Offerston Quay - 7mm Inglenook Plus

[Aldgate Box Boy]

Warehouse

 

A bit more progress.

 

The brickwork has had my usual scrubbing with DAS white, followed by wiping off the excess and then washing with a dark grey/brown wash of acrylics, which soaks into the dried DAS.

 

2018-06-29 001.JPG

 

2018-06-29 002.JPG

 

The brick arches are highlighted using coloured pencils in a "dry brushed" manner.

 

The window frames are painted in Woodland Scenics "Concrete", which is a suitable cream colour. The outside frame trim is in RailMatch maroon.

 

2018-06-29 003.JPG

 

In these pictures, the windows are just resting in place. The stone capping to the walls has been started (5mm foam board) but needs finishing. I must think of something to do with the window cills.

 

Really great job Duncan, thanks for sending me the link to your strand. So would you recommend these kits, I know you mentioned the same problem I've had with bricks coming away. I'll be following this with interest.

best Tim

[Fastdax]

On 10/07/2018 at 18:28, Aldgate Box Boy said:

Really great job Duncan, thanks for sending me the link to your strand. So would you recommend these kits, I know you mentioned the same problem I've had with bricks coming away. I'll be following this with interest.

best Tim

 

Thanks Tim!

 

I think the LCut kits are good value for money, when compared with the likes of Intentio, which seem to be a better product, but at a higher price.

 

I have tried the Wickes Knotting Solution on a spare bit of LCut brickwork and it does impregnate and stiffen the fibreboard in the same way as Shellac. Since the Knotting solution needs clean-up with meths, I'm at least half convinced that it is Shellac, or a close substitute.

 

The following pic shows the knotting solution on a board. The white part on the left is the original colour. This has had 2 coats but another wouldn't hurt.

 

 

Be sure to give the back as many coats as the front, or it will dry warped.

 

One other tip I found necessary - use a really sharp knife blade when cutting the LCut boards. i use a Swann-Morton scalpel with replaceable blades and I usually fit a new one before I start to cut this stuff. Not very many cuts later, the blade is blunt and starts to tear through the brick faces instead of cutting cleanly. Time to change the blade again at that point!

 

Edited December 21, 2023 by Fastdax
Reinstating photos.

[Aldgate Box Boy]

Warehouse Steps

 

<Stands up> Hello, my name is Duncan and I'm a gadget freak <sits down>.

 

So I got a 3D printer. It's an Anycubic Photon and it's the sort that pulls a model slowly upwards from a vat of liquid resin. it uses UV light projected on the transparent bottom of the vat to cure a layer of the model, one slice at a time.

 

I hope this will be useful for printing small parts for the railway.

 

The first thing I designed (with Tinkercad) was a set of concrete steps for the warehouse side door. Tinkercad is easy to use but a bit limited compared to the full-fat CAD packages. It's fine for simple items like this although I wouldn't like to design a Gresley A4 using it. It is free though.

 

Here's the raw printed item, It's not perfect, due to my inexperience with 3D design and printing, but it's close enough for jazz, as they say.

 

2018-07-10 001.JPG

 

I also printed some tiny (3mm dia) flanges to hold the handrail ends. I printed 14, got 11 off the printer intact, the carpet monster ate 2, one exploded when I drilled it, but I ended up with 6 decent ones which were drilled 1mm to take the brass handrail.

 

Here's the Tinkercad design. The reality is too small to photograph successfully.

 

3dflanges.png

 

The steps and handrails, assembled and painted up:

 

2018-07-10 003.JPG

 

... and resting in place:

 

2018-07-10 004.JPG

 

Hi Duncan, great work.  I'm depressed now as I just modeled a set of stairs for my building.  These are brilliant, I love the handrails too.

Best Tim

[Fastdax]

Chimneys

 

I wasn't too impressed with the LCut chimneys. It was quite easy to hack two of their 2-pot chimneys into one 4-pot, but the 3D pots themselves were a bit oval and rough.

 

 

So I drew up and printed my own.

 

 

And here, painted up:

 

 

 

 

A bit of sooty weathering powder and I think they will look OK.

 

Edited December 21, 2023 by Fastdax
Reinstating photos.

[Fastdax]

Office Building

 

I progressed the "flat iron" building which forms part of the sight block for the upper level track.

 

I was totally inspired by Richard "Tricky's" stone office building here and I thought I'd try something similar (but if it ends up half as good, I'll be happy!)

 

 

The method is to apply a thin layer of DAS white and sand and scribe the stones when it's dry.

 

 

To provide a bit of 3D relief, I designed and 3D-printed some stone window cappings and sills:

 

 

I really like this little 3D resin printer! The window parts took maybe an hour to knock up in TinkerCAD and about 30 mins to print 3 off cappings and sills. (Only 3 will fit in a single printing).

