justin1985

But one big question is how many retailers will bother? @SM42 suggested Modellbahnshop Lippe are working on this, which is great news, but I fear many more retailers, and especially cottage industry makers of etches and bits, will either remain ignorant of this, or simply, like William Shatner, refuse to sell to the UK at all to avoid the hassle (as @njee20 mentioned having noticed with bike part retailers). Registering with UK HMRC is quite an obstacle in itself, especially as there doesn't even seem to be any advertised minimum turnover etc for this to apply, as well as the separate stage of accounting for export sales free of local VAT, which as someone else pointed out is not something many retailers are used to doing (unless, like Hattons, etc., they're well acquainted with selling to the US or Australia etc.) The big problem that seems in danger of being forgotten here, though, is that carriers will apparently no longer be involved in collecting the UK import VAT for orders under £135 - the new system supposedly depends on all and any retailers around the globe registering for a UK VAT account with HMRC and charging the UK VAT for all orders up to this value. Frankly this seems like spectacularly badly drafted legislation - it supposes the location of any online transaction to be the location of the buyer, not that of the seller - which seems pretty much unenforceable and legally dubious. In the best tradition of governments trying to single handedly "regulate the internet" through domestic laws. Perhaps we'll end up with a "Great Firewall" to block all online shops not registered with HMRC? As I understand it, the £135 figure relates to the value at which Import Duty (as opposed to Import VAT) becomes due - i.e. carriers should henceforth only be involved in collecting fees on shipments that could qualify for Duty AND VAT. The £15 allowance no longer applies - import VAT applies to ALL imported parcels now. Of course, no mention is made of what happens to non-compliant parcels (i.e. customs declaration with a value but a value under £135) but which haven't had the VAT pre-paid. Presumably they could be liable to be returned to sender, but I can only imagine carriers will allow a period of grace and continue to collect the VAT as before - won't they? (and if they do, for how long?) otherwise that's an awful lot of return postage to be handled through the system ... I'm still struggling to get my head around the Import Duty side of it, but as @Andy Hayter said tariffs seem to be entirely separate and relate to commercial transactions. The VAT side, though, is a clear impact of leaving the single market, and totally separate from any tariff-based trade deal, short of joining the single market. Justin

Over the Christmas break I've finally got some of my GER 16' vent vans completed and now weathered. Pretty pleased with how they've turned out! (still waiting for some matt varnish though) The diagram I worked from (I think torn out from a very old Railway Modeller?) Showed a timber underframe, but looking at Tatlow it seems the steel version was much more common - and all of these short vans that survived to grouping were on steel, so I'll see about doing that version too, as well as the longer versions that followed. I seem to have run out of spare & offcut brake parts that I'd need to complete more models built this way though! Might have to think about getting an etch made up specifically - although I half remember @2mm Andy mentioned he had something like that in the works? Justin

I've used TransferWise to get around this issue - their fees are minimal in comparison with the banks. I think there are one or two other competitors in that market these days too. Continental small traders I've paid this way have invariably got their payment within a day or so, if not instantly. Alas the issue that is going to make this kind of thing much more difficult now is the changes to VAT rules for imports to the UK worth upto £135. The new requirement to pre-pay the VAT on all commercial packets is clearly designed to catch all the Chinese sellers on eBay, Amazon, ALiExpress etc who are selling direct using the existing £15 loophole (and under-declaring) to avoid VAT. The onus on online marketplaces to collect the VAT clearly addresses that. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/vat-and-overseas-goods-sold-directly-to-customers-in-great-britain-from-1-january-2021 The unfortunate side effect is that direct transactions with small traders will also be caught out - and for them it probably won't be worth their while dealing with all the new British red tape and registering with HMRC to make the pre-payments. So far as I can see, this is going to make it next to impossible for anyone in the UK to buy things from any small suppliers overseas from 1st Jan.

Much easier with AutoCAD - I'd been trying to do the whole thing with the Fusion sketch tools, which quickly reach their limits with this kind of thing! I've nabbed your DWG, Julia, will try it next time Very good question! The common answer to this seems to be that once UV cured to the specified amount (whatever that might be for an individual resin) then the photo-initiator is "used up" so the resin should act like a comparable casting resin. But I don't find this particularly convincing! Everything I've found on this in more scientific contexts seems very much focused on mechanical properties like compressive or tensile strength which seem difficult to translate into our contexts. I did see this article recommended, which takes a more subjective view for an art-history audience:https://heritagesciencejournal.springeropen.com/articles/10.1186/s40494-016-0097-y - not really much of a conclusion though. And of course even then the Chinese manufacturer branded resins we're mainly using are are almost certainly not formulated to the same standards as the ones mentioned in the article. On the other hand, I think literally every case I've seen of models degrading/splitting/exploding on the various user forums has been the result of prints that are under cured - usually hollow objects with insufficient drain holes either trapping liquid resin, or simply not allowing enough UV to penetrate into interior surfaces during post-print curing. I'll be shining a UV "laser pointer" light into the holes in the bottom of my van, for example. Justin

