60012 Commonwealth of Australia

Hi Ian, Apologies for the delay in responding. I have not yet added an interior to my ABW; however from what I've read and what's listed on Wikipedia, "Odd-numbered cars from 1 to 42 had the corridor on the left when looking from the first-class end, while the even-numbered cars in this range were built reversed." On the one I did, the First Class end is the end the battery boxes are under, and has the foot step on the end, see below photos. It would, however, rather embarrasingly, seem that the ABW/ABU cars only had one battery box, not two like AW and BWs, something which I will have to rectify. According to photos of 32ABW later in life as 32ABU under Steamrail, the singular battery box should be on the right-hand side facing along the vehicle from the First Class end (on the side shown by the second photo). At least on this and 40ABW/U; the side with the blanked out windows is opposite that of the battery box. It would seem that as with everything VR it always pays to check photos... The vestibules I did using black paper, folded on top of itself giving about 2mm between folds. From memory I did 7 folds each piece. This was then superglued to each vestibule piece, the springiness of the paper I used effectively providing a working gangway. Unfortunately this ended up causing problems and derailments around corners, so I glued them shut, however they still have the visual appearance. With regards to a CW, at this present point in time there are none available aside from brass ones. Some resin ones have been available in the past, which can occasionally be found on eBay or Facebook buy/swap/sell groups, or at exhibitions once they start operating again. It would be simpler to scratchbuild one using plasticard than it would to modify an AW or BW kit, as the only things that could be used are the underframe details, the bogies, part of the roof, and the vestibules. As shown on the previous page I have been working on some for 3D printing, and have some test-models completed (which I'll show once painted), however the prototypes revealed that I'd made a minor error with regards to the width (1mm approx, so barely anything but enough to notice the difference when next to other W cars), and my latest models from that supplier have some errors caused by the supplier changing my designs without consulting me, which I wish to resolve before I go and get anything more done from them, particularly as it was a rather expensive order that I made which is now unusable short of major work. I hope to make the CWs available to people once I'm happy with the design and have a reasonable stock of them, as they certainly represent a significant gap in available stock considering most other common VR guards vans have been or are available in either kit or plastic R-T-R form in the past couple of years (C, CV, CE, Z and variants, ZF, ZLP). I hope this is of some help. Pete