 

There's a bit of clean-up with a file needed where the parts were in contact with the print plate, but there are none of the visible layers that you get with a filament printer.

 

 

Scribing has started!

 

The dirty grey wash is to help me see where I've got to.

 

 

Edited December 21, 2023 by Fastdax
Reinstating photos.

[Fastdax]

Office Building

 

Scribing is complete and I primed the shell with Halfords black primer, followed by a dusting of Halfords white primer to show up any defects that will need a bit of filler.

 

 

 

The stonework doesn't look too bad as is, but I want it a bit browner to resemble Millstone Grit which many buildings round here are made of.

 

 

 

Edited December 21, 2023 by Fastdax
Reinstating photos.

[luke the train spotter]

Looks great! I use that method for all of my stone buildings and it works very well. The window cappings look very smart and neat too.

[Fastdax]

Looks great! I use that method for all of my stone buildings and it works very well. The window cappings look very smart and neat too.

 

Thanks Luke.

[Fastdax]

Walkway

 

So if the owners of the warehouse also acquired the stone office building, they might add a first-floor walkway to avoid traipsing across the yard in the rain.

 

I attached Plastruct girders to the buildings and made up a floor from 3mm foamboard and coffee stirrers.

 

 

The front is more 3mm foamboard.

 

 

 

This is also clad in coffee stirrers and weathered to look like old wood. A faded paint finish will go over the top of this.

 

 

The unit just rests in place on the girders so that all the separate buildings still can be removed.

 

Some Slaters corrugated iron sheeting is in the process of becoming a roof.

 

 

Edited December 21, 2023 by Fastdax
Reinstating photos.

[Fastdax]

Walkway

 

I added some bolts to the wriggly tin roof.

 

A while ago, I picked up some packets of Grandt Line bolts and rivets. I used some of the rivets to simulate round-head bolts.

 

 

They are quite small though and I don't know how well they will show up. For comparison, the drill bit for making clearance holes is 0.45mm.

 

 

 

I also 3D printed some gutter brackets, sized for 2.5mm dia. plastic guttering. 72 off should do the trick!

 

 

Edited December 21, 2023 by Fastdax
Reinstating photos.

[Tortuga]

This 3d printing looks to be super useful! Especially for those “forgotten and fiddly” bits!

Do you need special computer skills to do this?

[Fastdax]

On 07/08/2018 at 12:33, Tortuga said:

This 3d printing looks to be super useful! Especially for those “forgotten and fiddly” bits!

Do you need special computer skills to do this?

 

Hi Tortuga,

 

No, nothing beyond the usual moving of files from place to place and opening files inside apps to edit or check them.

 

What you will need is to get to grips with a 3D modelling tool so that you can draw your items in the first place.

 

I use TinkerCAD for my simple 3D items. For example, here's the gutter supports in TinkerCAD:

 

 

TinkerCAD is about as simple as it gets but I find it just fine for the type of items I want to make for my railway.

 

You do need the ability to think about adding and subtracting basic shapes (boxes, cylinders etc.) together to make the item you want, but this is the same for all 3D CAD tools. It took me maybe 5 minutes to draw a basic gutter clip and maybe 10 seconds to cut-and-paste it to get 72 copies! It still took an hour to print, but I'm not in a rush.

 

I suggest you give TinkerCAD a try. It runs in your web browser and it's free. You could create some sample things to see how easy it is and if they look right.

 

A design I did but haven't printed yet - assorted crates and boxes.:

 

 

If you want any help with this, I'm more than happy to discuss further, but we should probably take this discussion over to the 3D Printing part of RMWeb.

 

Edited December 21, 2023 by Fastdax
Reinstating photos.

[Fastdax]

Walkway

 

With all the roof bolts in, they still aren't very obvious:

 

 

Next step - rusting the wriggly tin and painting the boards. At this stage it looks a bit "clown makeup"!

 

 

I had painted on a layer of acrylic chipping medium under the green paint, so the application of water, together with a stiff (tooth) brush and cocktail stick scraper removed a lot of the green, revealing the weathered wood underneath. I do like this technique.

 

I tried to leave a bit more green under the overhanging roof and under the window sill, where it would be a wee bit protected from the elements.

 

 

Finally, with flashing (made from the thick metal foil from a tomato puree tube) and gutterwork, using the 3D printed gutter clips from the last post.

 

 

Windows are LCUT Creative on CD-case material.

 

Fortunately, the bolt heads did pick up a bit of the light rust paint and do stand out a bit more than I feared.

 

 

The walkway is still removable. It pulls out forwards, taking the flashing and a bit of the downpipe between two brackets with it.

 

I'll look at this for a few days, then decide how much dirt to add to the windows (I bet they never got washed!) and rust to the pipework.

 

Edited December 21, 2023 by Fastdax
Reinstating photos.

