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A beginner starting in 3D printing with Blender - update May 18th - layers


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  • RMweb Gold

Hi Mike

 

I think I must have missed a trick. I've been changing the measurement units because I've been worried about wall thickness. I'm wondering now, would it be better to leave in Blender units, assume 1 Blender Unit is 1mm, and then only specify the output in mm when I upload it to a printer like Shapeways? The reason why I ask is that Blender sometimes "wriggles" around when using mm, and the defaults cylinder diameter for example comes out as 2 metres.

 

Edited to say, I've just retread your post, and that's what you actually say. I think I'll do this next bit in Blender units and see how I get on.

Edited by JCL
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I think it is more important to get started - pick something relatively simple which you can finish reasonably quickly and get printed.

 

Cheers, Mike

 

Thanks Mike, thats what I have fought with Blender all along but I am getting back to it and watching loads of tutorials on Youtube!

 

Now back to Jason's thread :)

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  • RMweb Gold

Hi again.

 

Another long one, so I won't be offended if there are some TL;DRs out there (Too Long; Didn't Read).

 

My next job is the running plate / running board. Looking at my photo, the running plate is slightly wider on the top surface than the sides. I can either stretch multiple cubes and suchlike to achieve these pieces, or I can create a profile and do it in one go. Now, I have those dastardly curves halfway back to take into account. If I try to use layers of objects, I'll have big problems keeping the correct width of the running plate as they go around them.

 

It took me a while to work out what to do, but I think I've managed to come up with a fair solution (even though I do say so myself!)

 

Before I start, there are two changes from last step-by-step post:

  • Using millimetres seems to be a bit buggy with objects sometimes created in mm, sometime in metres, so I'm going to go with Mike's use of the Blender Units. I'll still need to use the spreadsheet to make sure that the two background images are the right size.
  • The side view isn't the left view as I mentioned previously. Since making the running plate, I've realised that the side view is the right view - I realised after noticing that everything I was doing was coming out back to front!

Anyway, here goes.

  1. Enlarge the front view by dragging the vertical line between the two views.
  2. Put the 3D cursor on the centre line at the top of the footplate.
  3. Create a plane using the Plane button on the Tool Shelf.
  4. In Edit Mode, press Alt+M and then choose centre to turn the plane into a vertex.
  5. Press the E key and then the X key to draw the top of the running plate. Then a combination of E and X or E and Z to draw the horizontals and verticals of the profile of the running plate.
  6. I minimized the front view and maximized the side view by dragging the border between them from right to left.
  7. Then I found the profile I just created and used the green arrow of the manipulator to drag that profile to the front of the running board.

You'll notice in the image below that I didn't follow the buffer beam. If I did that, I'd be extruding a solid block from front to back. An expensive proposition, and it'll get in the way at the front. All I need are the top and side wall. The buffer beam will be added later.

My vertical wall and horizontal walls are 1 Blender unit thick, so will come out as 1mm when exported.

post-14192-0-98922700-1414169623_thumb.jpg
Creating the profile

After this, I needed to create the first curved section from the buffer beam back to the thinner section. To do this:

  1. Enter Edit mode,
  2. Choose the wireframe view,
  3. Select all,
  4. Press E and then Y to extrude a little way,
  5. Repeat this, turning your curve profile into slices.
  6. Now, press A and make sure the vertices are deselected.
  7. Press B and drag a dashed rectangle around the end bottom vertex.
  8. Use the blue arrow on the manipulator to drag this up to the drawn curve.
  9. Press A to deselect.
  10. Press B and then continue until the profile matches your drawn curve. See the image below.
  11. Select just the last column of vertices using B again.
  12. Extrude the running plate using E and Y all the way to the beginning of the first curve over the drivers.
  13. Finally, move your view around and have a good look at what you've done. Make sure there aren't any edges or faces in the wrong places.

You would choose the wireframe view, and use the B for Border Select because when you select a bottom vertex you need to select both the outward facing one, and the one at the back.

post-14192-0-85602100-1414188192_thumb.jpg

Creating a curve in the running plate side.

Next, I need to make the first curve that will lead the running plate over the drivers. To do this I created some guides to show me where the origin of the curve is.

  1. In the Right View, move the 3D cursor to where you think the pivot point for the curve is.
  2. Create a circle and use the circle properties to fine tune it's radius and position until an arc of the circle matches the arc of the curve.
  3. Now do the same with the second curve. This time, the circle guide will be below the running plate.

In my image below you will see that I've used four circles, that may have been overkill.