Motivation modelling-wise, particularly Australian (though that's the subject for another topic if/when it reaches a suitably advanced stage), has suffered from a severe dip over the past several months after what felt like a somewhat world-shattering event of a personal nature earlier in the year. But, as with all issues and setbacks, the only thing to do is to keep carrying on and get back to some semblence of normal. So slowly back into the modelling we get. Having started at a new university this semester I've decided I may as well try and make the most of my time there, one aspect of which is making the most of everything that I have access to as a result. Nicely, this includes student access to the AutoDesk library of programs. Having never really gotten my head around Fusion360 in my earlier design phases, and being so used to SketchUp after some thousands of hours designing in it, but with limited experience in getting 2D CAD to work nicely for me, I decided to try out AutoCAD. At the time I was at my families second house down the West coast of Victoria, in Warrnambool - I've been between there and Melbourne since we took posession of it in late May. Unfortunately, we got hit with a 1 week that turned into 3 week COVID-19 lockdown, and so I was left with the house to myself for 3 weeks, the remainder of the family having been in Melbourne. With plenty of time, nothing to do, and a very empty, incredibly creaky house, I decided I may as well dig out my drawings and try out AutoCAD. After a day or so getting used to the program (designing the following carriage, realising I'd done it all wrong, and scrapping it to start again) I decided to draw up a rather neat little carriage that is believed to be the first bogie passenger carriage in Victoria, a Melbourne and Hobsons Bay United Railway Company carriage that was absorbed into the VR fleet in 1878. Build date is unknown, and when it entered service with the Victorian Railways it was classified 1AA. In 1888 it was reclassified to second class, becoming 11BB. With the 1910 recode this became 11B, it was withdrawn from passenger carrying service in 1940 and converted for use as a Way and Works workman sleeper carriage, before finally being withdrawn and scrapped in 1957. It's a shame that having lasted so late such a historically significant carriage was scrapped, though compared to the scrapping of all 4 famous S class pacifics some 3 years earlier I doubt it even made it onto the radar. The length, width and wheelbase of the carriage are known thanks to the VR line drawing. The height is approximated based off similar vehicles of the period. The sides and ends are designed as a double-etch, to be folded and laminated to give strength to the mostly half-etched outer sides. The not insignificant clear space on the etch will be taken up by another project that's currently going through the SketchUp design phase, as it requires more close attention than a carriage. After some messing about checking, double checking, adjusting, and then triple checking measurements, and reading documents on etching to confirm that half etch lines were in the right place etc, I got the body to a point where I'm happy with it. The point where the sides have the half-etch onto the body is regretfully poor, having no full width etch to form the second border, though hopefully having the inner etch laminated on will help this, along with a good steel ruler. Worst case I come back and design it with the floor as a separate piece and the sides and ends using tab and slot. I then turned to the 3D design aspects, the roof and chassis. VR standard 4'10" wheelbase bogies are available as brass cast kits, of which a set was purchased, and these will be assembled in due course, so the bogies are set. The roof design is a pure guess, though is based off a photograph of M&HBURC carriages in storage at Flinders St in the 1870s. As they all had the same style of construction, I'd say it's a not unreasonable guess that this vehicle would be the same. As can be seen in the background of the above image, I also drew up the sides in SketchUp to put together a 'complete carriage' to see how it would look when it's done. I'm going to have to find a suitable source of lining transfers, as I very much do not fancy attempting to line that all out by hand. With (at the time) no extra etching projects to fill the remainder of the sheet I put the design aside, though hopefully it'll see the light of day soon. Some (semi) kitbuilding up next. Having some time ago done a print of half a dozen of my wooden I wagon bodies. With no chassis, and work being sporadic between lockdowns, they sat untouched in a drawer for some time. Just before our latest lockdown (which by my count ended just over 2 hours ago), I made the trip down to Trainworld to purchase some underframe kits for these and some 6 wheel carriages; 3 of each. The first chassis was quickly assembled (they're nice and fast to do), and attached to a body. Having adjusted the body to be the correct width and length last year, there were a couple of things of note when attaching it to the body. 1) the chassis needs to be slimmed down. Not by a whole lot, and there's a roughly 1mm strip along the edge of the 10'6" chassis baseplates that's thinner than the rest, so easy to run a scalpel along each side to trim it down, and then a quick file of however much is left that needs thinning. 