Etched Pixels

Not entirely - it seems their bounding box code is buggy - if you pack them at an angle with other shorter stuff to form a square thats under 150mm it works fine - but their web site and tools are either too daft to or intentionally make it hard to do this. I've printed polished 26m 1:160 stock this way

Polished WSF is a bit variable but it's what I use for things like coach roofs. It usually comes out better than FD. You can polish 3d prints a couple of ways yourself depending upon the material - airbrushing with acetone (while wearing appropriate safety gear, with good ventilation and I wouldn't advise smoking on the job), or abrasively with a rock polisher being two - but for WSF that has its own problems including the amazing quantities of dust it produces and the time taken. Another one you don't want to do without safety gear. I leave it to Shapeways to polish mine, saves beer drinking time. Alan

Bernard (TPM) did some very nice sides for the K40 full brake that abused a Dapol B set as a donor. This build instead uses a generic 3D printed shell with etched trussing and the usual white metal detail. Given the underframe of the B set needs major work and the roof would need redoing anyway I think its an easier way to do the build (It doesn't really work for the BTK as that re-used the Dapol recessed door) Sides are just tacked on for the moment as I'll need to take them back off for spraying.

For the one I am building I plan to put pickups in the trailer and run fine decoder wire between the two so I can get better power pickup. It's also possible if you move the wheels around as per my blog entry to shorten the Tsugawa so you could power the trailer too. Transfers look neat - nice solid white with no bleed. What system are you using to do these ? Alan

I checked with the NGS shop a couple of weeks ago - the Stove-R chassis has sold out but will be available again at the end of the year - which is why it's vanished from the shop listings.

Roof horn mountings or is that an intentional omission ?

One reject old NSprays/Heritage N body shell (99p) Some filing and filling Some old white metal ventilators from the scrap box Four buffers Some bent wire An old Poole Farish GWR railcar chassis Two DMU bogie outers Couple of old BHE DMU underframe castings I had handy Dapol it ain't but everything came from the junk box so quite a saving. No need for a sound chip either, it sounds like a DMU already !

Picked up one of these from Plaza Japan to play with and to maybe replace the scratchbuilt chassis in the WCPR 'Flying Matchbox' at the moment. The 3D print/scratchbuilt one isn't very reliable to say the least. The Tsugawa wheelbase is a bit long and it'll need a resistor or two as it is meant for 4.5v max. The design is interesting as the chassis block is produced using a long gear chain that consists of identical gears held in places with pins from each side, and at the end by wheels (also split axles). The axles and pins fit into the same exact gear moulding. This of course means that you can swap them around (I put the end gears back in so I can find them if I ever want to swap it back) Turns out the screws foul the wheels but you can drill new 1mm holes and tap the screws into those instead. All fits below the windowline and I think with care I can get the decoder and resistors hidden too. I'll pass on sound for the moment.

The Dapol chassis block was about the right size but the motor is held in place by the body, and also in the wrong place. With a lot of careful packing and the motor turned the other way it all fits into the longboiler and can be held in place by a pair of screws drilled and tapped each end of the chassis block. That way around even the NEM pocket for the front end is in the right spot. I guess I should have used a black terrier... paintbrush time to follow. Now what to do with the terrier body. Anyone want one for a 2fs chassis building project ;-)

If he was charged the second return and it was not his fault but a failed repair then that somebody should send DCC supplies the bill.

Etching is a lot cheaper than it used to be- as a process anyway. Metal costs have skyrocketed though. Give ppd a call as they will do small sheets and the like.

Ebay is not an auction (and in the real world auctions don't determine market price either, only in beginner level economics fantasy land). Alan

Looks interesting. I'd hate to try and assemble it without some pins/holes so it all lined up nicely though Also from experience if you print the two halves in WSF you've no guarantee that they'll get polished down the same amount. Thats usually not a problem but in this case I wonder if it would be a bit awkward.. Think I'd split it interior + wheels/body + roof so any join was hidden. Some modern busses would be nice though, perhaps a bendibus with smoke generator 8)

Is that pricing it for FUD or for Polished WSF ?

http://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/index.php?topic=10303.0 and http://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/index.php?topic=434.0 has a thread including scratch building a Dellner for 57315

I've done custom LBSCR ones for people. I imagine LSWR is also doable. Depends how much of a hurry you are in. Alan

If you release lots of models at once you have to have the capital up front to pay for all the tooling. Farish Mark 3 stock has I think two tooling variants and can cover almost the entire range. Dapol has to do one tool for each - hence all the catering coach fudging. Alan

With FUD the answer is 'not very long'. With WSF so far so good. It's not really a big problem in either case as you can easily include holes for top hat bearings. The big problem with the bogies is the 15mm long axles + the wall thickness constraints. You end up with rather fat bogies (even fatter than the usually overwide N ones). 2mmSA axles work great though as they are about 2.5mm shorter. You can print in metal but the price is high, precision is a little low and the detail lacking somewhat which IMHO makes it less useful for model making. You can also use 3D prints to cast investment moulds into aluminium and you can directly 3D print moulds for casting white metal, pewter and friends including casting around a metal strengthener. Shapeways may not be suitable for anything but the lower temperature metals as WSF melts a bit too easily but ABS prints should be fine. The common sense things also apply - the tool should be within a metal box or similar so that if it cracks nothing bad occurs. With FUD you can also leave holes for threading strengthening metal rod through. It's a bit of a fiddle to thread but it can strengthen the item against warping quite a bit. Given you don't need that much weight and you want it low my first thought would be to instead whitemetal cast the bogie mount and pins and if need be cast some blocks to fit within the bogie space out of sight. If the weight is over the bogies or better yet actually carried directly on the bogie frame you shouldn't need much to get it to ride well. Alan

The ATM bogies appear to be off the market at the moment with BernardTPMs move. I'm still waiting some from a month ago ?

I use 1:160 figures for 1:148 N, I guess HO figures for OO wouldn't be unreasonable in some cases ?

If you can do 3D you can do 2D - etching is basically 50% 2D CAD 25% origami and 25% knowing what you can get away with ;-)

andy: they are quite modern although some of the older wagons in a similar style go back to steam days. The pivot arrangement looks good. I guess in theory you can identify the location of the pivot on the real wagon by working out the diameter of the circle visible in the join in the photo