I had the idea to try to 3D print complete signals.

If it works this should have the following advantages:

1. The software and the printer will do all the fiddly work of joining all the parts together. This will be helpful for those of us who are cack-handed but who need custom signals.
2. It will allow an infinite variety of signal combinations to be created, just like the prototypes. Thus not relying on the limited combinations supplied by RTR manufacturers and not having to kit-bash parts together or scratch-build.

As you might guess these will be non-operating signals at first. If the idea works at all I will go on to try to make them operational.

I'm concentrating on "old pattern" GWR semaphore signals as described in the book "GWR Signalling Practice" by Smith and the Great Western Study Group.

The railway companies of course made standard parts and the engineers then took those parts and used them as-is or adapted them for the local situation. So if we create the same standard parts in software we should be able to build the entire multitude of prototype combinations. If your favourite station had a particularly unique signal that is characteristic of the place, then this technique might make it easier for you to have a model of that signal - if it works...

The first job is to create models of a small subset of the standard signal fittings from the descriptions, drawings and the very useful 1908 GWR documents reproduced in Appendix 2 of the book. Once I have enough parts I will assemble a fairly ordinary complete signal (in the modelling program) and start trying to print it! (I know next to nothing about 3D printing.)

I would prefer to be creating the models in Autodesk Fusion 360 but at the moment I can't even download it...  So I'm using Sketchup Make for now. This may be the first dead-end...

This will be an ongoing thread - and be warned: It might not go anywhere!!

Here was the kit of parts as of a few days ago:

And here's the top of a 26ft Distant with a 5ft arm and some new parts added: Arm stop, Lamp bracket and Lamp (still both under construction).

There are still lots of parts to make and lots of things to correct. (Since I added the arm stop I now understand why the boss plate casting is the shape that it is and why my models of them are wrong!)

If nothing else, this will be an amazing learning experience for me!

13 minutes ago, Penrhos1920 said:

But I’ve already got very confused as to what B2B I should be using

For standard EM:

original RTR wheels: 16.4mm max.

Markits/Romford wheels: 16.5mm max.

Gibson/Ultrascale wheels: 16.6mm max.

For all of them: 16.3mm min.

For optimum running set close to the maximum without exceeding it.

Martin.

Hi Everyone,

In the late 70's my Dad and I built a medium sized layout in a static caravan. It was the most ambitious of a string of layouts that had started back in the 60's with a classic tight oval on a board. I have just found some photos of that last layout and they provide a window into times past and what might have been.

Sadly, the layout was never finished, partly because of technical problems but also because we were both getting interested in other things: Computers were calling me! Dad and I agreed that the layout would never be finished and, with University looming for me, the rolling stock and trackwork was sold off. I used the proceeds to buy a BBC Model B computer. I learned to program and this led directly to my career because after University I joined the preeminent company writing software for the BBC Micro and I still work for the basically the same organisation today! A few years after the demise of the caravan layout Dad also bought a BBC Micro and he became obsessed with playing Snapper and then Lemmings. In the end we both had PCs and spent many happy hours playing Age of Empires with each other until his death in 2008. So the conversion from model railways to computers was a good thing for us.

Looking back now I can see that my Dad was the driving force behind all "my" railway modelling. He found the space and the time, he designed everything, he built the layouts and ultimately he paid for everything - being the source of my pocket money!. I merely "helped". So this topic is in tribute to my wonderful Dad, David Martin.

The layout in the caravan consisted of a terminus station on the top level and a smaller circuit with a minor through station on the lower level. A double track partial-helix connected them. I only have 14 photos of the layout, and they appear to have been taken in two batches. They are scans that my Dad made (yes, him again!) of 35mm transparencies. They were taken by a novice photographer (me!) using a not-very-good camera and this was before the dawn of digital photography so the cost and effort of each each photo was significant and had to be thought about.

I'm going to show you all the photos I have. As you will see, the quality is not good! I have processed them a bit but not too too much because I want to to retain the 1970s feel.

Here's the first establishing photo, from "Batch 1":

You can see the helix on the left curving up to the terminus station.

On the right is the small through station. On the platform of that station is my pride and joy - but more of that later...

The window curtains on the right are pure 1970s(!) and outside the far end window you can see buildings on the other side of the valley where we lived: Mawgan Porth in Cornwall.

At bottom right you can just see the corner of the main control panel and the "pen" stowed in the baseboard side profile that was used to touch brass screw heads to set points with an alarming blue spark + BUZZT-CLACK noise.

I can't remember whether the "Cornish Mint Humbugs" tin in the centre was significant!...

On 08/05/2021 at 01:43, Martin S-C said:

Nice effect. I hope you will forgive me for getting all wagon-didactic if you're going for interior detail. Here's a drawing of an RCH 1923 Specification timber-framed 7-plank end door wagon; the same website has the steel framed version too; there is no significant difference in the interior ironwork. The left-hand side of the elevetion is an exterior view, the right-hand side is looking from the centre-line outwards towards the far side. The key thing to appreciate is that it's not the exterior ironwork that holds the sides of the wagon in place. That's done by the side knees, which are substantial L-shaped brackets bolted to the middle bearers - the transverse beams of the underframe - which taper from 2" thick at the bend to 1" thick at the top. Wagons with end doors also have knees at the door end, otherwise the sides and ends are are held together by the corner plates, reinforced by vertical washer plates on the inside and an internal corner plate for the top plank. The ends are held in place by the external stanchions, of timber (shown in the scrap detail) or steel T-section. On older types of wagons, there would often be vertical washer plates on the inside. 

Drawings of the knees and stanchions here and the remaining body ironwork here.

On the wagons you've done, how do the side doors open?