RBTKraisee

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope 2024 brings happiness and success to you all! Ross.

Hi Ben, There's nothing stopping RMWeb from contacting me about doing projects for them too, if they want! Ross.

Ta daaa! The whole streamlined Coronation Scot train together in one place for the very first time! Ross.

The 9th and final coach for the Coronation Scot rake - the RK Kitchen Car - is now just about finished, with only the roof pipes to do. I printed a pair of test coaches last night. Ross.

Okay, that post didn't attract any negative comments! 😀 Above I'm showing a Consett 56-ton Iron Ore wagon that used to work on the Tyne. KR Models made one in OO and talked about making them in N, but have abandoned that project, so I figured the way was clear for me to go ahead. Below that are five of the nine coaches and the Streamlined Princess Coronation Scot loco that I've done for a newer Farish Duchess donor. I've actually done 8 of the coaches so far, with the 9th - the RK Kitchen Car - about 80% finished. I'm currently heavily into production, though doing it by 3D printing is awfully time-consuming! To get the windows to fit flush with the coaches took an arduous path. My attempts with 3D printing failed. A friend tried a laser cutter, but the thermal load on the acrylic as too much. So I ended up buying myself a small CNC mill and after a few false starts, I have now managed to figure out a fair process that results in really good quality cuts. Unfortunately, between the mill and the vacuum cleaner I need to cool the acrylic and suck up the debris, it is a REALLY loud process, so to avoid our neighbours getting really peeved at me, I need to build a sound proofed cabinet for all the gear to go in while it chunters along for about 4 straight days. I figure that the cabinet may as well be the big one I need to support my big layout in the spare room! 😀 So I'm buying all the wood this week and I'll make the cabinet ASAP - then I can install the sound deadening material and begin producing all the window panels for the CScot coaches. Permission to proceed with the cabinets only came from SWMBO (Deb) once I agreed to build her a potting table for the garden - which (aside from trimming with some bamboo which isn't due for delivery until the 20th) was finished last Thursday, so I now have the green light to proceed! Yay! Work will finally begin on my long-planned 4-track main-line plus 2-track branch-line hinged layout, and the cabinets will support an automated 45-line traversing fiddle yard allowing 120 inch long (3.05m). Heh, as Deb says; "Go big, or go home!" I am a happy camper! Once the CScot and Consett's ship my next project is to return to my N15 King Arthur, which was about 80% finished when I paused doing last year to go and make killer drones for Ukraine. The N15 only needs the photo-etched phosphor-bronze pickups to be made for the tender's bogies - not an easy task, but manageable. After that I want to get my APT-P finished. Then I'll look at what's next in the growing "wish list" that people have asked me to consider making! Busy times here. Ross.

It's been well over a year since I last put an update on here, sorry guys! I got pulled away building drones to help in Ukraine and the model work just stopped and I just haven't got around to doing any updates to this thread since. I have some new bits coming, but they're products being made specifically for a different forum. I'm not sure if showing them here would be considered "bad form"? What do you guys think? Ross. Ahhh... I guess a quick tease can't hurt too much...

Mike, I have sent you an email. Sorry it took me so long to log into RMW recently! Ross.

Updated tooling? Ross.

😁

Glad to have the site back up and running again! I've gone back and re-uploaded all of the images from the page 4 onwards. I'll come back at some point and do the other pages too, but time is pressing right now. I'm also going to re-write my very first post on this thread, to show off my 'wares'🙂 I'll try to keep it updated with the status of all my projects, past present and future, including showing what's actually available! In the meantime, a massive thanks go out to Steve Wright and Dave Cooper who run the amazing James Street N-gauge exhibition layout... I needed a Farish Duchess as a donor for the upcoming Streamlined Coronation Scot project and Steve very kindly agreed to sell me the blue Duchess of Norfolk model that graced the cover of Railway Modeller's September 2018 issue - so I've now got that famous loco in my very own collection!! 🤩 When I'm done test fitting her for the CScot, I'm going to return her to the original blue config as I want to enjoy having something from James Street here🙂 Big thanks Steve and Dave! Ross.

So today I'm shipping a total of 16 orders, including the County models, 1923 Gresley Restaurant Triplet Set (RTS), and a bunch of my 3rd rail chairs. While a few are going to the US and Australia, most are heading to the UK I'm going to take a bit of time off next week, but next up is the N15 King Arthur re-shell over a Dapol B17 chassis, and my streamlined Coronation Scot is coming as soon as I receive a Farish Duchess that is coming from the UK. I've also made an initial start on the 1937 rake of 9 LMS coaches for the C-Scot, including 57ft BFK, BTK, FK and TO, together with 50ft RK and 65ft RFO. The BFK and RFO are first up. Ross.

What if it were a custom chassis? What would the interest level be like? I'm just getting back into PE manufacturing after a 15 year hiatus, but I've no doubt I could make a suitable custom chassis and valve gear. The only issue on that front is that I'm based in Florida, so popping over to the NRM to take measurements of Duchess of Hamilton isn't so easy right now. My next trip to Blighty isn't likely to happen before August. It would be very helpful if I could find a source for accurate drawings. Ross.

I design all my kits initially in 1:1 scale and then I re-scale and add the parts to fit a particular chassis. I'm already doing a C-Scot in N gauge, but I've been asked if I would do one in British O gauge 1:43.5, to fit a Heljan A3/A4 chassis, so I thought I should check with the wider O/7mm community to see if there is any interest in a limited production run of a signature premium kit and/or and RTR one. If a slightly different scale would be more popular, or equally popular, I don't think my original client would mind, so please let me know what you would be most interested in. For example, the C-Scot did a tour of the US, so a US O scale (1:48) variant might make sense as another product. If there's enough demand to cover the costs, I can make almost anything. Ross.

Would there be any interest in a finescale very high quality (far better quality than Shapeways best - see my N gauge County here to see the print quality) 3D printed LMS Streamlined Coronation Scot, based on Heljan A3/A4 running gear, with new front bogie? It's too early to be certain, but I'm thinking a kit needing running gear might be around £200, and an RTR fully-painted version around £550-650. It would be followed by a full 9-coach rake of 1937 coaches, and maybe I could also do the 1939 streamlined 8-coach rake too. Opinions? Thoughts? Cheers, Ross.

Thanks Matt! The County is starting to ship next week (taking orders now @ US$ 50 ea) but the N15 is probably still at least a month away from being finished, but I now have all the bits needed to make my own PE phosphor-bronze pickups to make the bogies in the tender work properly. I used to do large-scale PE work about 15 years ago and I expect it will take a few weeks of experimenting before I figure out the ideal process for doing it at this "desktop" scale But once I've got it, I'll be able to make my own custom pickups and nameplates. Ultimately I might even be able to make my own connecting rods and eventually even PE brass chassis so I can tackle some more unusual loco's out there. It's going to be fun! Oh, and I've decided to include a set of static plastic "running gear" for all my 3D printed loco's, so that they can put on display without it running. I've got about 20 of the County bodies here, and already about a dozen of the N15's from testing as I designed it, and I figure they might look great on a big engine shed diorama Ross.