Adam's Workbench - Industrial Modelling and 3D printing

[Adam FW]

 

I've been spending some time working on older projects and after a long period of sitting waiting for me to get round to it, I’ve finally done some work on improving how Sirapite runs.

 

It now has some much needed additional pickups courtesy of a conflat wagon from a Hornby Ruston which has been wired in with a little 2 pin connector, the wagon is attached with some cut down kadees which could be much better aligned but it works nicely and gives a big improvement in running quality compared to what it was like before. Currently there's only a connector at the front of the loco but I may add a second at the rear so the the wagon can be at either end

 

 

The loco still needs some more weight, likely it will get this from a cast metal crew and squeezing in some more lead shot which should further improve running, in the meantime I also want to add a load to the conflat but don't have anything in mind what it will be at the moment

[Moxy]

1 hour ago, Adam FW said:

The loco still needs some more weight, likely it will get this from a cast metal crew and squeezing in some more lead shot which should further improve running, in the meantime I also want to add a load to the conflat but don't have anything in mind what it will be at the moment

 

May I suggest, shunter's pole, coil of rope, maybe a barrel of grease, couple of sacks of coal, box of tools ?  All things it might need in it's daily duties, those would be the excuse for always it trundling round with the conflat attached.

[Adam FW]

5 hours ago, Moxy said:

 

May I suggest, shunter's pole, coil of rope, maybe a barrel of grease, couple of sacks of coal, box of tools ?  All things it might need in it's daily duties, those would be the excuse for always it trundling round with the conflat attached.

 

Thanks for the suggestion, probably better than my first thought of replacing the conflat body with with a 2 or 3 plank wagon

[Adam FW]

Another update to an old project. With me being too cheap to buy brass safety valves I’ve been waiting for a model fair to pick up some cheap old loco bodies and nick the metal detail bits off them. For some strange reason there’s not been many model fairs recently, no idea why  

 

so Florence has been sat unfinished waiting for some safety valves 

 

 

So I went to a model fair at the three counties show ground earlier today and managed to pick up some cheap locos bodies for parts and to practise  weathering. The safety valves from this Blue Diamond Hornby 0-4-0 have already been glued onto Florence and I think they fit rather nicely

Edited September 5, 2021 by Adam FW

[Adam FW]

It's been a long time coming but I'm pleased to show my latest creation, another outside cylinder Manning Wardle 0-6-0ST, But unlike my earlier model of Burwarton, this one will be available as a 4mm scale 3D printed kit in conjunction with RailwayMania.net.

 

The kit is based on Adjutant and Merevale/John Roberts and is built to fit on a OO gauge Hornby B2 chassis. I've built my model as Adjutant with it's distinctive tapering chimney but a second standard chimney is also included in the detail pack along with some spares of the springs and pipe fittings just in case of any mishaps

 

 

This model is a bit of a step up in detail, complexity and part count compared to the earlier Avonside and Hudswell Clarke kits I designed and was a little more challenging to build with the curved handrails, water valves, separately printed springs and the blower pipework needing some care and attention. But as with all my designs the separately printed pieces make sanding, finishing and painting far easier than if it were left as one solid block and @Corbs (who can be blamed for any typos) has spent some time creating a set of build instructions to assist

 

 

 

 

 

 

I may spend some time over the next couple of nights doing a brief build log (if I have enough pictures) but if not, here's a photo of all the printed parts excluding some of the spares

 

[Nick C]

How similar is that to the earlier Q class?

 

 

[Adam FW]

2 hours ago, Nick C said:

How similar is that to the earlier Q class?

 

 

Hello Nick, I don’t have a drawing or any dimensions of the Q class to be able to say anything definitively. If you have some details of the loco send it to me in a message and I’ll compare it to the CAD model

 

beyond the obvious stuff like the different wheelbase and cylinder arrangement 2 differences stick out, the front sheet of the cab appears to be closer to the door opening so presumably the cab is smaller on the Q class. In addition the chimney looks taller than the John Robert style chimney included in the kit (but not fitted on my model) though this would be easy to modify

 

there’s also some minor differences such as the holes in the steps, toolbox and sandbox locations and the shape of the running board where it meets the buffer beam

[TurboSnail]

3 hours ago, Nick C said:

How similar is that to the earlier Q class?