2) I need to thin the chassis baseplate before attaching it to the chassis. The body is the right size. The chassis is the right size. What isn't the right size is the fact that the chassis is designed to fit inside later era open wagons which were wider, and which had bodies that covered the sides of the floors. On the wooden I wagons the floor planking is noticeable between the solebars and the bottom plank of the body. Which is evidently thinner than the kit chassis floor. The height difference can be seen here when sat next to a Precision Scale Models brass I wagon that I purchased off a friend a at the start of the year, and collected in April. The price of the brass wagon would have paid for 5ish litres of 3D printer resin, but I've wanted to have one of them specifically for quite some time. The printed wagon is awaiting buffers as I have none, though what I have to show next may result in a fix for that particular problem. As the difference is only about 1mm or so, a bit under, I'm happy to live with it for this wagon - I'll just make sure not to put it in a train with other recent 3D prints. My plasticard scratchbuild, done a couple of years ago, was done on top of the same chassis with no thinning involved, so it'll happily sit with another one in a mixed train and nobody (else) will be any the wiser... The following can't be described as prototype modelling, so those who came here for rivet counting (in some cases literally), look away now. For some time now a couple of friends and I have discussed various possibilities for the development of the Melbourne suburban network (and regional, though predominately suburban) in the early years. They started out as a 'what if this company didn't close when it did', or 'what if this line had never been built and a different company used a different route', however over time have evolved somewhat into a hypothetical scenario where the Victorian gold rush started around 6 years before it did in reality, and as a result the railway network was being developed earlier - 1854+ becoming late 1840s. Having been reading/re-reading through some excellent threads on pre-grouping modelling on RMWeb over the past couple of days, in particulary Chris P Bacon's 'Sandy, GN &LNWR', and 'MikeOxen's Broad Gauge Blog', it inspired me to turn these thoughts into something a little more solid. So, to start with, 4 basic carriage types and a 'standard' 20' underframe with 12' wheelbase were drawn up, covering a combined luggage and brake van, a 1st class carriage with solid roots in early Stockton and Darlington coaches, and 2nd and 3rd class coaches that, despite starting out with an intention of attempting to make a British carriage with minor local influence, ultimately turned into coaches that look suspiciously like about 50% of the VRs fixed wheel carriage fleet. With the basic designs done I added some colouring, the GER inspired blue, with red window frames, gold panelling, light grey roofs and black underframes of my 'Melbourne & Yarra River Railway Company'. Seen from L-R are the 3rd class, 2nd class, 1st class and luggage/brake van. To get a better idea of how this fictional universe would look after some discussion with the more invested of the friends who I've discussed this with, I also painted them up into his 'Gipps Land Railway' livery of teak and charcoal. Now, all this hypothetical talk and fun designs (I mostly just wanted to do the 1st class car with the ornamental panelling) is very well and good but not particularly relevant for this part of the forum. So, having had its first use since about February last night for the non-Australian project, the small printer (an AnyCubic Photon Mono, which I couldn't recommend enough after the following results) was once again called into use, to do a print of one of the 20' chassis, along with a 1st class body, and a luggage/brake van body. To say that I was astounded by how well the prints came out is an understatement. For context (see following photos), the thin part of the leaf springs on the chassis comes out at 0.3mm tall and 2mm wide. Getting into fine etching tolerances for the equivalent. Pre-printing I was very unsure as to whether the springs would print properly, and slightly uncertain on how the buffers would come out. Turns out that my concern was unfounded. Hard to see with all the clear resin, but that's a very neatly printed out 0.3mm thick leaf spring after a quick metho bath. No issues could be spotted with the springs, nor with the buffers - hence my comment earlier regarding I wagon buffers. Obviously not going to be as strong as the cast brass ones, but even if I come up with a 50/50 printed-metal option - possibly printed buffer shanks and a turned head+shaft made possible by a Unimat 3 modelling lathe I have on long term loan from a friend. Also hard to see but the two carriage bodies came out nicely too. It looks as though the tumblehome on the 1st class car is slightly warped in the following photo, though no visible deformities were spotted when I looked over it while taking the photos. It may be that daylight and an undercoat says differently, if so I'll adjust the thickness for extra strength and have another go. Unfortunately my phone camera doesn't seem too fond on focussing on what I want it to at the moment. And last but not least the luggage/brake van and the full print. The resin printing isn't infallible, though in my experience 9 times out of 10 a problem is caused by either the wrong settings, poor support design, or poor design in general. The non-Australian print suffered from a partial-failure along a bufferbeam as I managed to forget all my previous experience doing the exact same thing, and didn't make sure to put supports in corners. Not something that's in any way groundbreaking, but it can be something as simple as 2 supports in the right place that can be the difference between having a nice sharp, crisp print, and having something that looks like someone dropped a soldering iron on a resin cast. Because I for the most part strongly believe that if it's worth doing it's worth doing well, these and an accompanying item that'll have to wait for a later date to show (though a couple of corners are visible in some of the digital images earlier in the post) are designed for EM gauge to represent true Victorian 5'3" broad gauge. At the rate my motivation for things is coming and going at the moment it could be anything from a couple of days to a couple of months before the next update, but I thought I've done stuff so why not show it. As always thoughts, comments, questions about any of it are welcomed, whether about the kitbuilding, designing, printing or just general modelling related. Peter

