Adam's Workbench - Industrial Modelling and 3D printing

[Adam FW]

A brief update on Sirapite, the CAD is developing nicely and I've figured out how to make the drivetrain and chassis work (whether it works in reality is another matter), not sure whether to go with bushings or bearings to support the axles though

 

A lot of the detail on the running board, boiler, cylinders, valve gear and smokebox is pretty much done, the cab needs some work though as the interior is pretty barren and it needs the external handbrake and other bits and bobs

 

 

I'm really interested to see how the lion/leopard plaque on the smokebox comes out when I print it, it's tiny and was very simply modelled by tracing the outline off a photograph but the smokebox looks so dull without it

 

 

The big remaining job is figuring out how to make the flywheel and gear wheel rotate without it being impossible to service. The easy route would be to make it solid and not rotate but I'm interested to see what I can do with belt drives

[Adam FW]

My Sirapite project has been going a lot slower than I had hoped after facing quite a few set backs, put simply I messed up big time.

 

I had a drawing of a similar loco and for some reason I scaled everything off the wheels but I got that measurement mixed up with the wheelbase so everything was overscale by about 20% which I didn't notice until I started wondering why my buffers were so high. Fortunately not much had to be scrapped from the 3D model as I could scale everything in the software and adjust around the bought in parts, where I was lucky that the motor and gears still fit (but it's really tight now), unfortunately I now need to buy new wheels and there's no space to fit a system to make the flywheel and gear wheel rotate, which at least makes my life easier

 

So after a lot of frustration the 3D model is now ready to print and here it is:

 

 

A lot of this is so small I've got no idea how well it will come out so there's bound to be some tweaks needed, Not shown are the covers over the side of the simplified valve gear as I think I'll make those from brass sheet because similar shaped pieces for the cab sides on my Manning Wardle warped quite badly.

 

Internally the model will use a Nigel Lawton motor, scale link 40:1 gears, Alan Gibson wheels and axles with bronze bushes glued into the 3D printed chassis and a compensated rear axle. Only the front axle will be driven and I'll be putting as much lead shot into it as possible. I should be able to squeeze in a small DCC decoder into the cab between the cab front and boiler backplate, where the firebox, cranks and eccentrics would be in reality, luckily there's a guard for the cranks above the firebox on the prototype which will hide it nicely.

 

And to finally visualise just how small Sirapite is, here it is next to my Florence model, which is on an Electrotren 0-6-0 chassis (it's a bit bigger than the Hornby B2)

 

 

 

[TurboSnail]

Looking forward to seeing how it turns out! The big scale-link gears should help add some weight, you could also consider cast buffers and boiler fittings as a way of adding more, along with a metal crew. Maybe hollowing out the cylinders too as the motion can't be made to move.

 

I've got my overtype engine (pics on the previous page) running now and it'll manage up to three wagons depending on their weight - yours looks like there might be a bit more space to add weight under the cab roof etc. so you might be able to get a bit more tractive effort there.

Edited November 15, 2020 by TurboSnail

[Adam FW]

47 minutes ago, TurboSnail said:

Looking forward to seeing how it turns out! The big scale-link gears should help add some weight, you could also consider cast buffers and boiler fittings as a way of adding more, along with a metal crew. Maybe hollowing out the cylinders too as the motion can't be made to move.

 

I've got my overtype engine (pics on the previous page) running now and it'll manage up to three wagons depending on their weight - yours looks like there might be a bit more space to add weight under the cab roof etc. so you might be able to get a bit more tractive effort there.

 

I'm also looking forwards to seeing how it comes out but suspect it's going to take a few goes to get it right.

 

the spaces I've got to add weight are the top of the smokebox, inside of the cylinders, the water tank under the cab, the top of the boiler so long as there enough clearance for wires but the largest space runs from the front of the cab to the boiler backhead and goes up as high as the valve gear (with some space needed for a decoder)

 

I had previously thought about the whitemetal crew but they may be more of a hindrance as any weight behind the rear axle will take weight off the front axle which is the only driven one. White metal buffers on the front might be a good idea and worse comes to worse I can put some shot in the chimney as it's hollow but I don't expect this to be shifting very much, if it can shunt a couple of wagons I'd be happy.