 

post-14192-0-01441600-1414188321_thumb.jpg

Circle Guides

So, I can't use the extrude command to make the curve because the running plate would become thinner, that is, the end of the extruded section would remain vertical instead of following the curve. The only thing I could think of was the Spin command. We will be using it to create a very different effect to that of the chimney I did a few posts ago.

  1. Save your file just before you start this section. In this way you won't lose the work you did getting to this point.
  2. Make sure that you are still in wireframe mode
  3. Make sure that nothing is selected (remember it toggles with the A key.
  4. Use the B command to select the end vertices.
  5. Make sure the 3D cursor is on the origin of the top circle.
  6. Click on the Spin button in the Tools Shelf on the left. The properties of my curve are in the image below. If your curved section seems to head to the left, you need to put a minus sign in front of the angle value.
  7. Now move the 3D cursor to the origin of the second circle.
  8. Press the Spin button again. If your previous angle was negative, this time your angle should have a positive value.
  9. Now, don't be worried if you don't get that the first time. It took me a few goes before I thought I was good enough at it to run the length of the footplate.

post-14192-0-90385300-1414188484_thumb.jpg

Using Spin to create an arc.

Extrude along the Y axis, move your circle guides along using the green manipulator arrow, and then create the curve at the other end before extruding to the end of the footplate.

 

post-14192-0-65386600-1414188693_thumb.jpg

Finishing to the end of the footplate.

 

  1. Now that I have this part, I'm going to save the document with a new name.
  2. Next I'm going to click on that spanner on the right
  3. Choose Add Modifier
  4. Choose Mirror
  5. Click on Apply to mirror on the X axis.

Finally, you are going to end up with some non-manifold edges. These are edges that couldn't possibly exist in the real world. In the case of this post, the non-manifold edges are caused by:

  • Missing faces at each end.
  • Faces that are "inside" the shape we are creating.

To remove the second problem, we need to delete duplicate vertices.

  1. Enter Edit Mode
  2. Select All using A.
  3. Click on Remove Doubles in the Tool Shelf

The image below shows the command on the left, and the number of vertices removed at the top.

 

post-14192-0-61841000-1414190321_thumb.jpg

Removing doubled up vertices

 

Finally, we need to make a front and back face. These are missing at the moment, and will show up if you use the Select and Non-Manifold menu option.

 

post-14192-0-23543100-1414192348_thumb.jpg

Finding the non-manifold edges

 

The last step. To fill in the front and back faces, you need to:

  1. Enter Edit Mode.
  2. Choose Wireframe if you aren't already in wireframe mode.
  3. Press the B key to Border Select the end vertices
  4. Choose Mesh -> Faces -> Fill to fill in that face
  5. Do the same at the other end.

post-14192-0-43837100-1414190757_thumb.jpg

Pulling Creating faces

 

As a final check, deselect everything, then try selecting non-manifold again. Hopefully there shouldn't be anything highlighted.

 

Well, that was a lot of work, and you will have just made a significant part. I'm not 100% sure that doing the mirror now was a good thing, so save your file under a new name now in you haven't been doing this before. That said, I can't think of a reason for not doing the mirror as all of the other footplate parts will be mirrored separately. Now, move around your view to make sure everything looks ok. You should have something that looks like the image below.

 

post-14192-0-89584300-1414190940_thumb.jpg

If you have a flat running plate, then you're very lucky, as you don't need to do that rigmarole. All you need to do is extrude along the Y axis from one end to the other. You now have half of a footplate.

Next I'll be making measurements of the Hornby Railroad County class loco that I have for my chassis. This will give me an idea about clearances for wheels, motor, and fixing screw.

Edited by JCL
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  • RMweb Gold

Next up is recreating the chassis. The first thing I did is remove everything from the chassis block and put it under the scanner, then I imported it into a graphics program and played around with brightness and contras so I could see it as well as possible. As an added insurance, I drew a rectangle exactly 10cm long before saving the file as I knew the chassis in my drawing file was at full size. This isn't strictly necessary though.

 

post-14192-0-44433300-1414254888_thumb.jpg

The initial scan

 

Next I added and scaled the image using the Background Image button on the Properties Toolshelf. This is exactly the same action as when importing plans. In my case I just measured the rectangle and using the spreadsheet I amended the size value so that the rectangle was 10cm long. Of course, you can just measure the chassis and scale to that value.

 

post-14192-0-21496200-1414254920_thumb.jpg

Scaling the scan

 

To recreate the block, I created the plane as normal, in Edit Mode, used Alt+M to make a point, then used E to extend that point to make a line, and used those lines to follow the chassis. I stayed close to the edge of the chassis, but at the same time wasn't worried about lots of vertices on the curved surfaces.