Two more coaches completed yesterday, 52ABW and 7BW, which means I now have one of each type complete. The next few days are quite busy so most likely the remaining 4 coaches won't be complete until mid next week. Now that these two are complete, once added to the UP and C van I have a nice short 50s era pass. Very pleased so far with how they're all coming out, especially now that I can set them up in a consist to see how my working vestibules go (so far, very good, I've had them going around 29" radius curves without major issues, and I work off a minimum 36" on my layouts). Peter

13AW has become the first of the 7 cars to be decalled and ready for service after a late night working on it. All it needs for final completion, and it can be run without it for now as it'll be the last thing I do to the cars, is to fit window glass and permanently secure the roof. The next few days will see the same work (window frames painted, working vestibules built and fitted, decalled and dullcoated) completed on the remaining 6 vehicles.

As promised some more photos today. First up, the M&SRC 2-4-0T chassis, now fitted with Scale Link wheels. I'm yet to clean up the rod etchings after removing them from the etching sheet, and the axles on the leading wheelset need to be filed flat, plus the things noted yesterday. Still, it's awesome to finally have it at least partially assembled. The last image there shows the amount of extra slop in the wheels as a result of the frame spacers being a bit too narrow; oh well, I've learned from it, will know next time to make them a mm or two wider. Next up, nice new passenger carriages. The new AW and ABW shown in my last post have now had the red painted, and the roofs have recieved their grey coat (the crimson car will have the clerestory sides painted crimson tomorrow to ensure the grey's had enough time to dry before masking). Both will get the black underframe sprayed tomorrow, and will go in line for window frames, which will be the same grey as the roofs (XF-24 for the crimson car, and XF-75 for the red car). I'm particularly proud of the ABW, where the join in the sides can't be seen unless looking at it up close. The addition of these cars brings the two consists up to 3 and 4 vehicles respectively, the crimson one being AW-ABW-BW, and the red one being AW-ABW-BW-BW, currently supplemented with the UP van shown the other day, and a C type guards van. The arch roof BW (last vehicle before the C van) has had a spare clerestory roof fitted for the time being, the arch roof which I ordered for it was shipped today, so hopefully it'll be here soon. Work that remains to complete the cars includes the painting of window frames on the entire crimson set, and the AW and arch roof BW on the red set; the painting of underframes for the clerestory AW and BW in the red set, and the ABW in the crimson set; painting the clerestory sides on the crimson ABW; painting and fitting working vestibules to all cars except the arch roof crimson BW which already has them; and then finally decals, window glass, and Sergent couplers. To fully complete the W car sets I decided I needed a CW, the guards van. I have an old resin one, but it's rather poor quality and very damaged (was bought second hand damaged, as the resin is very brittle). With that in mind, using a combination of diagrams, photos, and the occasional measurement from my resin one, I've drawn up the body of the clerestory roof CW for 3D printing, with the arch roof variant and a chassis to follow shortly. You may notice that on the planking the gaps vary in width, this is very deliberate. On the full size W cars, the planking is tongue-in-groove, with each piece consisting of two planks. As a result, every second gap is larger, as a result of including the join between each tongue-in-groove section, whilst the intermediate gaps are purely cosmetic. I've produced this effect on the model by using 0.2mm plank gaps where the tongue-in-groove sections join, and 0.1mm gaps where they're the cosmetic gaps. The next few days will primarily consist of finishing off the 7 SEM W cars, as my printer's currently having problems printing it may be some time before the CW sees the light of day as it were. Peter

Three more Steam Era W cars have joined the fleet over the last couple of days, an AW; an ABW, made from splicing AW and BW sides; and a BW. These bring the total carriage count to 7 (a third BW found mostly-assembled in the search for the red ABWs arched roof), with a final BW being built on commission for me to bring it to 8; which will give me 2 car sets, or any variation thereof, the two consisting of a crimson set of AW - ABW - BW (Arched roof) - BW, and a red set of AW - ABW (Arched) - BW (Arched) - BW. The photos attached are of the newly built AW and ABW cars, the BW having been built and painted, and is currently in the shed with the other 4 cars, once I've had a chance to paint these two tomorrow I'll take some photos of the (almost completed) sets. The AW, to complete the 1950s+ carriage red set, which currently consists of an arched roof ABW, a clerestory roof BW, and an arched roof BW (for which the roof is on-order, as I had none spare). I unfortunately used a little too much glue in attaching the clerestory sides on this side of the car, hence the minor glue spillage seen on the right-hand side, thankfully it shouldn't be noticeable once painted. The ABW, to complete the crimson set (once my clerestory roof crimson BW being built on commission is done). The left hand side consists of the AW sides, the right hand the BW sides, the BW sides being cut halfway down the 4th compartment to provide the window for the small toilet in the centre of the ABWs. The join is barely visible in real life, it mostly shows up in photos due to the colour difference, and if I'm lucky won't be visible at all once painted. The window bar on the toilet window on this side snapped while assembling the carriage, and has been replaced with 0.5mm brass wire, something which I had to do on the newly-built red BW (to be shown tomorrow), and on it having been painted it's almost impossible to spot even knowing what you're looking for. On the freight wagon side, I also got a set of bogies to complete a cast resin model of a VR QN bogie ballast wagon, which has been sitting on my shelf for quite some time. Once I've made and fitted a couple of small bogie spacers, to bring it up to the right height, and painted it, it'll start to form the basis of a works train which is a prototype I've been intending to model for several years now. In a development for my very early VR stock, the first set of wheels and bearings for the M&SRC 2-4-0T have arrived and been assembled and attached to the chassis. Once again being out in the shed photos will follow tomorrow. A couple of things I've found from assembling them, are 1) I didn't make the frame spacers wide enough. I'm going to have to fit washers to the axles to stop them sliding from one side to the other, and 2) the front undriven wheelset sits just above railheight (I'd hazard a guess at <1mm), so the bearings for those will have to be opened up minimally. The etched rods, which I was worried would be too thin, seem to be working fine, though the real test will be once I've assembled the cylinders and finished the connecting rods, at the moment only the coupling rods are fitted. More to follow tomorrow. Peter