[Fastdax]

Warehouse

 

I did have a one-step-forwards-two-steps-back moment. I had glued the laser-cut window frames to thin (5 thou') styrene and painted them with acrylic cream-coloured paint afterwards. This meant that they subsequently curled up like old kippers and were useless for fitting in the window apertures.

 

So I carefully cut the frames off the styrene and ordered some 1mm clear plastic PETG sheet from Eileen's Emporium. I glued the frames to the plastic with my preferred Mr. Sticky's PVA which seemed to get a "bite" onto the PETG OK.

 

 

I had to trim back the foamboard behind each window aperture (all 14!) to allow the glazed units to be glued in from behind, rather than mounted onto the face of the foamboard from the front as previously.

 

Anyway, the windows are now in and I started work on the lucam. It's 3mm foamboard clad in coffee stirrer planks.

 

 

 

Edited December 21, 2023 by Fastdax
Reinstating photos.

[Calidore]

Really great work on the buildings Duncan, the finishing and textures are excellent and you make it look so easy.

[Fastdax]

Really great work on the buildings Duncan, the finishing and textures are excellent and you make it look so easy.

 

Thanks Calidore!

[Fastdax]

Office Building

 

Work continues on the office building as well as the warehouse.

 

The mansard roof now has inset windows to use up the remaining two 3D printed window cappings.

 

 

Since any room in the attic of this building would be very narrow, and probably used only for storage, I 3D printed some shutters with attached butterfly hinges to avoid having to glaze the windows in this restricted space.

 

 

I realised that the office building was missing something important - a chimney!

 

So I TinkerCad'ed a simple 2-pot stone chimney and set it 3D printing. It's a 7 hour print so we'll see how it turns out.

 

 

 

Edited December 21, 2023 by Fastdax
Reinstating photos.

[Fastdax]

Office Chimney

 

Quite well, as it turns out :-)

 

This is straight off the printer, after cleaning in isopropyl alcohol and a bit of UV curing.

 

 

A bit of fettling with abrasives is necessary to knock off some sharp edges. I made the mortar lines wider and deeper than on my previous chimneys, to allow for grouting with DAS white, to match the rest of the building.

 

Edited December 21, 2023 by Fastdax
Reinstating photos.

[Fastdax]

Office Chimney

 

After a bit of filing, painting, filling and weathering ...

 

 

 

I used two of the chimney pots left over from those I 3D printed for the warehouse, but left them unglued in case I want to design something different.

 

Edited December 21, 2023 by Fastdax
Reinstating photos.

[bgman]

Very much enjoying this work and the use of 3D printed items which look better than most I have seen.

[Fastdax]

Platform Wall

 

There's an unfinished wall above the near platform, to stop the little people falling over the edge and onto the archway forecourts below.

 

It's just 5mm foamboard clad in Slaters brick plasticard.

 

I could have finished the top with a concrete capping made from DAS, but I thought a row of bricks-on-edge (perhaps blue engineering bricks?) would look better. This seems to be rarely modelled.

 

So I 3D printed some rows of bricks. They are a bit wider than they should be, at 6.5mm, but they are the same width as the wall itself, which is more important.

 

Here are the raw printings, not yet painted or fastened down.

 

 

Edited December 21, 2023 by Fastdax
Reinstating photos.

[Fastdax]

Wall and Office

 

The wall cap bricks came out OK after painting, grouting and weathering:

 

 

 

Meanwhile, the office building has had slates and flashing round the mansard windows:

 

 

Now I need to decide what to do with the flat roof.

 

Cover it in lead? Add a slight pitch to it? Nasty, patched old roofing felt?

 

Edited December 21, 2023 by Fastdax
Reinstating photos.

[ffayolle]

Nice mixed lasercut and classic structures

Fabrice

Edited August 26, 2018 by ffayolle

[Fastdax]

Nice mixed lasercut and classic structures

Fabrice

 

Merci bien Fabrice!

[Fastdax]

Office Windows

 

Not a lot of progress over this week due to domestic distractions involving the loss of this little lady to the Big C:

 

 

She wasn't known for her modelling acumen, but did sleep by my feet and keep me company as I tinkered at the workbench.

 

Back on topic ...

 

I did have some (very flat) laser-cut styrene window frames, but then I started playing with 3D printed windows when discussing them over on the 3D forum.

 

So I designed a couple of types of window frame, with separate opening fanlights.

 

The patchy finish on these is due to a quick slosh of grey primer to highlight where else I need to apply abrasives.

 

 

 

I'm unsure yet whether they are flat enough on the back to apply glazing material to. The window bars are a bit rough where I removed the print supports and will need further attention.

 

Each window is sized for a 32mm x 38mm aperture.

 

Edited December 21, 2023 by Fastdax
Reinstating photos.