 

When my cursor had made its way all around the chassis and had arrived at the beginning, I used Shift+RightMouse button to select both the start and end point. I then used Alt+M and chose "At Start" to merge the two points into one.

 

post-14192-0-70524700-1414256898_thumb.jpg

Tracing the chassis block

 

Next, I moved to the Front View

  1. Entered Edit Mode.
  2. Pressed to select all vertices.
  3. Pressed E and X to extrude the profile to create some width. I finished this off in the dimensions box with a value of 12; that is, the chassis is 12 mm wide.

Finally, on rotating the chassis in the view, I saw that, although there was a framework there, the two vertical faces on each side didn't exist.

  1. Make sure you are still in Edit Mode.
  2. Choosing Non Manifold from the View menu selected those edges.
  3. Pressing F will create those faces, so making the object watertight.
  4. Pressing A will deselect everything, and choosing View and then Non-Manifold will show that there are now no non-manifold edges.

post-14192-0-23042500-1414255701_thumb.jpg

A watertight chassis block

 

Next, I created the worm gear. This was simply a traced profile that I used the spin command on, in exactly the same way that I did the chimney.

 

post-14192-0-47112900-1414256565_thumb.jpg

Worm created from a profile

 

Then, I used a cube to create the motor itself.

  1. I selected the top face of the cube and used the subdivide command a couple of times to add new vertices to that top edge.
  2. I selected the middle line of vertices and used the blue arrow to drag the line up.
  3. Next I selected a line to one side, and did the same thing.
  4. I continued dragging the lines upwards until I had the approximation of a curve.

post-14192-0-71843700-1414255978_thumb.jpg

Creating the top curve

 

Finally, I created and resized a cylinder to cover the front fixing screw, and added the tab at the back with another cube.

 

Everything on the chassis was centred on the Y axis. If you can't get a part to centre on the x axis, make sure that the origin of that object is in its centre as follows:

  1. Enter Object Mode
  2. Click on Set Origin on the Tool Shelf
  3. Choose Origin to Geometry.
  4. Change the X location to 0.

post-14192-0-91353600-1414256038_thumb.jpg

Finished chassis

 

Although I've not gone into detail with this step, all of the skills, except for the subdivision one have been used in previous posts on this thread. As always, keep saving your work as you go along.

 

I just need to create some wheels and axles now by using cylinders. so that will be next.

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  • RMweb Gold

Hi there

 

I've managed to get a fair way on this, but I do have a question now. Showing my greenhorn skills, I think I just assumed that, barring the driving wheels being slightly too far apart, I could slip the chassis underneath the new body. Of course it's not going to be that easy.

 

Looking at the image below of the motor, chassis and wheels superimposed over the plans, I can see that there are three areas that I'll need to look at:

  • The chassis is far too high far too closely to the front (red arrow)
  • The wheels are a bit too far apart
  • The back goes too far back

post-14192-0-14732700-1414284508_thumb.jpg

 

I do need to use the chassis, as I have no brass skills at all. My questions are:

  • Do you think it'll work if I cut the front portion of the chassis back to the front of the smokebox, and then mill the top surface so that it provides some sort of gap under the boiler?
  • What are your views of extending the splashers to accommodate the extended wheelbase?
  • What should I do about the back bit sticking out? If I cut the end off, I've lost my drawbar to connect to the tender. If I extend the cab back, it'll look odd, and maybe less like a D3. An option would be to move the drawbar back so that it's held in by the screw supporting the lowest part of the chassis that keeps the wheels in. You can see the screw next to the drawbar screw in post #79.

I suppose, really, the question is, do I want it to be exact, or, as close as possible to a real D3?

Edited by JCL
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  • RMweb Premium

Firstly I would cut the rear of the chassis off, don't worry about your drawbar, there are much better ways of connecting you tender that by using a flat bar!

 

For your wheelbase come to a compromise. The rear drivers are what will have to dictate what you do. Get the Hornby ones in the correct location (so they don't hang out the back of the cab!) and that will show where your leading axle will go. Then extend your splasher to suit. It won't be scale, but who will know?

 

For the front part of the chassis you have two choices: Cut or mill.

Mill (or file) the front bit down so that it is the correct height (I doubt there will be much metal left doing this), so what I would do is cut the chassis where it starts to become a problem and them make up a new pivot for your front bogie. The motored bit of chassis will need something to retain it (some screws) but I'm sure you can work that out!

 

I bet that the Hornby bogie is not the right length either. Try to see if you can get something like a T9 bogie in there, these have pick-ups on all wheels, which will help you out in the long run!