A rare occasion where a lot has happened in short succession, this evening saw several more wagons and coaches painted or repainted. First up, what will become 52ABW. Purchased coded as 52ABU (1970s onwards coding) and with a rather scuffed paintjob (I believe it was third-hand by the point I got it), I decided to repaint it. Unlike the AW, and the next carriage covered, I did this one in the 1950s onwards carriage red, as I model 40s to 60s having the variation is always a good idea. Once I've located the roof for this car it will be painted in a light grey, as opposed to the dark grey on the crimson vehicles. Next up, a carriage I built myself several years ago when I was just getting into modelling VR, so rather roughly built, the roof in particular (the arched roof was built up using filler, and is not my finest work. At some point it may well get replaced with a cast resin roof, as the kits come with clerestory roofs.) This carriage will become 43BW once I've done some extra work to it, including adding the queenposts and truss rods, which are rather obviously absent. I also successfully managed to knock the generator off the chassis when moving it around, so that will also get glued back on. Some non-coaching stock, a UP louvre van and M cattle van. The UP vans were converted from UB vans in 1958-1959, and lasted until the early 1960s in service, differing from standard UB vans in that they were fitted with passenger type bogies as fitted to C brake vans to permit them to run at higher speeds, were fitted with lamp irons and end of train discs, and were painted in carriage red with black underframes. I have yet to paint the buffer beam and shunters steps black, this will be done by hand as I don't fancy having to mask all the handrails and other brass parts on the ends for the sake of the buffer beams. It appears I didn't push the body down properly on the chassis for the photo, so the body is a little higher than it should be. Both it and the M van are the SEM ones shown in my last post but one. The next items painted were the three I wagons shown in the last post but one, the two buffer fitted, dual coupled vehicles recieving wagon brown (Tamiya XF-10), and the auto-only one recieving a coating of White Knight Red Oxide Primer, which I use for 1955+ wagon red. Along with these three are a 3D printed wagon of my own design, a Q type flat wagon, which I designed and printed on my EPAX X10. The print is slightly wobbly as I'm having major problems with printer supports at the moment. It's fitted with Kadees for now, as it may be going to a friend who requested I do a Q flat. The rivets are thankfully more visible than on the test print of my rivetted D3/K class tender shown earlier this year (the only print of which was an abysmal failure, hence not being shown) The work on the AW, ABW, BW and UP mean that I now have a reasonable stopping passenger consist; I have a further BW that I'm having built on commission, which was sent off and paid for at a time which I thought I would have far less time on my hands this year then I ended up having, and another BW to build myself, which when added to the consist, plus a guards van (which I already have), will give me a nice long consist, with a mix of liveries, as ultimately the AW and two BWs will be in crimson, with the ABW and third BW being in carriage red. The consist as it stands (the guards van sitting in one of my boxes in my bedroom), is below, showing the contrast between the dark crimson and the much brighter carriage red (I had forgotten to remove the windows on one door prior to painting the ABW, though I noticed it between taking this photo and the earlier one, hence the fully red door here). Some final other news that I forgot to add in my previous post, is that I've ordered almost all the remaining required components to complete the first of my M&SRC George England 2-4-0Ts; a set of wheels, bearings, and axles from Scale Link, having found some spare crank pins. All that leaves is the motor and gearbox, both to be High Level items, which will be ordered when funds allow. If I can keep up with this burst of motivation, I may well have more progress to report on various items over the next few days. Peter