 

 

 

The Q is a bit smaller all round apart from a longer wheelbase, the tank is a bit lower and narrower and I think the boiler/smokebox is smaller too. Though I'm sure Manning Wardle would supply a larger tank if requested... A re-wheeled Terrier chassis might get you close (wheelbase almost spot on, but 3ft 6in wheels instead of the Terrier's 4ft 0in).

[Adam FW]

Here's the first part of the brief build log for the Manning Wardle kit I designed, starting with the loco variants, 2 chimneys are included the first one (grey in the CAD model) is a pretty standard Manning Wardle Chimney as fitted to Merevale/John Robert, the second conical one (shown in yellow on the CAD model) was fitted to Adjutant, I used the conical chimney for my build

 

 

 

 

firstly I cleaned up and sanded the larger components, these come loose (ie: no need to free them from the 3D printing support material) and then cut free the smaller detail parts from the raft using flush cutters and sanded them to clean up the nubs where the supports were. I then glued the little springs into their pockets on the running board

 

 

The wire pieces can be bent to shape and handrails glued or soldered together

 

 

Everything was then sprayed in primer, I waited for it to dry and sanded back any rough spots or visible print lines and primed it once more. Each piece was then top coated in black, red or green for my loco's livery. I tend to put the parts on kebab skewers with blue tack to more easily spray paint them, though it does end up looking like Vlad the Impaler has been hard at work

 

 

Parts can then be detail painted and sub assemblies put together such as the boiler backhead and running board

 

 

Just make sure the paint has had long enough to dry before handling the parts or this happens, and if you're really daft (I was this daft) you make the same mistake with the later clear coat and have to try to smooth out fingerprints without making everything worse

 

 

Hand rails can then be glued into place

 

 

I'll finish up the build log with a second part in the coming days

 

 

Edited October 18, 2021 by Adam FW

[Adam FW]

Belatedly here’s the rest of the Railwaymania Manning Wardle 0-6-0st kit build log

 

with the cab, tank and running board sub assembled the tank and cab could be glued together sandwiching the valves and pipework between them, the running board was screwed down to the chassis to keep everything flat

and level and the top and bottom halves of the kit glued together

 

 

after the glue was dry I clear coated it

 

 

which ended up too glossy so a matte coat was added afterwards. The windows could then be glazed

 

 

 

Real coal was then added to the bunker and the loco was ready to go

 

 

to better match the prototype the top of the cylinders should be rounded off and the tank offers space for ballast and a dcc decoder

Edited October 24, 2021 by Adam FW

[Ruston]

14 hours ago, Adam FW said:

to better match the prototype the top of the cylinders should be rounded off and the tank offers space for ballast and a dcc decoder

It's a nice model. To be absolutely correct Adjutant should have pop safety valves and smaller wheels. The wheelbase is different to that of Merevale anyway, but I'm sure Corbs has told you that I bored him to death with all that already. Balance weights, made from 10 thou. plasticard, really make a difference to the wheels, too.

 

[Adam FW]

This is my latest project the Neilson 0-4-0ST from the High Harrington Iron Works. I could only get hold of 3 pictures of this ogee tank loco, one of which showed it at the end of a train of wagons so didn't help me much, as such there are plenty of educated guesses on it's appearance based on other Neilson locos

 

The basis for this model is the Hattons Andrew Barclay 0-4-0ST which donated it's chassis to the Neilson, with so few details on the Neilson I can only say the chassis looks reasonable for it but the wheels are too small. I started by replicating the chassis in my CAD software then roughing out the bodywork to get the overall shape and dimensions

 

 

details were slowly added and the shape refined

 

 