 

Andy G

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  • RMweb Gold

Thanks Andy, that's what I'll do.

 

I need to print something soon otherwise this is all academic, and I don't want my first printed model to be the loco; that could get expensive. So, this is what I have so far:

  • the D3 dome, chimneys and smokebox door.
  • some GNR style railing posts
  • a section of GNR style fence

Before I print, I'm going to model the tender that goes with this loco. All of these models together will give me an idea of what I can and can't do.

 

I'll be moving house in the next month, so I think that by the time I have my new address, my sprue of prints and ideas will be ready.

 

With that in mind, I'll tackle the tender before doing the rest of the loco. I'll be making use of the Hornby tender wheels and pick-ups from the Railroad County, but that's about it. The wheels will be put into a new base, as the County one is too long, and the tender body and side frames will be brand new.

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JCL this has to be one of the most informative threads I've read on the whole of RMWeb.  Thanks for devoting so much time to sharing your experiences, I've only quickly looked through the last few pages, I need to print the whole lot down and digest it properly over a few days! :) Awesome work, sorry to disturb the flow of the post, it looks like you are well and truly in your stride with this :) Keep it up and thanks again for the level of detail, super stuff.  

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  • RMweb Gold

Hi Alan, feel free to disturb whenever you want, I enjoy the conversation. :)

 

In the new year, I'm going to copy and paste all of the posts that are relevant to the D3, weed out the dead ends, and try to put them together in some sort of order so that they will be easier to follow. Oh, and I'll try to remove some of the horrendous typos that I've noticed after clicking the Post button.

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  • RMweb Gold

A quickie before I start the tender. GNR posts. Wainfleet and Havenhouse in Lincolnshire, and no doubt some other ex-GNR stations, still have their GNR fence posts stopping the unwary from stepping backwards off platforms into beds of nettles. One of my aims over the last year or so has been to reproduce this railing in 4mm scale (not much of an aim, granted). I thought I'd knock this out last night before starting the tender next week.

 

  1. Create three cylinders, from left to right I'll call them A, B and C. If you look at the bottom photo, you'll see that one will be an outer edge, one a collar and the other one will drill the hole. I made sure that all of the parts were aligned on the X and Z axis. That is, they line up exactly one in front of the other
  2. I then clicked on the A cylinder and clicked on the green arrow on the manipulator to slide it back into the B cylinder. The other way to do this is to copy the Y location value from the B cylinder into the Y location value for the A cylinder.
  3. I selected the A cylinder. Clicked on the spanner. Clicked on "Boolean" then "Difference". Finally, I clicked on the name of the A cylinder in the dropdown list.
  4. Next, I moved the A cylinder further along so it was in the middle of the C cylinder and performed steps 3 to 6 again.
  5. Now I moved the B cylinder backwards so that it had exactly the same location co-ordinates as the C cylinder.

post-14192-0-59570100-1414443608_thumb.jpg

 

Once you have your holes sorted, you can shift click both cylinders and  Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V to copy and paste them before using the manipulator to drag them downwards. For the railings I did this twice. The X and Y coordinates for all three collars was the same x=0 and y=0, only the vertical dimension, Z, differed. This means that, as long as the 3D cursor is at 0 on the X and Y axis, I could add a post, also at 0, 0 by creating a stretched cube, and a plate at the bottom using the same method. The 0,0 means that everything is lined up. Of course any number could be used, but for me 0,0 is the easiest to read.

 

I also added a 2mmx2mm cylinder to the bottom to both help bed it in to the scenery, and to allow me to put a few together on a sprue.

 

post-14192-0-07968000-1414438865_thumb.jpg

 

Finally, here is the finished post. In the illustration below you can see that, after creating the post I pulled cylinder A out to make sure everything looked ok (the A cylinder now looks like a railing).

 

You might be wondering why I didn't put a hole all the way through the post as well as the railing collar. This is because, although they look big on the screen, these posts are actually tiny, and I'm thinking that they could be fragile as well. I'm hoping that I will be able to use a smalls drill and drill through myself using the collar as a guide.

 

post-14192-0-81284500-1414438875_thumb.jpg

 

This post is GNR-ish. If I was modelling 7mm scale, I'd be able to add the channel that runs up each side, and the post would be relatively thinner.

 

Finally, reading about sprues, Shapeways are saying that one of  their biggest problems is sprued items, especially fragile ones, as some items can go missing. I may have a go at running a sprue top and bottom as they suggest.

 

Anyway, there you go, a quickie.

Edited by JCL
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  • RMweb Gold

I forgot to tell you about the nuts!