That looks like the perfect solution! Did you extrude a design of a lattice up/down? I did have a try at doing something similar with the GER wagon, but I think I've designed myself into a bit of a corner in terms of overhangs and levels in the floor to accommodate the etched W irons etc, that would make it tricky without a pretty comprehensive redesign, alas. But I'll definitely try and design it into the next van I start fresh. Justin

I bought a whole load of Märklin Z wagon bodies as "spares or repairs" on eBay to build up a range of stock for my German project much cheaper than usual, even for second hand. The catch is that Märklin don't do wagon chassis or bogies as spares (clearly why these had ended up as they did). So ... Just waiting for more spare wheels to arrive from Märklin in Germany, and body mount magnetic couplers from Micro-Trains in the US. (Repaints into authentic Interfrigo livery clearly also needed for the "Christmas" wagons!) Cheers Jerry! I'm sure they ended up in Somerset occasionally ... Latest test print (with the bulging ends) peeking out behind the Z wagons in the pic above. Justin

The number of test prints to get to something I'm happy with never seems to get any smaller, no matter how many things I design! (which makes me very grateful not to be relying on Shapeways!) Version two tweaked the design to increase the depth of the outside framing, but I forgot to increase the overall thickness of the sides commensurately, so they they came out translucently thin and wavy like a tarp! I also realised I'd forgotten the gap between the two halves of the door. Version three I thickened the sides - but forgot the ends, which have come out a bit bulgy! (other things drying out here are replacement chassis and bogies for Märklin Z). I'll run version 4 overnight tonight. Thought I'd show how I've tweaked the interior of the model to try and minimise risk of warping, and also now I'd added fillets to all the internal joints and corners to make the changes in surface area as gradual as possible to hopefully minimise the tear/stretching lines. Justin

Of course - thanks for catching the typo! Chitubox only seems to allow precision to two decimals, but I can't imagine it would really make that degree of difference. The diagram does nicely illustrate the principle, and at least anecdotally it does seem to minimise stepping.

Well, another one of my projects that has ground on very slowly indeed. Not having access to the MakerSpace to work on the main baseboard (I'd designed end plates and risers to laser cut) has been a good reason to procrastinate and work on other things. One recent Z gauge thing - I recently, rather optimistically, bought an eBay lot of Märklin wagon bodies - no chassis. Seemed like a good way to build up a stock of short wheelbase wagons. Despite some spectacularly bad packaging (the box sounded like a bag of Lego coming through the letterbox) they don't seem any more damaged than they were in the photos. Many are Christmas specials, which is fine for repaints. No idea what's going on with this one though! Of course, it turns out that while Märklin sell a comprehensive range of loco spares for Z, they don't do wagon chassis or bogies. I did manage to order a load of spare wheels direct from Märklin using some Black Friday / newsletter subscribers discounts. So, I've started working on 3D print designs for replacement chassis. First shot seems promising! This one is a like for like copy of the Märklin original, just measuring off with calipers. Minus the end steps, which I thought would be too delicate, and the central steps are fattened up a bit for durability. I'll try adding trusses etc for different wagons now though. Justin

I can't remember how long ago I started this design for a GER 10t vent van, but I finally got it finished enough for a test print last night. I hadn't looked at RMweb for a while though, and several of the things mentioned this week in this thread would have helped! I'd used sacrificial skirts as Tom illustrated, on a previous design, but forgot to add one here - you can see the distortion from the supports along the bottom of the solebar. The uplift from the build plate was 8mm - but I don't think it was enough - the bottom edge is still a bit distorted. The orientation is the "magic" 22.49 degrees that supposedly minimises visible layering by matching the pixel size with the layer height at 0.02mm - but I'd left the layer height at 0.025mm after a previous experiment, so it didn't work out. I've also heard that 0.025mm doesn't actually correspond well to the original Photon's stepper motor full steps, which might explain why I'd had better results at 0.02 or even 0.05 in the past. The supports here are Chitubox medium - but I'd forgotten that I'd tweaked the "contact depth" to be very shallow for something else previously, and it had defaulted to that again - which meant many of these supports simply didn't attach at the model end - which must have made some of the distortion worse. The other issue that I keep getting are "stretch marks" where the cross section changes. I'm hoping better supports will minimise this, but I'd be grateful for any tips or advice in avoiding it? In terms of the design itself, the test print really shows I didn't make the outside framing deep enough, so I've tweaked the design to increase the depth by which the planking is recessed from the framework from 0.3mm to 0.5mm. I also realised I'd forgotten the vents (it is a vent van, after all!) and the rain strips - both now added. The discussion of resin curing reminded me of this video I stumbled across a while back. I found it really helped understand what's going on! Justin