Until I created the final version and split it into parts for 3D printing, not shown are the whistle and all the bent wire pieces which will add detail to the boiler and create the handrails and smokebox handle

 

 

 

 

 

As you can see from the orange jumpsuit wearing chap on the footplate this is not a small 0-4-0ST, as with the prototype the driver can barely see over the saddletank, back in it's day it must have been quite the beast

 

The CAD was started back in June and completed in July so this has been sat on the backburner for a long time as I didn't touch it for 4 months, the plan was to use this model as a test for the new Saturn printer I've got, which didn't quite go to plan as the early prints suffered from serious layering issues, this was eventually fixed thanks to a new motherboard for the printer but it was a very frustrating time so I pretty much gave up on the Neilson until recently

 

 

Now this is the finalised print with no layering issues

 

 

But I also got a chance to experiment with some different resins, one of which was a bit too flexible to be of use to me

 

[Ruston]

Is this the one?

[Adam FW]

13 minutes ago, Ruston said:

Is this the one?

yes it is, I would have posted a picture of it myself but I’m never sure what is and isn’t allowed in the forum when I didn’t take the picture myself or own the picture

 

I also have an image of a similar loco with normal rather than dumb buffers at a mine somewhere, it may well

be the same loco but I’m not sure as there are some differences around the footplate

[Adam FW]

An update on the Neilson project, the individual parts have all been painted and I’ve moved on to detail painting and the metal detail pieces

 

 

I split the back of the boiler in 2 to make painting easier, the upper section has a lot of holes in it for pipework runs and a whistle along with the printed detail of the safety valve and gauge (the needle on the gauge was done with a fine line marker) whereas the lower section has the back head detailing

 

 

as I had limited photos of the original loco a lot of the model is down to conjecture, I could see that the left side of the footplate was not just a sheet or bunker but a large box with a lid, I’ve assumed the box was on both sides. I painted them a dark brown colour and added some transfers, the decal fix is still wet in the image below

 

 

To help this loco stand out from my others I decided to paint the running board sides, hand rails and other little detail parts a bright cherry red. The wooden chest (presumably a toolbox) has also been glued into place on top of the ogee tank

 

Edited November 21, 2021 by Adam FW

[Adam FW]

The bulk of the work on the High Harrington Neilson has been completed

 

 

I started out with the sides of the buffer blocks painted red like the buffer beam but it looked too gaudy so I repainted them dark brown in the end

 

 

to show the size of this loco here it is up against my little W4 peckett, for an old 0-4-0ST the Neilson is a pretty big and tall loco

 

 

It still needed sand boxes, these were painted blue like the body and glued onto the running board. They are offset to one side as I’ve designed some braces from the running board to the tank as with the real loco and don’t want the sandboxes getting in the way. As well as the braces the loco really needs a crew which I still need to buy but it’s good to go for now and makes a nice shunter for my layout

 

 

 

 

I don’t think I’ll name this one and it will stay as number 32

Edited November 21, 2021 by Adam FW

[Adam FW]

Last weekend I was at the Thornbury Model Railway Show and met up with @Corbs who was helping out operating an incredible Bristol M Shed layout, of course I took a handful of locos down to have a test run and show off some of our Railwaymania kits

 

Portbury was back home on the harbourside

 

 

Whilst Endeavour spent some time shunting amongst the big dock yard cranes alongside the good ship Cuppatea

 

 

 

Meanwhile the Neilson became a bit of a film star and appears in @SDJR7F88 excellent video of the event pushing the wagon used to demonstrate the capstan shunting

 

 

 

All in all it was a really nice show, I look forward to the next one

Edited November 23, 2021 by Adam FW

[mogman1969]

got to be said that box tank is an absolute delight , id be certainly interested in a 4' gauge job ! were you planning on using an existing chassis for that ?

[Corbs]

20 hours ago, mogman1969 said:

got to be said that box tank is an absolute delight , id be certainly interested in a 4' gauge job ! were you planning on using an existing chassis for that ?

