TSD's Workbench - SECR and Industrial modelling

[CKPR]

3 hours ago, wainwright1 said:

Someone gave me a Peter K kit for a Manning Wardle, I cannot remember if it was a K or an L. Unfortunately, he had made a right mess of it and I judged it to be a bit too far gone to recover.

Fair to say that the builder might have started on a sticky wicket as the design of Peter K kits is shall we say very variable. I don't know about the MW kits but others in the range  such as the Sharp-Stewart 0-6-0 were apparently drawn freehand !

Edited March 8, 2021 by CKPR

[Schooner]

20 hours ago, TurboSnail said:

...my F Class...

8 hours ago, wainwright1 said:

I am sure a lot of other people would also like one.

 

 

 

 

More lovely work Tom, looking forward to seeing them come together. It's always a pleasure to follow your progress here and on the YouTubes, great stuff

[TurboSnail]

Well, I've got the 353 chassis all set up ready for a print run tomorrow, along with a few replacement bits for the Beyer that didn't quite work out the first time. I've got a load of wheels for various projects on the way from Scale-link too, so I can see if the replacement double-boss wheel centres work out. When most of my projects stall is during the chassis build phase, so I'm aiming to get the chassis for both of these completely done this time before I expend any effort getting the bodies sorted. Hopefully that's a more efficient way of using my modelling energy!

[TurboSnail]

Most of my modelling time recently has been taken up by trying to get the layout to work, but I've managed to get some work done on a freelance loco - planning to use this one for lots of weathering practi Close ups are a bit cruel, and I've realised I forgot to paint the buffers...

 

 

[Edwardian]

That's really good, Tom. A lovely, well-balance and credible design with some great Victorian features.

 

I take it that's the old Dapol Terrier chassis? 

 

It's also very nicely done, indeed.  How did you line it out?

 

 

Edited March 18, 2021 by Edwardian
spelling!

[TurboSnail]

55 minutes ago, Edwardian said:

I take it that's the old Dapol Terrier chassis? 

 

It's also very nicely done, indeed.  How did you line it out?

 

Thanks! The design was done with input from several people, so I can't claim the credit for all of it.
 

It is indeed the old Terrier chassis, it originally had a standard chassis, but I've borrowed this one from another loco which has a flywheel fitted. 

 

The lining is done with bespoke transfers, @Corbs kindly designed and printed them in return for a duplicate loco body, so we may get to see that at some point - I gather it's being modified a little...

[TurboSnail]

Another loco project recently got to a working stage (most of my locos seem to get to this point, then never get fully finished...), the Barclay Fireless. Not really of my era, but unusual enough that I wanted to make one! There's still a tight spot in the mechanism that the motor doesn't sound too happy about it, but it does seem to run fine - it's quite low geared, so I think the motor just bulldozes through it and it'll wear in given some more running. 

 

 

[Ruston]

3 minutes ago, TurboSnail said:

Another loco project recently got to a working stage (most of my locos seem to get to this point, then never get fully finished...), the Barclay Fireless. Not really of my era, but unusual enough that I wanted to make one! There's still a tight spot in the mechanism that the motor doesn't sound too happy about it, but it does seem to run fine - it's quite low geared, so I think the motor just bulldozes through it and it'll wear in given some more running. 

 

 

Fantastic! There's no doubt that it's a Barclay. Is it to prototype dimensions, or has it been made to fit a chassis? It does look proper.

[TurboSnail]

1 hour ago, Ruston said:

Fantastic! There's no doubt that it's a Barclay. Is it to prototype dimensions, or has it been made to fit a chassis? It does look proper.

 

It's to scale (or as close as my eyesight will let me get with a ruler) with a custom chassis and drive to the front wheel - the N20 and crown gear combo will be familiar to you! It's got compensation on the rear axle (way too much, actually) and most of the motion is brass rod, tube or strip. The rods are 3D printed ones that I was planning to use as templates to make proper ones from brass strip, but they haven't broken yet so I'm leaving them there as an experiment to see how long they last.

[TurboSnail]

Progress is still slow, but there are projects ticking over... the Manning Wardle Q is shaping up nicely! It almost runs well too, the gears are a bit noisy as usual, but since adding pickups it's gone a bit lumpy - I suspect they're limiting the sideplay on the middle wheelset, so it doesn't like corners as much. You might also notice that I've abandoned hope of doing the full Wainwright on this one.

 

(and yes, the chimney is wrong for this livery, but I like it so it's staying!)