 

I created a cylinder and used the vertices box to choose the number of vertices. As it's going to be a nut, my nut will have 6 sides,  so I put 6 in the vertices box.

 

post-14192-0-82673600-1414445488_thumb.jpg

 

Then I changed its size using the dimensions boxes to shrink it, before using the manipulator to move it into position

 

post-14192-0-28828400-1414445622_thumb.jpg

 

Finally I copied and pasted the nut and moved the copy using the manipulator again to the opposite side of the post.

 

Now, this is the finished post, and the end of my post posts.

 

post-14192-0-71199600-1414445688_thumb.jpg

 

I supposed I'm now post post posts. Sorry, I'll put the kettle on.

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  • RMweb Gold

I've mentioned a couple of times about naming the objects that you create. This isn't important if you only have a single object such as a dome, but it gets important pretty quickly as the number of objects you create rises. The question is, how do you name your objects in the most effective way? Well, as an ex-IT person, I tend to find out what the accepted practice is and either use it in its entirety, or bend it to my purpose. In this case, there doesn't be an accepted practice. In that case you go have to just make sure that any system you do use is useful.

 

Anyway, here's the post I did earlier.

 

post-14192-0-21200000-1414453073_thumb.jpg

 

As you can see, I have a number of objects in the file. Each collar has two objects, then I've a test collar that isn't a part of my final output. I've also got the nuts, and other assorted files.

 

After part identification, the next most important reason for naming objects in a particular way is to group parts together. In the image below, you can see that I've grouped all of the collar parts in one place by starting the names of them with a collar prefix. Then, I've given the two objects that make up each collar a second prefix; that is, bottom middle top. This means that all of the objects for the top collar will be grouped together in the object list. Another way to think about it is to name it as so: Assembly.SubAssembly.Part

 

I have a full stop between each part of the name to keep each part of the name apart for easy reading.

 

Other parts, such as peg and post are one-offs, but you could just as easily give them all a prefix such as misc. .

 

Finally, I rename objects that I copy and paste pretty quickly, otherwise I'd end up with lots of collar.001, collar.002, collar.003 etc.

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  • RMweb Gold

Jason,

 

It might be worth creating a PDF so people can download and use offline?

 

Tom

 

Thanks Tom, that is precisely what I'm thinking of doing. It won't be until into the new year though. :)

 

cheers

 

Jason.

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  • RMweb Gold

I'm promising but not delivering. I was doing to start on the tender, but I've been asked so put together a couple of things for a friend. The interesting thing is that one of those is quiet a complicated splasher, so it will be a useful exercise to document. The process I'll be providing here has taken a few hours to work out, but the great thing is that it can be used for any kind of curve in a "flat part". By this, I mean that it can be used for the curved part of the running plate, for the splashers, or for pipes around the boiler for example.

 

The method I used for creating the splashers is called extruding along a line, and it goes like this.

 

Creating the Line

 

post-14192-0-94168900-1414992659_thumb.jpg

 

I used a plane (that is the rectangle that I've been using as a starting point to create chimneys) and extruded (or extended) it along a guiding line that I'll be created with a Bezier curve.

  1. Move the 3D cursor to the Bezier curve starting point.
  2. In the "Create" tab, choose Bezier curve.
  3. I had to turn it on its Y axis by 90 degrees so that I could see it.
  4. Change to Edit Mode and the curve will become black. You will also see some straight red lines. These are called handles, and you can move them to change the curve's shape and size.

post-14192-0-22007600-1414993171_thumb.jpg

 

Each of the handles has three parts; the middle pivot point, and the two outlier points. The middle point is used to locate the handle in a certain place, and the two outliers can be spun around the pivot point. They can also move in and out towards and away from the pivot point. The closer the outliers are to the pivot point, the tighter the curve.

  1. In the image above, you can see I positioned the one end at the very beginning of the splasher, and the other end at the very end of the curve just before the straight section.
  2. I then positioned the outliers so that they had the same Z value as the pivot point, thus making them horizontal.
  3. Finally I selected the outlier I wanted to move, and used the manipulator to pull it to the appropriate position.

post-14192-0-83439500-1414993184_thumb.jpg

 

After this, I selected the pivot point at the top of the splasher and pressed E then Y to extend a horizontal line along the Y axis to the next splasher curve, and then E again to extend the line to the last part of the curve.

 

Although I can pull the handles around freestyle, I find that I'm a lot happier using the manipulator as it constrains the movement to one plane only. In this case the Y axis.

