as it should be and also images of ACTUAL models as printed before rework should reflect what you are likely to receive from the shop than just the CAD model itself. Obviously, high res SLA may be the best quality that we all need for (in my case) 2mm scale but many select FDM on price....... this is generally NOT the same quality as SLA or IM so we must expect to rework these-printed parts - hopefully if all has gone well there will be some excellent parts/models available via 3D printing, but OTS/RTR model detail/finishing has now got so professional it is hard to match this with a simple 3D printed part without at least some rework and finishing. The upshot is that a detailed complex 2mm scale locomotive IS expensive to produce and relies on a wide range of skill sets from concept through to delivery. As much of production relies on "economy of scale" to use the best production techniques to keep prices down to the customer, low volume niche product production should be expected to be expensive and require significant funding, If a company wants to make such products it must have deep pockets. If the money is not there and/or the market not big enough to repay the upfront costs there will be entrepreneurs enticing you with their pipe dream projects. Best wishes to krmodels in bringing at least some of these ideas to market - I hope it all works out, but admit I will be sitting back and waiting to see running examples before sinking any cash into an n gauge King Class.

All, thanks for the recommended book title and comments. I have obtained a copy of that Railway Modeller from Feb '96 and reduced the drawings of WB Station to 2mm scale - MS Publisher is my "goto" ap for scaling almost any image or line drawing so long as you have one known (or reasonably guessable) dimension. I have also modelled a 6 wheel Toad bodyshell in 2mm scale in Solidworks from an old line drawing - more detailing required for the chassis. The "N" Osbornes version is in fine ply and from the examples I have seen tends to give a rather rough finish, but is cheap enough to buy and try to improve, but will probably get mine 3D printed and go for it! Amazing such a small station and line gets so much attention, but actually quite compelling for some reason. Must try and get some more details of the original loco on the Bridport Railway as a nice challenge to model in CAD in 2mm/N gauge.

Hi Martyn, I used to come down to Bridport in the early '70's on the railbus as well as previous visits from the mid 1950's onwards to see my grandparents who were from around the town. My grandfather traveled on the West Bay branch in the 1920's. We have essentially now moved to an old cottage in West Bay and thinking of modeling the old station and sidings up to Wanderwell Bridge (compressed) in N gauge (it is a small cottage) and love to see other's efforts in OO, EM and O gauge. I have collated a fair amount of online information about Bridport and West Bay with a section on the Bridport Railway, so although a very short branch line that was not ultimately very successful due to West Bay failing to take off as a seaside resort, it does hold a certain personal interest. I have been looking for more images of the line between Bridport and West Bay and there are only seemingly a few out there that are published in many different books or online. I know the Bridport Museum/local History centre will have more but currently closed due to Covid, so will have to wait and see, Best of luck with the layout, will follow with interest, Roger

Great to see this in OO, I am contemplating a West Bay layout in N as I am now based here most of the time and it can make a neat, small layout for tinkering and honing skills (it has been a while) in building that layout. There are numerous good books on the railways in this locality including "Dorset Railways Remembered" by Leslie Oppitz ISBN 1 85306 042 9 so good source material for LSWR and GWR practice in West Dorset. The opportunity to include both company's locos and rolling stock is appealing so after the WB branch layout will be looking at hooking this up to a fictitious mainline where I can run my favourite Southern and GWR stock. I think the S&DJR also had a presence in the area so some Midland/LMS locos can also potentially get running rights over the metals on their way to Weymouth/Portland and I see from old photos that sometimes GWR locos hauled Midland/LMS carriages down from the Midlands, so all sorts of possibilities with the introduction of some interesting train consists. Love the weathering and ageing you have done - I gather that in 20's & 30's (at least) a lot of old rolling stock fell into disrepair and the S&D in particular were notorious for dilapidation, so your finishing is most appropriate. That Code 55 rail looks nice and low profile, but I have always had some issues with the lack of rail chairs when soldering down on an intermittent basis as in the era these branch line tracks tended to use lightweight bullhead - not flat bottomed rail - where the chairs can stand-out - though in the late 19th C this was often "overballasted" so the chairs DO disappear. Interestingly, up till Nationalisation there was still some McDonnel rail from the old Broad Gauge days of the GWR at Bridport Station, level crossings etc. If you are feeling ambitious it would be great to see some of that modeled as I expect that unless it broke/wore out this was left in place in many locations. Maybe OTT but fascinating if someone managed this - maybe some NS or steel Tee section of approx the right section is available? Best, Roger

Hi Doug, obviously a lot more built up these days and particularly since the 1960's but some late Victorian and 1920's-on houses down West Bay Road. and still some farmland (just) . Yes, hard to do it justice when so bleak, but only about 1.5 miles to Bridport (East St) but still to scale far too big to easily model. I wanted to get Wanderwell Bridge into the layout so will compress the distance to this (about 3/4 mile) when I can get some good pics of this to model - the memory is not so good about the appearance as this disappeared about 45 years ago, although part of the roadway brickwork is still there. Will post any more relevant pics to share, Rgds, Roger

Hi, Love the West Bay layout you are building. I am slowly getting an n gauge version together myself - just getting the track purchased and a bit of planning how far to go up the line and if I can compress to include the Wonderwell/Wanderwell Bridge. Following from DougIdles comments about typical goods types, West Bay was a port that received timber from Scandanavia (saw this myself into the very early 1970's). The nets etc (unless shipped elsewhere) are more likely to have been loaded from Bridport goods yard than West Bay as the factories (Gundrys etc) were in town. WB did have a small cattle dock but apparently this was rarely used. Also, it did have a small fishing fleet so fish vans may have been used and a large amount of beach gravel/pebbles were taken from here at the end of Chesil Beach until about the 1960's (unsure about last date) and this was used for construction and also as ballast on the returning timber ships. For this reason you see a lot of open wagons on West Bay sidings in earlier photos including NE wagons. Nice project. Some pics attached FYI, mainly much earlier than your era but still indicative I think. Look forward to reading your progress.