I've had an especially busy few months, and barely had the chance to do any modelling, let alone look at RMWeb. I did, however, get the troublesome turnout sorted pretty soon after my last post. Another hybrid Easitrac / etched chair plate affair. In the last few weeks I have squeezed in building a tank wagon based on a prototype spotted in photos of the real Dailuaine. The real thing seems to have been a bit longer than the PECO RCH kit, but I'm happy it's close enough. Built with the Association chassis kit, detailing parts very kindly supplied by @BernardTPM, and some custom transfers made using the Ghost toner. Seeing as mine isn't quite the same as the prototype, it's No.5 rather than No.4! Just needs weathering now ... J

This is a real gap in 2mm / N ! The NGS have finally made available their remaining stocks of transfers they produced with Modelmaster years ago, which includes a limited selection of PO liveries, which are quite good. But it's a "while they last" arrangement. There used to be 2mm ranges of rub down PO sides from POWSides and Dragon Models, which I'm pretty sure both got withdrawn. BH Enterprises might well have whatever is left of stocks? Robbie's Rolling Stock has a range of sides, but in my view they're far too crude for 2mm. 1) they are printed on clear so need a white painted side for the "white" text to show then colour matching paint to the printed sides on the ends. 2) more importantly, they use crude modern fonts like Arial which really stick out like a sore thumb as inappropriate! I've done some sides for a few East Anglian PO owners on the Ghost white laser system, but it's too much faff to do on a large scale - not least as you need the white and black shading on separate layers of decal film. I do have a few spares kicking around though. J

I use a jig (I 3D printed one, which I think is now available from the shop? Or you could easily mill one) that has slots that are quite shallow. When I press the etched chair open over this they only open into a V shape that is just about open enough to slide into the end of a rail, but still grips it. I think the original suggestion was to use a pinboard pin to press the chairs open, but I've found the point of very fine tweezers work better - they're kind of square. Only once the rail is in place and the neighbouring chair is soldered do I "squidge" the etched chair with tweezers to make sure it's flat across the bottom and gripping the rail nicely.

One other thing I've noticed is that the PCB sleepers themselves can vary in height a bit. I perhaps made the mistake of pouring the last of a years old bag of PCB sleeper strip, and a new one, into the same toolbox compartment, and then noticed after laying some through the crossing of a turnout, there was a daylight gap under the rail on some when it was flush on others. I've bought a few sheets of 0.8mm single sided PCB myself for other bits and pieces, and noticed that within a single A4 sheet, it actually varies from about 0.7mm to 0.9mm. I've no idea if the 2mm Association stocks are better in this regard, but could account for some of the difference. Laurie's suggestion of using easitrac on both sides of any rail that's being soldered with etched chairs is what helped me. I try not to press down on the rail when soldering them, so the height is set by the easitrack (and the chairs you've already done) maybe with a gap between rail and inside top surface of the chair base. I also thread all of the normal etched chairs for a given rail on in advance, just the same as with plastic easitrac chairs. I find that much easier than trying to thread them individually from below then across! J

I'm trying to do something similar in a much smaller space (a Z gauge driving coach) - this thread was really useful. But what is the minimum capacitance that would have a noticeable effect in keeping LEDs on? Is there a formula for working out how long a certain capacitance could power an LED (or whatever) at a certain voltage and current? I searched for non-polarised capacitors, but everything I could find at e.g. Farnell was either really really low in capacitance (picofarads) or really big! Realistically in the space I have available, I could only accommodate something in the kind of format that tantalum capacitors come in, or possibly a single small surface mount cylinder type (the silver ones). Can tantalum capacitors be used in the "back to back" circuit illustrated above? I know they have a reputation for blowing up if mistreated! J

Exactly this! I've always found it much harder to get a gapless join between a printed body and an etched chassis, compared to a plastic body. You inevitably have supports on the underside, which leave a less than perfectly flat surface when they're removed, and the chances are it won't be entirely 100% flat across the bottom to start with because printing forces don't tend to be perfectly balanced. I've never yet managed to sand the whole underside sufficiently flat across the whole surface to get a perfect fit. I've used an approach copied from "Stockprints" on Shapeways (who sell various pre-group mainly southern area wagons) of including the solebar and leaving a notch in the inside floor to accommodate the Association etched RCH W irons at the right spacing. That does mean you end up needing to cobble together brake gear, levers, etc., from leftovers of other etches. I think I did float the idea of putting together an etched sheet of just brake gear for this kind of thing to @2mm Andy - but of course I never got around to it myself. The other advantage of printing the solebar is making it easy to design in a sacrificial "skirt" to carry supports, which saves the risk of distortion around supports. J