 

Creating the form

 

post-14192-0-78707600-1414993493_thumb.jpg

 

So now I have the line that will be used as a guide, I need to create a profile that will be extruded along it. In this case I'm going to use a plane that I'm going to name "splasher.profile". The plane will be the same width as the splasher, and will be 1mm tall. You can see the plane selected in orange in the image above.

  1. Once I have the profile and the guide I just selected the line I create with the Bezier curve.
  2. I clicked on the curve settings on the right of the screen (top red rectangle)
  3. I then chose splasher.profile from the bevel dropdown list.

Through the power of computer I get a snake. It's not quite done yet though.

 

post-14192-0-83416600-1414993856_thumb.jpg

 

So view the curved profile properly, I then chose flat shading.

 

Finally, with the splasher top selected, I pressed Alt-C and Create Mesh from Curve to turn the curve into a mesh that can be exported.

 

post-14192-0-30064500-1414994097_thumb.jpg

 

This gives me the top edge of the splasher that will be 1mm thick. Now, when I look at the right hand view of the splasher with the background image turned on, I can see that the splasher might be a bit too thick. I can change the thickness by selecting the plane that is used for the profile (shown in the red box below), and pulling the red square on the end of the red line up and down. This will make the splasher line thicker and thinner. I'm quite amazed that something this useful exists, but there it is!

 

Note that the middle of the profile will follow the curve. If the profile is 1mm tall, then .5mm of the profile will be above the line. This means that the line you draw with Bezier curves should be .5mm inside the outside edge of the splasher. These sizes are so small, you may find it easier to draw the top edge of the splasher and then just shrink it using the size manipulator (the one with the squares on the end of lines, not arrows).

 

post-14192-0-49193700-1414994848_thumb.jpg

 

I hope you can see how this can be used to do curved running plates, etc. After the top is done, I now need to do the splasher side wall.

Edited by JCL
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  • RMweb Gold

To create the front face of the splasher:

  1. I created a new plane at one end
  2. Made sure I was in Edit Mode and pressed Alt-M and centre to make a point.
  3. Pressed E and dragged a line out.
  4. Continued doing this until I had a line that followed the top of the splasher. This line doesn't need to be super accurate, just within the profile of the top of the splasher.
  5. Then, I selected the first and last vectors that I just drew and pressed Alt-M and "At Last" to join the two points together.
  6. Next I selected the object and chose Mesh-> Faces -> Make Edge/Face (also F) to turn the line into a face.
  7. Then I extruded the front backwards into the splasher by 1mm
  8. Finally, I used the manipulator to move the front face backwards 0.2mm to make the beading.

post-14192-0-61668500-1414996265_thumb.jpg

 

Now, the splasher I'm putting together will have a lot more to it than this, but the rest of my work will essentially be the same.

 

cheers

 

Jason

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I may have distracted you, but the top plane of the splasher looks much like the top plane of your running plate...

 

Not so sure about that bead around the top edge mind!

 

Cheers

Andy G

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I've enjoyed it Andy :). Yep, the bead I'd easy to get rid of by simply moving the sidewall outwards. Next is the other part of the splasher, then it'll just be a case of mirroring it to form the splasher on the other side.

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Thanks Alan

 

This update has been a while - I've been getting ready to move house, so I haven't had a lot of time for this I'm afraid. That said, I've managed to get a lot done on the tender body today, and I'd like to show you how I got on.

 

First off, most of it was easier than I imagined because it makes use of the techniques I've already learned. There is only one bit at the moment that I'm stumped on, but maybe the answer will come to me at some point. The main body of the tender will be a cube, but not in the way you will think. I will be taking the cube and deforming it to such an extent that you won't recognise it by the end! Here goes.

 

First of all, I set up the plans. I'm using the Isinglass D3 plan. It's great to work with, but there are a few inconsistencies to take into account that makes life more interesting. I scanned the plan, chopped it up, and made sure that the edges if each image fit the edge of each side. The previous posts show how to set the different parts of the plans up as background images. The only extra thing that I'll add is that you need to specify which view each plan is for to make sure that it is only shown in that view. If you don't do this you'll find the plans all stack on top of one another.

 

Here are the four views side by side. You can toggle this type of view on and off by clicking on View in the bottom left corner, then Toggle Quad View.

post-14192-0-43600000-1415404398.jpg

  1. Next, in the front view, I left-clicked on the mouse halfway up the side wall and created the cube.
  2. I resized the cube using a combination of the manipulator to do the coarse resizing, and the dimension and location boxes to fine-tune the values.
  3. This allowed me to end up with a long thin box which has a bottom edge that slightly overlaps the base, and a top edge that stops at the flare.

post-14192-0-26370600-1415404472.jpg

 

Now I need to create the flare. While doing this I've found that the spin functionality that I used to create  the chimneys with has more flexibility than I thought. First of all though, the flare is thicker than the side walls, so I'll have to deal with this first. A quick note here, I will be using the wireframe view type quite a lot in this post so that I can make sure that all of the vertices (points) are picked. The reason for this is that Blender will only select vertices that can be seen.