It's on the Hattons Andrew Barclay chassis

[Charlie]

How far is it to go for there to an LNER Y5? So many similarities!

[Adam FW]

13 hours ago, Charlie said:

How far is it to go for there to an LNER Y5? So many similarities!

Visually the High Harrington Neilson and the Y5 are similar but the Y5 is significantly smaller so I have no intention of adapting the my model to become one. 
 

I have designed a freelance cabbed version however which I might print out at some point

[Adam FW]

And now for something completely different

 

For a long time I've wanted to model an industrial articulated loco, in the UK on standard gauge this pretty much limits me to the 0-4-0-0-4-0T Beyer Garratts like William Francis. I want to model one of those locos but came across a nice little HO 0-4-4-0T Mallet on ebay that had a slightly damaged body and didn't run well in reverse, so of course I bid on it and won it.

 

This is the loco and as you can see it's tiny, barely any longer than my Avonside 0-6-0ST so it's perfect for industrial use. As for running it the seller was spot on it ran ok forwards but jammed up regularly in reverse, the rear set of valve gear appeared to be at fault as some was a little bent, straightening it now runs ok forwards and back but isn't great at low speeds, oh well the dual valve gear is still hypnotizing to see in motion.

 

 

But what to do with it as there were no Mallets operated in the UK (to my knowledge), time for something freelance.

 

Firstly I decided I wanted a side tank loco and that it was going to be what I imagine a British built Mallet would look like, no O&K locos for me. With such small wheels the chassis almost looks narrow gauge and that's where my inspiration came from as I decided to base the design off the 'the Earl' and 'the Countess' from the Welshpool and Llanfair Light Railway though the short large diameter boiler is a little odd for Mallet

 

 

As is always the case I started by modelling the chassis in CAD then roughing out the main parts of the bodywork around it and adding more detail as the design evolved

 

 

 

Being such an identifiable design and not having to worry about scaling everything, it just had to look right, the design developed quickly but I wasn't happy with the very GWR safety valve so decided to go for something a bit more generic with a shrouded valve instead

 

 

 

As you can see there's a lot more details to add before I start printing but so far so good and adapting an existing design to a weird chassis and making a freelance loco has been very enjoyable, I'm sure that will all change when I start tackling the rivets which are never fun but in the meantime this is the Mallet lined up besides one of my Manning Wardles' it really is small for an 8 wheel loco but it looks realistic and to scale with another British Industrial which was a concern of mine

 

 

[TangoOscarMike]

To my mind, the holy grail of pugbashing is to make two Holden 0-4-0s into a double Fairlie. I've made some experiments, but not much progress.

 

So I thoroughly approve of this. But is the font bogie a little bit under-loaded in your design?

[BlueLightning]

28 minutes ago, TangoOscarMike said:

To my mind, the holy grail of pugbashing is to make two Holden 0-4-0s into a double Fairlie. I've made some experiments, but not much progress.

 

I have a pair of Holden 0-4-0s sat back-to-back in my shop just so they look a bit like that, it's very tempting to take them home and get the razor saw out!

Edited December 4, 2021 by BlueLightning

[Adam FW]

38 minutes ago, TangoOscarMike said:

To my mind, the holy grail of pugbashing is to make two Holden 0-4-0s into a double Fairlie. I've made some experiments, but not much progress.

 

So I thoroughly approve of this. But is the font bogie a little bit under-loaded in your design?

 

For the double fairlie I'm not sure how you'd get the pocket rocket chassis to rotate within the holden body, would a better option be to fit 2 holden bodies over a pair of L&YR pug chassis or something similarly small?

 

On a separate note I do remember seeing a Garratt made from a pair of holdens, looked a little odd having a side tank Garratt though

 

You're not wrong about the front bogie, I would have liked the smokebox to sit further forwards but where it is mostly covers the front gearbox for the chassis and I didn't want it exposed or hidden behind longer side tanks so it's a compromise and a longer smokebox really didn't suit the loco when I tried that