[Adam FW]

So here’s the first test print of sirapite, being so small most of the parts fit into a single print though I’ve left a lot of the small details on their raft of support material.
 

 

The chassis came out near perfect and I’ve already test fit the motor, bushes and axle, I’m reprinting the running board as the rear buffer beam needs more support and really annoyingly there’s a small hole in the body print in the gear wheel cover so thats also being reprinted but it all fits together which was the main purpose of the test print. I also chipped the cylinders so I need another of those as well but it was to be expected with such thin pieces

 

as I’ve said before this thing is minuscule, here it is next to an austerity for scale

 

 

[Adam FW]

It took 6 attempts but I finally got a good body print with no defects and which I managed to cut free from the support material without breaking so I got started on painting the parts, mostly it’s black, and green for the body, red buffer beams, silver for the valve gear and some gold detail parts.

 

 

I wasn’t happy with this cab and boiler so I’m going to start again with it. I did want it all to be brush painted originally but my green paint was both really translucent and thick so needed a lot of coats which looks messy so version 2 will be spray painted, I just need to find a suitable shade of green

[Adam FW]

I finally got some nice green spray paint, though it took a bit of finding, one of my neighbours happens to have a green Peugeot in the shade I wanted so I found out what the colour of his car was and ordered a can to match (conifer green)

 

I tried it on the water tank at the back of the chassis first and it turned out well so whilst the body is drying I pushed ahead and built the chassis up. I’ll glue on the sand boxes and pipes once I’ve finished the pickups as they’ll only get in the way. I’ve already filled the water tank and a void under the motor with lead shot and made sure the rear axle pivots and the motor and all the wheels spin freely

 

I still need to figure out what to do with the wheel centres. Sirapite has 6 chunky spokes nothing like these Gibson wheels but they’ll do for now

[TurboSnail]

You could print some alternative wheel centres fairly easily for those - it takes a bit of fiddling to get the tolerances right for a push fit, but is pretty straightforward. I had to make these for my overtype so that I could add crankpin holes.

 

[decauville1126]

23 minutes ago, TurboSnail said:

You could print some alternative wheel centres fairly easily for those - it takes a bit of fiddling to get the tolerances right for a push fit, but is pretty straightforward. I had to make these for my overtype so that I could add crankpin holes.

 

 

 

My son did some 3D wheel centres for me - 6-spoke T-section - to go into 10.5mm Gibson wagon wheel P4 tyres. They were done dead size for the tyre inside diameter and dead size 2.00mm for the axle. The centres pushed lightly into the tyres and the axles ditto. Some cracked around the boss but he did plenty of spares. I would venture better a slightly loose fit with Loctite or superglue on assembly.

 

Thoroughly enjoying the development of the Aveling - potential customer here!

[TurboSnail]

50 minutes ago, decauville1126 said:

My son did some 3D wheel centres for me - 6-spoke T-section - to go into 10.5mm Gibson wagon wheel P4 tyres. They were done dead size for the tyre inside diameter and dead size 2.00mm for the axle. The centres pushed lightly into the tyres and the axles ditto. Some cracked around the boss but he did plenty of spares. I would venture better a slightly loose fit with Loctite or superglue on assembly.

 

I printed a whole load with various dimensions incrementing by 0.1mm each time. The hard part was getting the crankpins to screw in without cracking the resin, which I think was only possible as the thread on them is tiny! The other complication is that the dimensions you use will be affected by print time and light bleed, so it's a bit of a minefield.

[Adam FW]

On 06/12/2020 at 10:43, TurboSnail said:

You could print some alternative wheel centres fairly easily for those - it takes a bit of fiddling to get the tolerances right for a push fit, but is pretty straightforward. I had to make these for my overtype so that I could add crankpin holes.

 

 

On 06/12/2020 at 11:14, decauville1126 said:

 

My son did some 3D wheel centres for me - 6-spoke T-section - to go into 10.5mm Gibson wagon wheel P4 tyres. They were done dead size for the tyre inside diameter and dead size 2.00mm for the axle. The centres pushed lightly into the tyres and the axles ditto. Some cracked around the boss but he did plenty of spares. I would venture better a slightly loose fit with Loctite or superglue on assembly.