Some more work done on rolling stock, this time HO gauge mid 50s stock. My Auscision 830, which for an Alco has looked far too clean for a while, recieved a moderate weathering. It's the first time I've tried multiple weathering techniques on a loco the furthest I've gone in the past being a dry-brushing of a mix of black and brown. It's hardly up to the standards of many people on here, but I'm happy with it. I started out using a black wash, went over the entire loco with a particular focus on the bogies and roof, and then wiped off most of the sides with a paper towel, leaving the panels mostly clean but panel edges, grills etc with a buildup. I then airbrushed a mix of tan, brown, grey and black on, again with a focus on the underframe and roof, and then again wiped off most of the body. The result, happily, looks far more like a regularly used in-service 830 than one on its delivery run. The next item I've worked on is a Steam Era Models AW kit, which I built back in November or December last year, and sat unpainted on a shelf since then. It's recieved an airbrush coat of Humbrol #20 to represent VR passenger car crimson as used from 1920 to 1954, the roof getting Tamiya XF-24 dark grey, with the roof masked off to paint the clerestory sides Humbrol #20. The body was then masked off and the underframe sprayed using a generic Bunnings black spray can. To complete it, the window frames will be painted in the XF-24 dark grey, the vestibules completed and painted black (I make my own working vestibules using folded paper, hence leaving them off for now), the handrails painted black, decals fitted, the coach varnished, and then windows and the roof fitted. Up next will be the painting of the wagons shown in my last post, along with the completion of this AW. I also have a BW kit to build and paint, which will be done soon enough, and a couple of my other carriages (a BW and an ABW) are on the list for a repaint now that I have the airbrush to paint them neatly. Peter

Some more progress recently. The etching sheet for the M&SRC George England 2-4-0T arrived earlier this week, I'm very pleased with how they've turned out. The first chassis sides and spacers were soldered together; and next I'll be placing orders for the wheels, motor and gearbox so that the remaining parts can be assembled, and a first model assembled. An increase in motivation over the past day and a half has seen my pile of unbuilt kits reduced, having assembled (all Steam Era Models kits) a VR UP bogie louvre van, in late 1950s condition with auto-couplers and early shunters steps; a VR 11'6" wheelbase I wagon, in late 1950s to late 1960s condition again with auto-couplers and early shunters steps; two VR 10'6" wheelbase I wagons, in 1930s to 1950s condition with dual couplers and buffers, and a VR M cattle van in 1930s to 1950s condition, again dual couplers and buffers. Photo order UP, M, I (11'6"), I (10'6"), I (10'6") Of interest may be my choice of couplers. I use a mix of Sergent, dual-coupler (Sergent and 3 link combination), screw-link and 3-link couplers. The dual-couplers are hardly an original idea of my own, another VR modeller I know was my inspiration for using them, but nonetheless it's something that I found rather clever. Between the 1920s and 1950s the VR underwent a program of transitioning from screw link and 3 link couplers, to auto couplers. During this time, most wagons retained their buffers, but were fitted with dual couplers - an auto coupler with half a link bolted to the top, and 2 links attached to that. This enabled the VR to mix auto-only and screw-link or 3-link only stock in the same rakes. This image (link embedded, source victorianrailways.net) shows this dual-coupler arrangement, which was kept on some works stock into the 1970s and 1980s while most stock had it removed during the 1950s. The image below (apologies for the poor quality, the light in my room is very poor so I had to use flash) shows the couplers as added to my stock; with one link cut in half and superglued to the top of a Sergent, with the extra two links added once the glue is dried and suitably hardened. The I (11'6") wagon on the left shows the later condition of wagons, once the buffers and dual couplers had been removed shunters steps were added, originally wooden (as seen here), though they were replaced with wire mesh steps in the late 1960s. Extra handrails were also added when the shunters steps were introduced. The I (11'6") wagon has plastic handrails, being one of the earliest Steam Era kits still in production; most others have been upgraded with the addition of wire handrails. When I get around to painting them, all 3 dual-coupled wagons will recieve VR wagon brown (<1950s), for which I use Tamiya XF-10; the I (11'6) wagon will get VR wagon red (>1950s), and the UP will be painted in carriage red, with a wagon red roof, and black underframe; as suitable for approximately 1958 to 1960. Peter