 

Edited March 29, 2021 by TurboSnail

[TurboSnail]

I've had a bit of a thing developing for SECR grey recently, despite it being outside of my modelling time period - possibly because it's so easy to paint. Obviously the sensible answer to this is to model up to 1924 instead! I know there was a reason I limited it to around 1912(ish) (with occasional sessions in the late 40s) but I can't remember what that reason was. I now have some more loco number transfers on the way from Fox, they're not 100% accurate to my eye, especially the 2's, 6's and 9's, but they'll have to do. I'll just have to pick numbers that don't use them!

 

In other news, I've just test printed another industrial loco. It might take you a second glance to notice that it's not a Peckett... Unfortunately I've been having a lot of issues with my 3D printer of late, reliability, glitches, bits not working, horrendous print lines on the vertical faces (believe it or not, this loco has been sanded a bit and still looks stripy) and I think it's coming to the end of it's life. To be expected from a cheap Chinese item, I suppose - this one took 6 attempts to print successfully between random glitches and ironically, the fan overheating.

 

Still, for some reason I really like this loco, the Peckett chassis doesn't quite have the right pattern wheels but it's otherwise pretty good dimensionally. And has a nice open cab so I can get some detail in there!

 

Edited April 4, 2021 by TurboSnail

[wainwright1]

Hi Tom.

 

Just a thought. Any interest in making a model of this one ?

 

Avonside Works No 1572 Woolmer  0-6-0ST (WD 74)

This locomotive was built by Avonside Engine Company Ltd of Bristol in 1910 for use on Woolmer Instructional Military Railway, later Longmoor Military Railway.

Woolmer was loaned to the Milestones Living History Museum in Basingstoke, Hampshire in January 2010 following cosmetic restoration at Shildon.

Edited April 4, 2021 by wainwright1

[TurboSnail]

2 hours ago, wainwright1 said:

Hi Tom.

 

Just a thought. Any interest in making a model of this one ?

 

Avonside Works No 1572 Woolmer  0-6-0ST (WD 74)

 

A B3, isn't it? Like the Mersey docks ones.

 

I've thought about it, I think I've got a drawing somewhere, it's just never been high up my priority list as the CSP kit exists and looks good! I'd have to find a good chassis match too.

[Ruston]

19 hours ago, TurboSnail said:

I've had a bit of a thing developing for SECR grey recently, despite it being outside of my modelling time period - possibly because it's so easy to paint. Obviously the sensible answer to this is to model up to 1924 instead! I know there was a reason I limited it to around 1912(ish) (with occasional sessions in the late 40s) but I can't remember what that reason was. I now have some more loco number transfers on the way from Fox, they're not 100% accurate to my eye, especially the 2's, 6's and 9's, but they'll have to do. I'll just have to pick numbers that don't use them!

 

In other news, I've just test printed another industrial loco. It might take you a second glance to notice that it's not a Peckett... Unfortunately I've been having a lot of issues with my 3D printer of late, reliability, glitches, bits not working, horrendous print lines on the vertical faces (believe it or not, this loco has been sanded a bit and still looks stripy) and I think it's coming to the end of it's life. To be expected from a cheap Chinese item, I suppose - this one took 6 attempts to print successfully between random glitches and ironically, the fan overheating.

 

Still, for some reason I really like this loco, the Peckett chassis doesn't quite have the right pattern wheels but it's otherwise pretty good dimensionally. And has a nice open cab so I can get some detail in there!

 

An Avonside of some sort?

Do you think there will ever be a printer that doesn't leave visible lines? I had a look at one of those Fourdees Ready-to-run narrow gauge locos, which they claim are printed on some of the best machines available, and I could still see lines.

[Paul Cram]

26 minutes ago, Ruston said:

An Avonside of some sort?

Do you think there will ever be a printer that doesn't leave visible lines? I had a look at one of those Fourdees Ready-to-run narrow gauge locos, which they claim are printed on some of the best machines available, and I could still see lines.

There you go

 

[Edwardian]

19 hours ago, wainwright1 said:

Hi Tom.

 

Just a thought. Any interest in making a model of this one ?

 

Avonside Works No 1572 Woolmer  0-6-0ST (WD 74)

This locomotive was built by Avonside Engine Company Ltd of Bristol in 1910 for use on Woolmer Instructional Military Railway, later Longmoor Military Railway.

Woolmer was loaned to the Milestones Living History Museum in Basingstoke, Hampshire in January 2010 following cosmetic restoration at Shildon.

 

Excellent subject.

 

Do you know the wheel diameter and centres?

 

58 minutes ago, Ruston said:

Do you think there will ever be a printer that doesn't leave visible lines? I had a look at one of those Fourdees Ready-to-run narrow gauge locos, which they claim are printed on some of the best machines available, and I could still see lines.

 

So far, the best I have seen is the digital light synthesis process used by Rails. It's not perfect, but it prints in pixels, not by laying down strata, so it's much less prone to stepping and is stronger and more flexible.