 

Thoroughly enjoying the development of the Aveling - potential customer here!

 

 

Thanks for the info, my plan was to just fill every other gap between the spokes in with with filler and then paint it but a 3D printed centre would be a nice upgrade, I'll probably wait until I can get my hands on another set of these wheels to experiment with though

 

I do now have a working chassis having got some basic pickups done but I they need reworking as they're very draggy but Sirapite's chassis will now shunt/violently shove 3 or 4 wagons so it all works and can move more than just itself around which was a concern of mine.

 

I also 3D printed a back to back gauge which has been a great help with squaring the wheels up to minimise wobble

[Adam FW]

All the painting is now done on sirapite and I’ve been working on the final assembly

 

 

the cylinders and false valve gear went together better than I expected being printed and painted in 4 parts but painting it wasn't much fun as it’s so fiddly 

 

 

I’ve also started on the various bits of pipe work on the loco as well, in this case a 3d printed valve has a hole printed in it that the bent brass wire is glued into. The other end of the wire goes into a hole in the front of the cab whereas the 3d printed part slots into a hole in the boiler. Somehow this worked right first time
 

 

the pipe isn’t actually glued in place yet as I need to add the transfers for the gold boiler bands and there’s some smaller pipes to run behind it once the cylinders are glued in place but it’s much easier to check the fit without the delicate parts getting in the way of my clumsy sausage fingers

 

Edited December 22, 2020 by Adam FW

[Adam FW]

Another update on sirapite, I’ve added the gold boiler bands using HMRS transfers, then glued on the cylinder assembly which after some persuasion fit rather nicely, the running board with the smokebox was added next.
 

Ensuring a good fit between the pipe from the cylinder to the smokebox was a bit tricky and needed some filler in the end

 

 

unlike most of my models sirapite has a lot of wire on it to replicate the pipe work on the real loco, I had already drilled some tiny holes in the running board and the cylinder body for some 0.3mm wire to pass into, with all that wire in place I could add the thicker bent wire piece for the clack valve I’d made earlier

 

 

the last bits of wire running to the cylinders were a pair of straight 0.3mm diameter pieces between the cab front and the back of the cylinders. 
 

I also glued into place the buffers and coupling hooks.

 

 

now the only bits left to do on the body are the handrails at the back of the cab, a small hand wheel behind the flywheel, a final pipe running between the side of the cab and the running board over the top of the LHS splashers and the window glazing

[Adam FW]

A very belated update on sirapite as I’ve been busy with some railway mania projects, one of which is a new loco kit that I’m very excited to show in the near future

 

Sirapite’s body is now finished, it’s gained handrails, steps and some more pipework all made from brass wire with a cut down BR whistle on top of the cylinder block

 

its hard to see but there’s also some real coal in the back of the cab to help hide the body mount, beside the cab the handbrake has also been fitted along with a small etched hand wheel behind the flywheel 

 

finally I glazed the windows using glue and glaze

 

 

At this point everything was finished but I wasn’t happy with the red wheel braces on the chassis as they were flimsy and had warped out of shape so I designed and printed a new set with a channel running along its length to pass a stiffening rod through

 

 

the red brace is one of my originals, the grey ones are the unpainted new versions with the rod passing through them before being glued in place and cut to length 

[decauville1126]

Absolutely stunning! Hopefully you're still thinking about making this available as a kit in the future (please make sure P4 wheelsets can fit in the splashers!)

[Adam FW]

32 minutes ago, decauville1126 said:

Absolutely stunning! Hopefully you're still thinking about making this available as a kit in the future (please make sure P4 wheelsets can fit in the splashers!)

 

thanks

 

I don't currently have any plans to release this one for sale unless I do it through shapeways or a similar service as it was a nightmare to print, after I had a successful set up for the main body piece (good support and no print defects) from memory it took 6 attempts to separate it from the support material without something breaking as it all had to be so thin to give enough space for the internals.

