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Sydney Waratah A-Set in N-Scale


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Hi all!

i would like to show you all a project I'm working on. Much help was found on David's thread on his n-scale Pendolino - have a look through if you too are interested in 3D printing trains: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/61710-3d-printed-n-gauge-pendolino-and-on-track-plant/

 

The very antipodean CityRail Waratah A-Set!

 

 

The trains are designed in Australia for the Sydney metropolitan network, though the bodies are built in China and shipped down under for assembly and testing. Here's the wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cityrail_a_set.

 

 

Here's my virtual model, done up in Rhino 4, and in n scale.

 

Front control cab

 

And here are the carriages:

Trailer carriage (powered)

 

Motor Carriage (unpowered)

 

Ironically, I've had to power the trailer car rather than the actual motor carriages because the 8 car trains have four motor carriages and two pantograph cars. For simplicity and budgetary reasons it would make more sense to fit the motors onto the 2 pantograph cars instead of following the prototype. 

 

I intend to use Kato bogies and tomytec TM03 motors. Will be sending to Shapeways as soon as I muster up the AUD$110 for two carriages - they want to charge AUD$20 just for shipping alone!

Cheers,

Alan

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This is absolutely fantastic!

 

As a Sydney member, I do see them on occasion. I don't like them, but this may just change that opinion.

 

Only thing is that the 'Waratah' is soon to be replaced by the new 'Hop On' logo. So, it might be an idea to keep that in mind.

 

Now, about scaling that for HO...

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Could you tell me more about the 'hop on' logos? I'm actually from Melbourne, so don't you start!
I've placed an order with Shapeways for a test print of 2 carriages, and they'll arrive by June. I'll be starting the decals and purchasing paints soon.

Anyone know if it's absolutely necessary to use primer? I've seen others apply it before paint, but aren't the paints opaque anyway? Won't primer diminish details, especially on this one where the depressions are only 0.1mm across?

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There isn't anything wrong with Victorians....

 

The new logo, known as 'The Hop' is to appear in place of the 'Waratah' (actually a Lily!) on the side pannels. The only copy I can find actually includes all of them. The 'Cityrail' one is the one on the lower left. However, they won't start to appear straight away, so the 'Waratah' will stay on for at least a couple of months on the A-sets (the changeover is on 1st July).

 

As I am away from the lines they run on, I don't usually see them, but I occasionally ride on or see them (shot below was taken on one, of one pacing us), so I'll try and grab some shots if I remember. I will have a dig around on the weekend to see if I have an more.

post-14921-0-58289800-1368707840.jpg

post-14921-0-66584600-1368707976_thumb.jpg

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Looks really neat, although not quite something I'd run (the Sydney London tunnel not having been built yet).

 

One thing to watch for printing, if you are printing them in FUD you may well need some thin supports on the bottoms of the bodies to stop them bowing out of shape as they are printed. You can then remove them after printing.

 

 

How do you plan to tackle the cab area glazing ?

 

Alan

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69843: thanks mate, i think I'll go with the floral emblem for now - it looks a bit better, and all my reference pictures have the waratah/lily! It seems public transport companies have some sort of obsession with logos. Over in Melbourne they're placing "PTV" (Public Transport Victoria) logos on all the trains, despite them being liveried with the private company logos already. I guess the more the merrier.

Etched Pixel: Cheers, looking forward to the day when I can take a train from Australia to Britain! I'm printing the glazing as separate parts in FUD, which I will sand and polish to make them transparent. Then I'm going to glue them into the sockets I've left on the model body. I didn't put supports in as the shell thickness is 1mm, double the minimum wall thickness required for FUD so hopefully there wouldn't be too much warping. If there is, I've heard that you can soak in hot water to straighen out, but will look into that if there is a need to do so!

 

Simo44: hey mate, I haven't listed them on shapeways for a couple of reasons. First, this is still a 'test print' to see if my kato bogies will fit, whether the coupler distance is correct, etc. The other is I don't know if I need permission from EDI to sell on Shapeways - does anyone know if it still counts as their intellectual property if I've scaled it down and modified it to run as a model train?
Unfortunately I don't intend on doing a Tangara set after this. I've done the Waratah train as in my mind I find it to be quite an interesting design, and the tangaras don't excite me as much. The other is that the Tangara will be available this year from Auscision, albeit in HO, and I've discovered that the cost of an n scale carriage from shapeways is almost the same as buying the Auscision tangara per carriage. Finanacially it doesn't yield rewards. And I haven't actually decided what project I'll be doing after this, though I was thinking about the Victorian Vlocity railcars: 

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There is no such thing as "intellectual property" - it's a crude newspaper level term for a whole pile of things

 

Within the EU roughly speaking (and if you care talk to a lawyer)

 

- trademark will apply - so you want to be careful not to imply any kind of official sanction or being a product of the manufacturer (thats silly things like not saying 'An N scale XYZ' but 'An N scale model of an XYZ'. Trademark will also apply to things like company logos

 

- copyright usually applies to artistic elements - liveries, company locos and so forth. It doesn't itself usually apply to functional objects. Big deal for decals and will become a complicated area for 3D printing in colour.