 

Tom's loco body prints for me have been very good, however, and hardly require finishing at all.

 

 

[Compound2632]

On 01/03/2021 at 20:00, Regularity said:

That’s really funny: I wrote most of that page!

 

As it happens, I was reading the original version on your blog a couple of days ago - prompted by the posting of a photo of Rothervale No. 0 elsewhere - and have a question which I will post as a separate topic rather than going OT here.

Edited April 5, 2021 by Compound2632

[TurboSnail]

2 hours ago, Ruston said:

An Avonside of some sort?

Do you think there will ever be a printer that doesn't leave visible lines? I had a look at one of those Fourdees Ready-to-run narrow gauge locos, which they claim are printed on some of the best machines available, and I could still see lines.

 

Spot on, it's an Avonside - I think, though haven't been able to confirm, that it's a custom version of the SS. "Desmond" at the Llanelli is the main example, though I think it might have had a twin with an open-backed cab, as pictured below, identity unknown (it could just be the same loco with modifications). I've used a drawing for the SS to model it, the differences from the standard SS being the tank length, the tank rivet patterns, some of the smokebox features, the dome and a very slightly different cab side sheet. I've also CAD modelled the standard SS but I'm not sure I'll actually build one of those.

 

Incoming ramble on 3D printing - hopefully this explains a few things!

 

On the printer front - I don't know! Certainly won't be available at the hobbyist level for some time, as Edwardian says, the stepping issue is related to the screens used. Alternative pixel or laser-based methods of curing resin require much more expensive equipment to do, the laser equipped Formlabs Form 3 is over £3000 and still only a desktop unit. 

 

However, it can be improved from what I get, particularly on this loco. The worst stepping is on the surfaces closest to vertical/horizontal in the printer, so you have to trade off between surface quality and taking an age to print. The same goes for layer height settings, halving the layer height gets a better surface but takes twice as long to print. It can also be affected by things like layer cure time and several other settings - unfortunately, given the age and unreliability of my printer, I have to run quite aggressive settings to make it work, so the stepping on some of my prints from about a year ago is better than I get now. 

 

Having said that - 10 minutes with some 600 grit sandpaper is usually good enough for me. The models I'm building at the moment are never going to be perfect, but I'm ok with that, it's a good chance to improve my skills relatively cheaply. When I have the space and finances, I'd love to get a small mill and lathe, machining was by far my favourite course at secondary school and university. But for now, it'll do!

 

Edited April 5, 2021 by TurboSnail

[TurboSnail]

And naturally, I've found another distraction!

 

O-16.5 anyone?

 

Some of you may know I've got plans in this scale, and I've done a quick sketch and print of a loco to get more of a visual aid which I can use for thinking and planning it. It's all very well looking at things on a screen or on printed 2D sheets, but having something to scale really helps.

 

I think I want the layout to be fairly ambiguous in terms of both time period and region, and I'm going for very small, lightweight locos as it'll be a minimum space layout. The industry I think will be a largish fabricator and machine tool company, which might tie the date down a bit - let's say 40s/50s so we can have both steam and diesel (and maybe electric!). Any thoughts on loco/wagon prototypes I could go for? I don't want to build loco kits at this stage, I've got plenty of OO chassis already, so I'd like to use them if possible - this Peckett chassis is pretty close to a couple of prototypes in terms of wheel diameter and wheelbase!

 

[NeilHB]

I like the look of that Tom - what's the basis for it please? 

[TurboSnail]

2 hours ago, NeilHB said:

I like the look of that Tom - what's the basis for it please? 

 

Based on the Manning Wardles supplied to the Royal Arsenal. However, they were 18" gauge and outside framed, I've gone for inside frames since 16.5mm gauge is closer to about 2ft 4in, I think.

 

I'll make a detailed version at some point, this was more of a proof of concept and to help me visualise the stock size, since I haven't worked in 7mm scale before.

Edited April 8, 2021 by TurboSnail

[NeilHB]

Thanks Tom -  I think you've captured the look of them nicely. 

 

 

[TurboSnail]

I'm still struggling to motivate myself to do any physical modelling, so I did a lot of messing around with CAD over the weekend and came up with this rather odd thing. Thinking of something along the lines of a mining or Rail Mail loco! That's a Bachmann Wickham Trolley under there, I picked up a cheap one when I realised it didn't have to be treated at two separate vehicles, the wheels and wheelbase are the same on both trolley and wagon, so I'm hoping it'll make a reasonable set of 7mm narrow gauge bogies!

 

[TurboSnail]

Something odd is emerging from the works...

 

[Schooner]

Stop it, TS, I like it!