 

Being a project for myself it was never designed with P4 gauge in mind, the distance between the inside faces of the splashers is 21.5mm which after a quick google I believe is too tight for P4 anyway

[Adam FW]

Sirapite has been put to one side for a while now and it will remain working but unfinished until I wrap up some other projects but this is it as it stands

 

 

 

It does run ok but the pickups need improving as they cause too much drag on the back wheels to rotate freely, as a future upgrade I'm considering wiring up one of the match trucks from a Hornby Ruston but since I would like to keep mine usable with the Ruston I'm going to have to figure out what plug Hornby used or try to get hold of a second truck.

 

Other than the pickups I've just got to glue on the sandboxes and couplings then make up some more accurate wheel centres. I've decided to leave off the side covers for the valve gear as I quite like it being on show 

 

Scale is always hard to judge in photos but to show just how small Sirapite is, here it is in front of my Austerity, Wilbert

 

[Adam FW]

With work on Sirapite paused this is some of what I've been up to for railwaymania.net

 

Firstly I updated an NCB Lambton Colliery style cab for a Hunslet 0-6-0ST Austerity/J94 loco. This cab was originally designed by Paul Metcalfe to fit the Hornby/Dapol chassis. It now more accurately represents the loco's in service with more detail, I also created a new version to fit the DJM/EFE J94 and designed some suitable injectors with pipework made from bent 0.7mm wire. Both versions simply replace the cab on the RTR loco and using captive nuts glued into recesses in the cab are bolted onto the running board.

 

 

Meanwhile over Christmas I decided to make use of a Bachmann class 03 chassis I had lying around and designed my first diesel loco, a Hudswell Clarke 0-6-0, some of which were used by British Rail as the BR D2/7 others were widely used in industry.

 

Here's some images of the 3D models for the 2 loco variants, the green one represents a BR D2/7 with the unusual false bunker on the back of the cab and the red one an industrial version with the pointed roof and 'cyclops' headlight. The blue 'tank tracks' are just my crude representation of the swept area of the connecting rods

 

 

After some discussions with @Corbs we've decided that these will jump the queue and become the next Railwaymania loco kits to follow on from the Avonside B4, he's already teased the sample prints on Social Media and here's that photo repeated here, I'm particularly happy with how the grille and Hudswell plate turned out

 

 

I'm just finishing up another test build after my first one needed some improvements under the skin and we're getting the instructions up together.

[Adam FW]

I finally finished painting and assembling the BR D2/7 version of the upcoming Railway Mania Hudswell Clarke diesel kit I designed, some of you may have already seen it as it's been doing the rounds on the Railway Mania social media channels.

 

My original plan was to knock this out quickly in plain black just to prove that the printed kit went together well and was ready for production but it didn’t photograph well in black so I had to redo it in BR green, which looking at it now, really suits it. Sadly I don’t have any BR decals for it, though I may get hold of some to finish it off properly.

 

 

When I started on this project I was concerned that the decoder socket on the Bachmann chassis this kit was designed around would be problematic as it sits behind the grille pointing under the low gear box cover but the new Gaugemaster Ruby DCC93 decoder fits perfectly, though anything bigger may have to be remote mounted.

 

I'll likely post a bit of a build log of the kit in the coming days as I photographed most of my screw ups as I went along, then I'll show off the industrial version I've been working on with its more eye catching freelance livery. Overall I'm very happy with how this one turned out, my painting of the silver window frames leaves a lot to be desired (especially in unforgiving photographs) but the rest of it's come out pretty well if I do say so myself

Edited February 25, 2021 by Adam FW

[Adam FW]

This is my first post of a short build log for my upcoming Hudswell Clarke kit I'm doing with Railway Mania, I've already shown off the finished model but thought this might help people understand what's needed to build the loco. I've tried to make it as easy as possible.

 

Firstly the chassis, this kit uses the Bachmann class 03 chassis, importantly the newer DCC ready version, the old split chassis ex mainline version will not fit. The Bachmann loco has cab lighting, usefully the terminals for this are on little PCB above the decoder so an LED for CAB lighting or a headlight cab be soldered on really easily, I don't use it on the BR loco but it will be on my industrial version.

 

Next up I designed the kit to be in 5 main pieces; the bonnet, the cab, the running board, the motor cover (primarily this is to cover the back end of the Bachmann motor but can be painted up to represent the dashboard/cab interior) and a raft of smaller detail pieces. I find this makes painting and finishing much easier than single piece bodies. Not photographed but included are the nuts and bolts, handrail wire and handrail knobs.