Following on from yesterday I thought I'd show some progress on the L class. With only a couple more details left; the safety valve cover, sandboxes next to the smokebox, buffers, and smokebox front details, this covers the first variant: As Built - American funnel, open cab, horizontal smokebox door, elaborate safety valve cover, round builders plate, type 1 tank wrapper, suitable for locomotive numbers 14-20 (evens only). As noted in my earlier post, far more items are etched brass, including the splashers (which I forgot to include in the list), tank wrapper, cab, and smokebox front. Handrail holes and bunker details are also yet to be added. Removing the printed tank base, etched tank wrapper, and cast brass tank filler reveals a mock-up of a High Level Roadrunner gearbox and 1015FE motor, the combination of which fit nicely into the loco, with plenty of room to spare in the large saddle tank. In the background the 2D templates for most of the etchings can be seen. Unlike the George England 2-4-0T, I'll be experimenting with AutoCad Fusion 360 for the final etching drawings this time, and will translate each drawing across in 2D form, line-by-line. As PPD Ltd accept AutoCad files in their native format this will make things easier than having to import a 2D rastor graphic into Inkscape and insert shapes over it to form a vector file (something which I ended up having some difficulty with last time). One major advantage behind using etchings more predominately can be seen in the splashers, cab and bunker components. The .45mm brass (or nickel silver, I haven't decided which to go with for the body components, though the chassis will be nickel silver as with the 2-4-0T) enables much greater finesse, giving thinner sides, the benefits of which are much greater with open cab designs, and reducing the overall size of the splashers, which are already larger than scale due to oversize wheels. As I have a couple of friends who have expressed interest in getting an L or two off me once I've finished them I'm now planning on doing components and etchings for all 9 variants, instead of just the ones that I wanted for myself (which would have been most, though not all of them). Driving wheels will be Alan Gibson J94 wheels (the closest to the 5' 15 spoke wheels fitted, due to the HO-OO size differences), though the trailing wheels may end up being a challenge, as I would require 12mm diameter 12 spoke wheels, however the only 12 spoke wheels I've been able to find are 8 spoke. EDIT: Looking through the Alan Gibson catalogue they have 12mm 12 spoke wheels, I just hadn't looked far enough through it to find them. Short of some 12mm 12 spoke wheels miraculously turning up, I may end up needing to 3D design and print the spoke section of the wheels, and either buy 12mm wheels for the tire, or turn my own on my lathe (the former being my preferred option at the moment, as it would give me the axle as well). As I've only ever designed disc wheels before it may form somewhat of a challenge, and I would certainly get them printed professionally rather than doing them myself due to the wider variety of materials available, as this gives the potential of getting them printed out of a plastic (or metal and using a plastic or rubber bush to attach them to the axle), which would be stronger than using the resin I use, which can be brittle. For anyone interested in seeing prototype images of the L, a selection of photos can be found on the Public Records Office of Victoria website, the high-resolution collection of railway images can be found here: https://beta.prov.vic.gov.au/collection/VPRS12800?fbclid=IwAR2VmiaydsDC4FHUWPALqG8zvLt83G29k9o-TGyZInW5DEN0NVCF2F2VoEI A search of 'L Class' will bring up a number of photos of them at different points throughout their lives. Peter

Thanks, it's always good to hear that other people benefit from posting about it! The etchings for the M&SRC 2-4-0T have been ordered, there's currently a 6 week wait time from PPD Ltd, so in the meantime I'll be placing orders for wheels and crankpins from Scale Link, and motors and gearboxes from High Level. I've also started development work on another loco, the L class 2-4-0ST; the only saddle tank ever used by the VR. Over their lifetimes there were no less than 9 different variants as best as I can tell, including assortments of 3 different tank types, 3 different cabs, 3 different funnels, 2 smokebox doors and 2 safety valve covers. Having a 45 year service history (1861-1906) makes it much more versatile in model use. It's also going to contain far more etched parts than the M&SRC 2-4-0T, with the chassis, tank wrapper(s), smokebox fronts, steps and cab(s) being etched, with funnels, safety valve covers, and water tank fillers cast from brass; I found a place in NSW that does brass casting who I might try out for the casting work. Once I've done some more work on the design I'll put up some screenshots, at the moment I've only completed one variant. Peter