 

If you have a cube, and the view is in solid mode, then you will only be able to see and therefore select the front facing vertices. If the cube is in the wireframe view type, then all of he vertices can be seen and therefore selected. Think of wireframe like an x-ray view.

 

To increase the thickness of the side walls for the flare:

  1. Make sure you are in wireframe view (using the view type next to the Object/Edit mode button at the bottom of the screen).
  2. Use B for boundary select to select the top vertices by clicking top left, dragging bottom right and pressing the left mouse button, or the Enter key.
  3. Press the E button to initiate an extrude, then before you move the mouse, follow this up with S to scale and X to contain the rescaling (or resizing) to the X axis.
  4. Next drag the mouse to one side. It will be difficult to see, but you should see that a line will be created over the top of the cube that moves in and out depending on your mouse movement. Move until the point on the right is where the outside of the flare needs to start.
  5. Press A to deselect all
  6. Click on the top left vertex. Select the X value in the Location box and copy it using Ctrl+C.
  7. Still in wireframe view type, press B again and just select the vertex that is created to the left of the cube. This is formed because the resize is centred on the middle of the cube.
  8. Delete the value in the X box in the location section and Ctrl+V to paste the new value in. That wayward point should now be back over the top left of the cube.

This will leave us with the cube, and a line coming out of the right hand side that will form the base of the flare. This seems like a lot of work, but it's pretty quick to do.

 

post-14192-0-36421500-1415404572_thumb.jpg

 

This might give you a better idea of what I'm getting at.

 

post-14192-0-34939500-1415405345_thumb.jpg

 

Next is the flare, so stay in the Wireframe type view, and show the front of the tender.

  1. I deselected everything by pressing A.
  2. I used the B to select the top left of the cube and pressed Enter. I then select the top extreme right of the cube (the ledge we just created) in the same way. Don't select the middle vertices.
  3. I copied the Z value in the location box
  4. I left clicked the mouse somewhere close to where I thought the pivot point of the arc was located.
  5. I then pasted the Z value from the clipboard into the 3D cursor's Z value box. This made sure that the pivot point would be the same height up the side of the tender as the beginning of the curve.
  6. Next I clicked on the Spin function from the tool shelf (top red box in the image below)
  7. And I created the arc using the values in the bottom red box.

A quick word about the spin tool. I've found that you can affect where the top part of the curve is situated using the centre values in the middle of the bottom red box below. It's worth having a play with these to see how they work. In my case I only needed to use the X and Z values.

 

post-14192-0-78915300-1415406291_thumb.jpg

 

Before I moved onto the next task, I had a look at the side view, and found my flare was slightly too big, so again using the X and Z values in the centre section I fine-tuned everything. I also resized the side to cover the whole of the length of the tender by using the manipulator to move the wall to the front end of the tender. Then, in wireframe, I deselected everything, and reselecting only the other end. Finally, I used the manipulator again to pull the right hand section of the side to the back of the tender.

 

post-14192-0-43650400-1415406611_thumb.jpg

 

There you go, that's the basically one wall of the tender. Next up, going around the bend.

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This post will get you to where I am at the moment on the tender body. I need to form the back wall and other side of the tender, and in doing so, make the flare round the corner as well.

  1. First of all, I change to the top view using the View menu option in the bottom left of the screen. (there are also keyboard numberpad shortcuts to do this shown against each menu option. I'm on a laptop, so unfortunately I don't have a number pad)
  2. I also made sure I was in the wireframe view type.
  3. Next I deselected the side using the A key.
  4. I used the B key to lasso the back edge.
  5. I then dragged the back edge until it was just at the beginning of the corner arc.

post-14192-0-77595500-1415406966.jpg

  1. As I did in the previous post when forming the flare, I moved the 3D cursor to where I thought the centre point of the arc would be. I also made sure that it was in line with the end of the tender wall I'd just created.
  2. I made sure that only the back edge was still selected.
  3. Next, I clicked on the Spin tool, and used the values shown in the red box in the image below to form a 90 degree arc in the tender wall.

post-14192-0-92298900-1415407086_thumb.jpg

  1. You can see in the image above that the arc I created doesn't quite correspond with the flare on the plan. To remedy this, I deselected everything using the A key, and then selected the whole arc. That is, everything within the box with the dashed white lines.
  2. I then used the green arrow on the manipulator to drag the whole corner further up so that everything lines up.