 

- patents apply to processes and techniques that are novel and innovative (allegedly - in fact the patent system is collapsing worldwide but thats another saga). You won't be reimplementing patented parts of the loco I suspect as its merely a model.

 

- design rights may apply. Those covering functional aspects are unlikely to be problematic (it's after all not a large metal object moving people from A to B) but there are design rights that deal with distinctive shapes and styles. That could mean the design is protected for a number of years after the creation of the original. There are various requirements it must meet - being novel, and having an individual character, and the protection lasts for 3 years only - or 25 years if registered and fees are paid.

 

- database rights won't matter

 

Exactly how design rights might affect models is one of those legal bombs waiting to go off one day. Various rights lobbies like ACID are trying to make the UK and EU law even more draconian - they'd like for example to be able to send you to jail if you dared to send Shapeways a design that was in any way 'protected' even if not registered anywhere  !!

 

And then there is whatever applies in Australia on top of that

 

If the vehicles are within the potential problem period it might be worth asking, and if you plan to make decals or logos available to others you really want to check you have the right permission first. Hopefully Australia is saner than the UK, but for example  69843's posting above is probably sufficient to be infringing in the UK, such is our lack of fair use laws!

 

Alan

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi all,
Just received my chassis from Shapeways. I'm quite impressed with the quality of print - I was expecting to do quite a bit of remedial work, but I haven't needed to do anything!
Unfortunately there was an issue with the main body shell, which means I can't show them as I don't have them.
Overall, the chassis are coming along...

That said, not all went according to plan. I must've measured the motor chassis incorrectly, as the seating deck area is lower than the wheels! That'll need to be revisited. The motor position is also incorrect, meaning that the bogie and motor are unconnected. This may be an issue...

The unpowered chassis is also not without issue, the gaps for the copper 'tabs' (forgive me I don't know what the correct term is) on the kato bogies aren't sized correctly. They fit, but too tightly affecting the bogies' ability to rotate.

Lots of reviewing and remodelling to do!

Alan

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Oh, and 69426: I've been reviewing the model and have thought up a way that the model could be scaled up to HO - though it will have to wait until after the nscale model is done! I could probably reuse all the computer assets by making my own HO scale bogies with HO wheelsets. HO wheelsets are standard, I am sure...this would save having to research and source appropriate HO bogies and then re-modelling the chassis to fit them...

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Oh, and 69426: I've been reviewing the model and have thought up a way that the model could be scaled up to HO - though it will have to wait until after the nscale model is done! I could probably reuse all the computer assets by making my own HO scale bogies with HO wheelsets. HO wheelsets are standard, I am sure...this would save having to research and source appropriate HO bogies and then re-modelling the chassis to fit them...

Sounds good! If you got that out in the next few years, it would at least be out quicker (relivant to the real thing being built) than any other Cityrail prototype!

 

You also have a PM (and I don't know when I switched to 69426....)

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I have used Shapeways Transparent Detail plastic for windows and it comes out pretty well.  

 

I have been using i.Materialise Prime Grey for my models generally, but their transparent material is prohibitively expensive.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Hi All,
Slow progress with the model - had to remodel in Rhino three times to fit the requirements of Shapeways (entirely my fault). But the shells have arrived!

Unfotunately, some flaws with my design have propped up - namely there isn't enough space for the kato bogies to rotate. I've thought about it, and I've decided the best method would be to make my own smaller bogies.

I'm quite happy about how the small details have turned out, though they are shallower than it looked on my computer screen...i'll see if they still turn out after I've sprayed them.

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I sympathize - bogie space is a pain. There are reasons many models have slightly undersized wheels or slightly high valences.

 

With the detail I'm not sure what material you used but if you are using polished WSF remember the polishing takes 0.1-0.2mm or so off the surface so detail has to be emphasized for it to come out as expected.