 

 

Unlike my Avonside kit the big flat sides of the Hudswell tended to splay apart so the print has some braces along the bottom of the bonnet and one each on the cab and motor cover to stop this. These can be cut out at any time but I did it after painting and assembly, they come off very easily with snips and taper at the ends to make this easier.

 

 

The detail pieces can be cut off the raft with snips then all the parts can be cleaned up, I tend to just use a craft knife to remove the left over support material along with files, sand paper and emery boards to tidy them up.

 

 

Everything was then primed.

 

 

After it dried I cleaned up any remaining print lines with an emery board and primed it again but this was a quick build so I didn't put much effort in.

 

As I brought up in my previous post, this loco was originally going to be black, which didn't photograph well at all, so I repainted it all green instead, it was the right decision IMO as you can actually see the print details.

 

[Adam FW]

Part 2 of the Hudswell build

 

After painting the body and detail parts I bent, assembled and painted the handrails, Hudswell used simple round bar style handrail knobs rather than the more typical ball type, so the kit has WD style knobs to represent these, I re-drilled the handrail holes to remove any paint and then superglued them into place using masking tape to hold them whilst the glue dried

 

 

the grille was painted using a few coats of thinned black paint, this ran into the recesses nicely. I used acrylic paint so that I could gently clean the excess off after it dried and not damage the tougher spray paint

 

 

 

the Hudswell plate was painted similarly using several coats of thinned red paint and a detail brush, after it dried I carefully coloured the raised brass bits using a metallic Sharpie

 

 

with that done I started assembling the running board with it's buffers, coupling hooks, toolboxes and the nuts for securing it to the chassis, to help align the nuts I thread the bolts in a bit, this also keeps the thread clear of glue if excess is used.

 

Additionally I glued in the motor cover/cab interior into the cab and the chimney (or should it be exhaust pipe?) onto the bonnet

 

 

everything is now ready for final assembly

Edited March 7, 2021 by Adam FW

[Adam FW]

This will be the last post on building my test print of the Railwaymania Hudswell Clarke 0-6-0 diesel kit the BR D2/7.

 

With all the main parts painted and sub assembled I test fit all the main parts together and removed paint from the joining faces to get a good bond, with confidence it would all go together nicely I carefully applied a small amount of superglue to the joining faces, enough to have a strong bond but not too much that excess is squeezed out and becomes visible.

 

 

Once the glue had dried I cut out the braces on the bonnet and cab. I did this with a small set of flush cutters, but it could be done with a razer saw for a neater edge. This step could have been done on the sub-assemblies which would allow the running board to be screwed down onto the chassis to keep it flat without having to hold it and then the bonnet and cab to be glued on top but you risk excess glue getting onto the chassis and sticking the body to the chassis.

 

 

The final assembly step is to glue on the air tanks to the slots on the underside of the running board.

 

I don't have any BR decals sadly so I jumped straight to clear coating the body with clear satin varnish to reduce the glossiness and protect the paint. Then for the windows I used glue and glaze, leaving one empty so that it looks open for a bit of variety

 

 

The body can then be screwed onto the chassis

 

 

And that's it all done, for now at least

 

Edited March 11, 2021 by Adam FW

[Adam FW]

It's been a pretty whirlwind week, last weekend the Hudwell Clarke 0-6-0DM kit I designed went on sale through Railwaymania and we've nearly sold all of the first batch already and some very keen builders have already got their models underway and they look great so far.
 

Anyone following the railwaymania thread or social media pages may have already seen an image or 2 of my build of the Industrial version
 

But here's a few more images of it including the working LED headlight

 

 

The paint work isn't my finest  and the livery has been described as looking Indian, Cuban, Javan etc and I can't help seeing the German flag but it is based on a British loco, just not an 0-6-0 Hudswell, bonus internet points if you can figure out which one.

 

[Charlie]

Definite Duchess of Hamilton vibe to it... 

[Adam FW]

49 minutes ago, Charlie said:

Definite Duchess of Hamilton vibe to it... 

 

I can see where you're coming from but afraid not, the livery is based off a diesel loco