post-14192-0-30320900-1415407339_thumb.jpg

  1. That's the corner done. Because it's 90 degrees, all I have to do now is deselect everything using the A key, then reselect only the last column of vertices using the B key.
  2. I then pressed the E key to extrude, and pulled the row of vertices to the middle of the tender. I typed 0 into the X median box to make sure that the end of my wall was precisely in the middle of the back of the tender.

post-14192-0-38319300-1415407542_thumb.jpg

 

The reason for doing this is so that I could then mirror the half of the tender body that I've just created. This will ensure that both sides and all of the corners are exactly the same. To mirror the side I did the following:

I made sure that the 3D cursor was at 0,0,0.

I then clicked on the set origin button on the left and chose 3D cursor.

Next, I clicked on the spanner in the red box on the right of the image below.

Clicked on Mirror in the list of modifiers

And then mirrored just the Z axis.

 

post-14192-0-70360700-1415407812_thumb.jpg

 

This was just to see if what I had done looked reasonable. I then pressed the X in the top right of the mirror modifier form (just inside the red box in the image above) to remove the mirroring.

 

post-14192-0-16551300-1415408136_thumb.jpg

 

The problem that I have now is that I need to put a curve into the top front edge of the flare of the tender. I don't know how to do it yet, but I'm sure there must be a way.

 

As always, what I've shown you might not be the best or elegant way of doing things, but it's a way that I've found that works for me at the moment with the skills I've built up so far. I'm happy (really happy!) to take on other ideas if anyone has them.

 

cheers

 

Jason

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Well, I've worked out how to get that front curve at least. The problem is that the flare at the top curves outwards from the side and backwards from the front. Although I haven't quite finished yet, I've at least got it roughed out. In the end I decided to use that Boolean -> Difference modifier. This is the same one that I used to create the curved base of the chimney in a previous post.

 

Here's what I did.

  1. I saved all the work I'd done previously with a new file name, so creating a snapshot.
  2. Make sure that the flare was the right height, based on the dimensions in the drawing rather than the actual drawing itself, which is a little out at this point.
  3. Move the 3D Cursor so it is exactly on the base of the flange (I did this by clicking on a vertex at the bottom of the flange, copying it's Z value (i.e. height) and pasting it into the Z value of the 3D cursor.
  4. I created a 90 sided cylinder and changed its radius so that it's top would be exactly the same height as the top of the flange, or in my case about  .05mm over.
  5. While still editing the cylinder, I used the location boxes to move it over to the left so that, again, it was ever so slightly to the left of the drawn side.

post-14192-0-61119800-1415488198_thumb.jpg

 

If I did the difference modifier now, all that I would create would be a hole punch hole in the side of the tender. I needed to punch a hole into something else to create a negative and then use that to punch the corner into the tender side. This is what I did.

  1. Move the cursor to the top left hand corner of the tender side.
  2. Create a cube. Make sure that its right hand and bottom edges are aligned with the centre of the cylinder.
  3. Go to the front view and make sure that the cube is wider than the tender flare, and that the cylinder is wider than the cube. (I used the manipulator for this).
  4. Once you are happy with their size and location, do not move either the cylinder or cube for any reason.
  5. Hide the tender side for now.

post-14192-0-59826200-1415488930_thumb.jpg

  1. Next, select the cube
  2. Click on that spanner on the right that shows you the modifier pane.
  3. Choose Boolean then Difference.
  4. Choose the cylinder.
  5. Click on Apply.
  6. Hide or delete the cylinder.

You now have a cube with a bite taken out of it. That bite should be exactly aligned with the top and left hand side of the flare.

 

post-14192-0-50924400-1415489089_thumb.jpg

  1. Next, select the tender side.
  2. Click on that spanner.
  3. Choose the Boolean modifier and Difference.
  4. Select the cube you created and press apply.

Hiding the cube should give you something like this.

 

post-14192-0-24479000-1415489550_thumb.jpg

 

post-14192-0-28312600-1415489241_thumb.jpg

 

The image below shows there's still some refinement to do to get rid of that knife edge, but it looks a lot closer than it did yesterday. I now need to find a large photo of that corner so I can determine exactly how it's formed. I've a feeling these photos maybe be a bit thin on the ground. I'll check Locomotives Illustrated, the photos tend to be bigger than the Yeadon's volume.

 

post-14192-0-26454900-1415489327_thumb.jpg

 

Thanks for looking.

 

cheers

 

Jason

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