This looks great Kevin! I had been thinking 3D printed RCH wagons would be worth doing, as an update to the Association kits (which don't necessarily go together that cleanly every time). I'd say yes to ramping up the relief of details like strapping and bolt heads. I always think where you are used to seeing shadow and texture on (photos of) the real thing, you want to see shadow and relief on a model. But dead scale, in our scale, often doesn't give that. Modern Farish RCH wagons probably still overdo the strapping etc, even though they're much better than anything before. For me a happy medium would be overscale strapping and bolts, but a touch lighter than Farish. I can go back to my GER wagon and check how far I extruded the strapping and bolts. It was certainly the conclusion of quite a bit of experimentation of what looked best, to me, when printed and painted. J

I've been playing around for a while with designs for a coupling that brings T gauge stock a bit closer together. I think I finally got something I'm happy with in the form of what's basically a magnet in a pocket with a stick with pip that fits a T gauge style coupler pocket. However, now I can run a train, it does show up the fact the cl.67 really struggles to haul them on curves (fine on straight track). I'm not at all sure whether the plastic wheel flanges might be striking the fishplates, whether the couplings are constraining rotation too much, or whether the curves are just too tight for the design. T was never going to be easy! It also shows up the fact that the RTR cl.67 must be a bit over scale, at least in height, seeing as I designed the mk.2s directly to scale at 1:450! All fun to experiment with anyway! J

@missy 's projects with the Proxxon mill are seriously impressive and inspiring. But I think on balance I'm a little reluctant to take on converting mine to CNC and making other tweaks to it that seem to follow from that - at least yet. One of the things that puts me off is the fact it seems like most routes to fitting the Proxxon mill with CNC preclude also using it manually anymore? However I have been wondering about getting one of the cheap Chinese "CNC Router" machines (always described by their bed size as 3018 or whatever) to play around with CNC cutting flat materials - especially plasticard and PCB. I bought one of the cheap Chinese laser "engravers" with the idea of replacing my Silhouette cutter, but while its good for card and thin ply, it obviously can't do plastic or metal (inc. PCB). Something like this looks like it might be useful - any thoughts on what to look for? GRBL control systems ('industry standard' for hobbyists?) and an ER11 collet (i.e. named standard) sound like they should be good features? https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/CNC-3018-Pro-GRBL-Control-CNC-Router-Machine-3-Axis-Laser-Engraving-Machine-UK/224091978291?hash=item342cec3a33:g:tTgAAOSwCctfGp7s Applications I'd have in mind would be milling thicker and textured plasticard for buildings, and I have the idea of trying to mill turnout bases for my experiments in smaller scales (Z and T) from single sheets of PCB, using DXFs from Templot, rather than trying to work with individual sleepers. I'm imagining something like the linked machine might work for these kind of jobs, but wouldn't have a hope of working with metals. Cheers Justin

Many thanks - that's good to know. I've got a scratchbuilt N7 body that I found being sold without provenance on eBay several years back. It scales out nicely and is more or less complete, and seems to be made from tinplate or something like that. Trying to work out what to do about the trailing axle is one of the things that has kept it at the back of the drawer so far. J

This looks amazing Izzy! Are the body parts fretted out by hand? Does the trailing axle pivot between narrowed frames somehow? J

Thanks Bernard - that could be just the ticket! I'll send you a direct message.

Completely agree, Kevin! The designs I've done, I've done the work on for me, for my own enjoyment, rather than as any kind of commercial project. If others can make use of them too, they're very welcome to. So far, that's really just a few GER wagons and associated bits and pieces like axle boxes. I'd frankly much rather share STLs with people than go through the faff of doing and cleaning/preparing more prints to post.

Thanks Julia - I actually did some of these detailing projects on Farish wagons years ago, and I had a search around to see if I could find any leftovers, but no such luck I don't suppose @BernardTPM happens to have any more available? These look like they might be ideal, Pix! Ideally it would be the full length of the top of the wagon - which is ~30-32mm. That might be a bit longer than the Western roof walkway? Thanks Andy - that was the kind of thing I was sure I'd seen somewhere. I can't help but imagine they might be very tricky to cut to size and work with neatly, but I might well order one or two to experiment with anyway. Cheers all! Justin EDIT .... Come to think about it, I wonder if I might try 3D printing it. The TPM etches are more chequerboard than actually see-through, and they look great. Whereas etched mesh would probably be very tricky to work with and fix into place without clogging it, unless it was custom made to size with a frame, like Pix's Western walkway. So maybe a print with texture, and the "wedges" to support it horizontally above the barrel of the tank might be a good option?

Are there any generic etched mesh catwalk type parts available that would suit a 2mm wagon? Or sheets of etched mesh that could be used? I'm planning to approximate this tank wagon using the PECO kit and Association chassis: https://www.flickr.com/photos/irishswissernie/35712013306/in/album-72157685827366556/ J