Coombe Viaduct, Saltash and the Royal Albert Bridge

[The thin controller]

My first ever post on RMweb.  Here goes...

 

Which 3D printer did you end up investing in, and how is it going?  You mentioned an elegoo Mars.  Is that the one you ended up buying?  

[The thin controller]

Hello again.  I just found the thread ‘A Venture into the Unknown’.  Loads of information in there about the Elegoo Mars, so I think my question above has been answered.  

[Kris]

On 20/04/2020 at 10:21, The thin controller said:

Hello again.  I just found the thread ‘A Venture into the Unknown’.  Loads of information in there about the Elegoo Mars, so I think my question above has been answered.  

Sorry for the slow reply, I didn't get a notification. I ended up purchasing an Anycubic 4max pro. It was better for the size of items I was printing.  

[Kris]

Well it's starting to come together now. At the moment the only bit that is glued together is the arch, all the rest is slotted together using tabs that have been designed in. The track bed has chairs down 80%, doing that a chair at a time is a pig of a job. Once I glue the track bed area together this will reduce the bow in this part. The next task is to design the bits that drop from the arch to the track bed and wok out how to print it!

 

The coach is a Farish auto coach. It gives an idea of the size of the bridge (but there is a gap of over 900mm between the towers. 

 

I still don't know how this will attach to the rest of the layout!

[Kris]

The second bridge is getting closer to being a complete item. I still have no idea how to get enough space to put this onto the Coombe Viaduct part of the layout!

 

[Mikkel]

Very impressive!

 

I hope you'll find a way to integrate it with the rest of the layout - but if not it looks pretty good there in the window sill, sunset and all.

[alexross42]

That's incredible - with the right backdrop you could fool people into thinking it's the real thing!

[Kris]

Over a couple of nights this week I have managed to get the chain and bracing for the Royal Albert bridge completed, it's looking very 1860's. Unfortunately the hot weather at the beginning of the week has caused a twist to occur. I'm hoping that this can be rectified when the bridge is attached to a baseboard. 

 

 

[Mikkel]

Those are extraordinary views. There's no way out now, you'll have to link it to a layout. 

 

Brunel might have raised an eyebrow at the purple colour - but what did he know about 3D printing.

 

Edited June 10, 2020 by Mikkel

[Kris]

Wow its been a long time since I updated this thread. So very briefly... Until a few days ago very little had happened, however I have a bit of time on my hands at the moment so I have started to make a bit more progress with the goods yard. More track has been built and plonked in place. A little finger poking and a little finessing will get it looking somewhat better before gluing commences. 

[Kris]

A few days later and another update, I must be on a roll. 

 

The printer has been busy and I now have a couple of sheds that used to hold buses. These are placed roughly in place. Looking at the photo here it is evident that the windows on the smaller of the sheds are a little low. Some re printing to be done here. I have had to straighten the track here a little to make it fit the board better but I might revisit this as the curve would look better. I have taken a small extract of a photo that I found on line to allow comparisons to be made.

 

 

I have also printed Culver road bridge and a small amount of platform. At the moment the track is built but it has not been properly laid. 

 

 

[Kris]

The weather over the past week has been less than pleasant so I have not got a great deal done. The one thing that I have done is to have reprinted the small shed with the windows at the correct height.

 

[Highlandman]

The last few posts have shown some very clever pieces of modelling, especially the Royal Albert Bridge. I sure it will look amazing in-situ. I look forward to further updates of what will be a great layout. Happy New Year to you Kris and the family.

[drduncan]

Dear Kris,

 

Just had a very enjoyable stroll through your thread.  Very impressive modelling and I look forward to seeing how both bridges develop!

All the best,

 

Duncan

[Kris]

Thanks for the comments, they are much appreciated. 

 

It's cold in the shed so little has happened in the past few days but I have started to design the goods shed ready for printing. There are a lot of details still to add. (Doors and windows for a start  ).

 

 

Edited December 30, 2020 by Kris

[Kris]

Still no real physical modelling but the digital stuff keeps going. Several hours work has seen the goods shed reach a printable stage. Lots of the details are guesswork as photos, particularly of the rear are few and far between. Those of the front are very poor quality. Unfortunately when this building was demolished was before the time of digital records so I can't go down that route. 

