TurboSnail

Ah, you haven't seen what I'm doing to an R1 chassis yet! All in good time...

Spot the difference! For those who can't be bothered: boiler and tanks made longer, piano lid gone, new chimney, tank/cab/bunker rounds, removed bunker rounded edges, additional cab interior detail & guard irons!

As meticulously planned as I've come to expect! I was thinking of pinching the chassis for something else, but I really should let this thread get back to its intended purpose...

How similar were these to some of the L&Y locos? I can't remember if they were designed by Aspinall, or bought in by him. I may have been doing some research of my own on them... The L&Y one looks to me to have a slightly shorter front and bunker.

Yeah, worth a look. It's not as bad as it looks on the CAD though, the chassis is drawn with horizontal cylinders as it was easier and I just needed the overall size - on the actual chassis, they're smaller and inclined. But could probably be moved to a more correct position. Hoping to finish this model off tonight, so I'll add it to the list

My CAD was based off a number of locos, including some for the MSC, Port of London Authority and others. If I do adapt it, it would probably be towards the MSC IC ones, shouldn't be too difficult. There were a couple of other types with straight tanks that I took elements from as well. I'd probably want a drawing to work from though if I was to do a model of an actual prototype - I didn't find any when I was looking, so I've worked from photos instead. If you have such a drawing, I could probably model one... I will add the curved sections and remove the piano lid, I should have spotted those! I was going for something 'in the style of' rather than a specific prototype so I wouldn't have to worry too much about the tiny details - but I do want it to match the house style, so thanks for pointing those out. I've realised I may have to change the chimney now as well. The thing is, I wanted it to be fairly small (length over buffers is 100mm), as my layout is a small concern so wouldn't have massively powerful locos (this will probably be the biggest one they have). I would like to do some locos for a Terrier chassis (I went home at the weekend to dig one of my Terriers out of storage for this very reason), but it would be larger I think as the chassis is physically longer than the Electrotren one, and the wheels look bigger too (I need to measure up though). Hopefully there will also be a ready supply of old Terrier chassis in the near future, with everyone upgrading... The downside of the Terrier chassis (and the Electrotren one) is that you are essentially limited to locomotives with side tanks, due to the width of the motors.

I recommend Scale-link for ease of use, particularly for the Neilson wheels as the centres come out fairly easily, but they're not the most accurate wheels in the world and some people don't like the plastic centres. I think it would be possible to modify a normal metal driving wheel with a file and filler, but I found swapping the centre over to be easy enough. It does need to be done very carefully though to make sure the hole stays in the centre, if that makes sense - so that the wheels don't turn into cams... The printed centres also have the centre hole square for a Markits/Scale-link type axle, so if you do go Gibson, you'll have to modify it to fit (I don't know how Gibson wheels work, so can't really help there). I've typed centre so many times it's starting to sound weird... I got all the wheels for my F class from Markits/Romford as Scale-link don't do 28mm drivers. The drivers were from a Midland loco IIRC, the only ones I could find with the right diameter, I think they're 22 spoke though. The message I sent you earlier has the spoke count in, can't remember what it was now though. A quick Google suggests 20 I highly recommend using threaded crankpins to allow repeated assembly/dismantling as the major downside of 3D printed kits is that the rods and chassis have to be adjusted a bit to account for the printing tolerances.

I realised this morning that I forgot to finish the Hudswell Clarke loco I started a while back - so it now has a chimney and cab interior detail (based off the discussion a page or two ago, so it should be relatively accurate this time!). I've stuck it on Shapeways for the time being, along with the other locos I've designed for the Electrotren 0-6-0 chassis, until such a time as I can start printing more economically in Resin again (if anyone does want one, I may be able to get it done, but it won't be cheap!). This will hopefully become the brute of the workforce on my future layout - I'm considering the idea of running in two eras, based on the mainline stock I have, namely 1900-1914 and 1945-1949. This loco would fit the latter quite nicely I reckon, not sure how early I could go with it though - any ideas?

I missed out on the SECR C the first time round too - I had one on pre-order but cancelled as it was too expensive at the time. By the time I came to my senses, they'd sold out, so I got an SR black one instead. I was hoping to trade that in and get one of these new ones, but I've just looked at the pre-order price - it's £190+!!! I'm now trying to calm down my wallet and explain that I'm not going to submit it to that kind of shock...

Mr Wilson has been busy over the last couple of days. There are a few overscale buts due to the limitations of 3D printing of course. All the widths are just educated guesses based on other locos and a guess at approximate width of the outside cranks. Likewise, the smokebox front, bufferbeam details and spectacle plate position are approximated from that one rather indistinct photo posted by Killian a few posts ago - searches for further photos or info have drawn a blank. The chassis has the driving wheels rigid with pickups, and the trailing wheels free to move up and down and side to side, using exactly the same system as my Neilson 2-2-2T's trailing wheels, which worked well.

Moving to a parametric modelling software is hard, but way more powerful once you get the hang of it. I've had the good fortune to learn on such systems - at time of writing I have 5 separate CAD programs on my laptop through student licences! And I can't use most of them... I'm starting to have a go at Fusion360, and most of my issues are finding where they've moved all the buttons to. Three commands in most CAD packages that I find most useful: - Thin Wall/Shell - the thing Linny so eloquently described - is great for making space inside models to add weight, or to reduce the amount of resin used, which reduces the cost - Mirror - if you set up a model with the centre of the model at the origin of the co-ordinate system, you only have to do half the amount of work you'd otherwise do. And you can mirror mirrors in different axis, to build things like bufferbeams etc. - Pattern - not just square or circular, but along sketch curves as well - great for rivet detail in particular

It's probable that my loco will be nowhere near the works of art you produce, so I'm not too worried about true scale cranks. That's always something I could remake later down the line when my skills and access to tools improve I usually prefer Scale-link wheels, but they didn't have driving wheels with the correct number of spokes, so I started looking at Markits. I've since checked and Markits don't do the correct size trailing wheels, so I've gone back to Scale-link for now. I have enough trouble with quartering even with Scale-link wheels, so I'm a little scared of Gibson wheels!

Since it's a lovely day, E.B.Wilson has taken his drawing board outside for the afternoon. Although he is struggling a bit to work out how wide this loco should be. Does anyone know the dimensions of Markits outside cranks (or other manufacturers)? The closest thing I have is a set of Hornby Class 08 wheels.

They say the production technique is infinitely variable to allow for all versions - I suspect it's a matter of time!

Two KCL locos waiting at Broadmead Yard for their next turns of duty.