 

Nice bit of work, looking forward to seeing how it looks in paint.

 

Alan

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  • 2 weeks later...

Thanks etched. I'm in the process of remodelling them and adding more detail too, so will definitely keep that in mind. Owing to the paucity of hobby shops in Melbourne I am having some tamiya marker pens sent over from Taiwan and Hong Kong to test on the bodies after spraying.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Hey, 

 

Unfortunately we had to reject your model :(

Right now you have used 1 sprue to keep 2 models attached to each other, this sprue will break due to leverage effect.

 

The best thing to do is not to sprue those parts together.

Without the sprue we can orientate your model upside down which will provide the best quality surface for the sides.

If we print the model like you have sprued it together (horizontal) the quality will be less on one side (support material will prevent smooth walls on the side).

 

Mitch

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  • 3 weeks later...

Alan,

 

Your Waratah EMU is looking superb. I look forward to being able to purchase a set or three in the future. There are a lot of options out there for future models, Victorian Hitachi, Siemens, Xtrapolis, Comeng and Harris EMU; Qld and WA narrow gauge Bombardier/EDI MU/SMU; NSW Oscar, U-boats, S, C and K-sets EMU's . 

 

Don't worry about the Tangara EMU in N Scale as they are due from another manufacturer www.modrail.biz soon. Unfortunately because they are casting them in resin only 120 sets are being made and they will cost a little. Modrail and badgerbits have also designed a multi length chassis they are usng with the Tangara and for future Australian outline models. I like the fact you are using the Scharffenburg couplers, an important feature of all modern suburban passenger EMU's. Amazing how the HO and OO market have not produced their own Scharffenburg's, yet both Tomix and Kato have for N scale.

 

Hopefully at some point in 2014 Shapeways will also have better resolution printers when the sole use rights run out on the underlying technology. When that happens we may see producers bypass the conversion to moulds for resin, and costs will come down and production increase markedly. Plus without all the external parts of a steam or diesel loco much better for kids to handle; and how many kids in Australia see anything but passenger rail?

 

 

Cheers,

Chris

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  • 4 weeks later...

Hi all, apologies for the long absence. I've been busy with other things, but I've been working on the train on and off, and now they're complete! This first post is for some construction shots, and next will be photos of the finished train.

Cheers!

 

The carriages as they arrived from Shapeways. Cheers to Mitchell and everyone at Shapeways!

 

I sprayed the carriages with Tamiya spray paint (Aluminium), masking the yellow areas which I then sprayed with another Tamiya can, inverting the masking.

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And finally, the completed model! While I was waiting for the prints to arrive, I made a quick layout to test and display my train. The windows are done in Shapeway's Transparent Detail Resin, but the front windscreen is in FUD. I noticed that the Transparent Detail is produced a few 0.0s larger than specified in the .stl files, so the window prints required resizing to fit the gaps I left for them, and given the difficult two-axes curving surfaces of the front windscreen, I was too lazy to resize that so I just printed it in FUD. I've found that if you spray FUD with a gloss acrylic they tend to turn transparent (or close to it) from the translucency they arrive from Shapeways in.  

 

Apologies for the poor photo quality, i did them on my phone camera. I'll try to upload some better shots later! 

 

A shot of the train before decals were applied, and the decals themselves which I printed on inkjet decal paper from an arts store. 

 

I've had to 3D print my own bogies as stock Kato ones did not fit the shell, as mentioned previously. As a result, coupling the trains became and issue,

so I turned that into an advantage by coupling the carriages with vestibules which I would otherwise not have modelled if using stock bogies.

 

Here's a couple of shots with a Class 67 I bought from a swap meet in Melbourne

 

Thanks for stopping by! I'll try to get better photographs!

Alan

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  • 4 weeks later...

Your A-sets look very good - I just hope they run better than the real ones!  :D

 

Since the break-up of RailCorp and the subsequent rebranding of CityRail as Sydney Trains the A-set livery has changed a bit from what you have modelled. They now have orange vinyl  patches on the cab sides and extra lettering as well as the "hop" logo. I'm on standby tomorrow, so if I get the chance I'll try to get a photo for you showing the changes.

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  • 1 month later...

Thanks for the photos. I reckon that logo fairly horrible, as is the new colour scheme. Less is more - the design intent here seems more "something is better than nothing" rather than to improve aesthetics. To me, the original scheme looks way better, sans orange, so I'll be leaving my models in the old livery. 

 

Anyway, as promised, here are some better photos of the model! Sorry it took so long - I was on holiday

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