The stonework is regular, I do know on the original it was more random, but sometimes life is too short especially when the finished stones are so small and the mortar courses need to be bigger than reality to make them show. 

 

It's a day and a half print so let us see. 

 

 

[bcnPete]

Nice work Kris - good to use photos and I always think if it ‘looks right’ then that’s the next best thing to scaled information.

 

Look forward to seeing more of this...

[St Enodoc]

4 hours ago, Kris said:

Still no real physical modelling but the digital stuff keeps going. Several hours work has seen the goods shed reach a printable stage. Lots of the details are guesswork as photos, particularly of the rear are few and far between. Those of the front are very poor quality. Unfortunately when this building was demolished was before the time of digital records so I can't go down that route. 

The stonework is regular, I do know on the original it was more random, but sometimes life is too short especially when the finished stones are so small and the mortar courses need to be bigger than reality to make them show. 

 

It's a day and a half print so let us see. 

 

 

Based on this photo:

 

http://www.cornwallrailwaysociety.org.uk/uploads/7/6/8/3/7683812/saltash-defiance-4-saltash-station-aerial-view-copyright-roy-n-keith-in-the-care-of-and-provided-by-mr-paul-keith-copy_orig.jpg

 

do you think that the roof pitch is slightly too steep?

Edited January 3, 2021 by St Enodoc

[Kris]

Hmmm possibly, drat. The picture is more extreme due to the angle. I'll wait to see what happens when it's printed. 

[Kris]

Another reason for keeping the print going is to see if it will print. The roof structure of the main section may not be as well supported as it needs to be! Let's see what happens, it's almost exciting and with a print that may not be correct, well what does it matter, the cost of the print is minimal even if it takes a long time. 

[Kris]

Hot off the printer we appear to have success. I think that the roof is a little too steep but not overly so. I'm going to let it sit for a while and see how it feels, particularly once painted as this might change the feel of it. 

The internal roof trusses printed very well considering they had no support, but the chimney was a little weak and I have managed to knock it off whilst doing some cleaning up this morning, time to get the glue out. I am also a little disappointed with the amount of shrinkage on the corner of the LH extension, I will possibly do a reprint of the corner then cut this in. 

The track needs raising slightly and needs to be a loading gauge on door which will make the doors look a more normal size, however the real thing appears to have had larger than needed entrances (different pictures I have found show different shapes - square and rounded). I have only seen 1 photos of doors for the track entrances, these look like they did not cover the whole entrance and I have yet to model these.  

 

 

 

 

 

Edited January 5, 2021 by Kris

[Ian Smith]

Kris, one of the things to be aware of when estimating the size of the Saltash goods shed is that it was originally built for the broad gauge, so the rail entrances would be somewhat wider and possibly taller than contemporary ones built for standard gauge. I may be wrong but your shed rail entrances don’t look wide enough for broad gauge.

Ian

[Kris]

1 hour ago, Ian Smith said:

Kris, one of the things to be aware of when estimating the size of the Saltash goods shed is that it was originally built for the broad gauge, so the rail entrances would be somewhat wider and possibly taller than contemporary ones built for standard gauge. I may be wrong but your shed rail entrances don’t look wide enough for broad gauge.

Ian

 

Blast (stronger language is available), the entrance would not conform to broad gauge, only by about 1.5mm (scale) but possibly enough to make the proportions look better on the door. 

[Kris]

I've spent some more time thinking about the goods shed issue. I'm still undecided as to whether to redesign and reprint the whole thing or whether to accept the limitations. I am more heading to the redesign stage at the moment. Still to fill the time I am reprinting bits of the Royal Albert Bridge to improve it, particularly when looking at the main ribs on the deck where they joined the vertical supports. Lockdown does have some positives.

[Kris]

Best part of 1000mm of bridge deck reprinted. Most has now been cleaned up and the holes for the track chairs drilled out with a twist drill (electric drills are to fast and melt the plastic). The track chairs need to be added next, then the track before joining the whole lot together. I found that last time trying to draw the rails through the whole length without damaging the chairs was near impossible. 

Each bit is a slightly different length due to the arch which sees the different segments of this (the arch) being the same size. 

 

Edited January 8, 2021 by Kris