Having had no motivation lately due to recent events (our family dog of 12 years sadly passed away a couple of weeks ago, and Melbourne has been put back into a lockdown, with masks now mandatory) I decided to throw myself back into modelling and designing, with something a bit different and far more complex than what I've done in the past, for various reasons, the least of which was choosing to design an etched chassis for it (rather than going with a 3D printed or kitbashed one) The decision was made to design the George England 2-4-0Ts built in 1860 for the Melbourne and Suburban Railway Company. 2 were built, named Hawthorn and Richmond, and after passing to the Melbourne Railway Company and later Melbourne and Hobsons Bay United Railway Company through successive acquisitions and mergers, ended up being sold to private contractors, Hawthorn in 1877 and Richmond in 1872, meaning neither made it into VR service - the M&HBURC was purchased by the VR in 1878. This specific choice led to one major problem - only one known photograph exists of either loco, and it's from after they were sold, appearing with a tender attached (https://images.prov.vic.gov.au/loris/7164%2F0926%2F37%2Fimages%2F1%2Ffiles%2F12800-00001-000011-050.tif/full/6000,/0/default.jpg, and there are no diagrams. George England Co records list the builders numbers (160 and 161), and cylinder size (15x20"), but nothing else. Consequently, the base dimensions (namely wheel size, overall length and overall width) were taken off the M&HBRC Stephenson 2-4-0WT (later N class), as proportionally they were similar. 2 days later, and I have a set of 3D components (cylinders and body), and an etching sheet design for the chassis components. The cab roof and rear supports will be plasticard and brass wire, and the body will fit a High Level RoadRunner gearbox and 12mm diameter motor. Due to minimum sheet sizes for etching I've fitted 6 sets of chassis etches, when etched two will become a Hawthorn and Richmond for me, two have been accounted for by a friend, and the remainder may get boxed up into somewhat of a complete kit and sold. As I've documented various stages of my design method here before I'll simply skip to the end images. The chassis etches extruded to full thickness (.45mm) and assembled, with the body and cylinders attached, and a rough set of wheels (RP-110 spec) attached - the wheels were attached so I could rough out the length of the main rod, piston rod, slidebars, crosshead, and slidebar guide. The cab roof will be .5mm plasticard and the rear supports .5mm brass, 3D printing them would be too flimsy. The 'assembled' chassis etch, and an image of the etching sheet plan below. The plan was done in SketchUp, then transferred to Inkscape for final processing into a suitable format to send off to the etchers. I had PPD Ltd of Scotland recommended to me for the work, and will be sending them an email once I can afford to pay for the etchings. The sheet is 300x150mm (the minimum size possible). Being the first time designing anything for etching (I've done some basic designs for laser cutting in the past, but at a much bigger scale) I'm very happy with how the design's come out, hopefully the final version comes out just as well! At some point over the next week or two I'll be printing off one of the bodies to see if any adjustment is needed. Peter

It's often been stated by my railway friends that I can be somewhat of a rivet counter sometimes - considering current circumstances it would seem they were correct There are some 1,605 rivets in the model, as they're all separate entities within the model no physical counting was involved in the final count, though the positioning of them was almost entirely by eye, unfortunately following the spacings specified in the diagram resulted in too few rivets spaced too far apart when compared to photographs. Each rivet measures approximately 0.23mm in diameter and 0.12mm in height. The gaps in the columns of rivets on the rear of the tender are for the numberplates. The design of this one varies from my first tender design and print, it was pointed out to me that later batches of DD (after about 1912) and the K class had self-trimming tender tanks, which had a different bunker design and were slightly longer (8 1/2") than the original type. As the models for which this is intended (R-T-R D3 and K class models due out in the next year or so) I decided to move on and get this type finished and then come back to the original one at some point; I need some more diagrams to be able to start my own DD loco design. After the pain involved in adding the rivets I'm going to take a break from tender designs now, the print of this one's starting as I type. I'm not sure what I'll do next, I may start on another loco project or step back from designing and do some kitbuilding; I still have a nice big pile of both unbuilt and part-built kits to work on. Peter

My latest project has been the start of something which will be much bigger eventually. I recently got a set of General Arrangement drawings for a VR DD steam loco (first built 1902), which happens to fit my EM gauge era nicely. So, I started with the tender. The design itself was incredibly complex to do, the tender includes a flare with beading, which is (in my opinion) easily the hardest shape/design aspect to design using SketchUp. The base design of the tender took about 5 hours, drawing it to 1:1 scale using feet and inches. The flare and beading took another 15 hours. It's not my neatest work, but in HO scale it looks fine. The completed CAD design is below. I'm yet to add rivets (several hundred of them, a task which I'm rather dreading), but they'll be done eventually. Once the CAD was completed, I ran off a print. A lack of interior support led to the sides bowing outwards during post curing process. Some extra supports were added, and a second print was done, which turned out fine, save for some Z axis shift, which will be rectified. The second print was painted satin black, and bluetacked onto the tender frame of my brass K class. It's not accurate (K192 is a boxpok K class, built in 1946, the first 10 Ks built in 1922 were the only ones fitted with flared tenders), but I like the look of it. The eventual plan is to design a complete DD, including different variations (they had 3 styles of footplate and 2 different cab designs), but I need to obtain some more detailed drawings before I can do so. Peter

Thanks Mark. As Nile posted, I use the Sketchup STL extension when exporting all of my models. It's very convenient too as it gives you the option to only export parts of a model instead of the whole thing (unless you want to export the whole thing). Peter