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

[backofanenvelope]

I have been faffing around with a tram idea in TTm or is it Nm scale for a while but have scrapped and started remodelling it with he advent of this thread. I will post something once it looks a bit more errr.. finished

 

Nice work Paul btw, what scale are they in? and yes youtube has an answer for everything.

 

Tom

[paul2001]

Hi Tom 4mm but could be modified for 2mm or Similar, I think 7mm would be cost prohibitive.

 

Regards

 

Paul.

[JCL]

Hi Paul, sorry for not replying, just spent a couple of days driving. I think that they look great. Did you do the flares and door straps in a similar way to me or some other way?

 

I know what you mean about youtube

 

Cheers

 

Jason

[paul2001]

Hi Jason

The big difference is i didn't spin the out line, i extrude and scale not sure if it makes a great deal of difference.

Another difference is i don't add any points to the original circle but add a sub surface modifier after.

The models would  need cleaning up with booleans etc. performing that modifier used to crash my old laptop.

The flares were done by quartering the model, mirror modifier on the x and y axis and proportional editing which is what you do.

Hope this helps

Regards Paul

[JCL]

Hi Paul, I did the extrude thing on the buffers, which seemed to work well. I'm afraid I've not had too much look with subsurface - though I'm probably doing it wrong.

 

On the flares, I make a lot of use of the smooth tool which seems to work very well to make the variable flare. In one of the pervious step by steps I showed how I use smooth once in the process to get an effect. Since then I've found that moving the outer rim only and then using smooth repeatedly if can get a much smoother flare than I can by hand. When I do the loco I'll make sure I do this bit in detail.

 

Good to see I'm not too wide of the mark though.

 

Cheers

 

Jason

[paul2001]

Hi Jason

I read your smooth bit with interest I'd certainly look at doing that on the next one.

Time to do some scanning :locomotive: 

 

Paul

[JCL]

Here's my second go at this post. Unfortunately I lost contact with RMWeb halfway through the first go.

 

I was flicking through the Blender Cookie site (other sires are available) and found a free tutorial called modeling hard surface panels on curved surfaces (or thereabouts). That got me thinking as I recon that this could be used in a number of ways. The most obvious one being coach panelling. I did have a go at this a couple of weeks ago but to no avail. I think I now have the key to producing a coach side.

 

Here's what I did.

• Watch the video!
• Start a new project and set as a background image and resize the scanned coach end. Assign this to the Front view.
• Set as a background image and resize the scanned coach side and assign this to the Right view.
• Show the Front view and trace the outer edge of the coach from the roof to the solebar. (I did this the way I've done this previously by creating a plane, using Ctrl+M and centre to convert it into a point and then E to extend the point to a line over and over, creating vertices, until you get to the other end.

 

I then displayed the Right view, entered Edit mode, selected all of the points and used Extrude to pull a second edge to the other end of the coach. I now have the basic side. I will need two of these objects; one to be the main side, and the other to be the panelling. To do this I enter Object mode and create a duplicate of it using Object -> Duplicate Objects in the menu system, or Shift+D.

 

 

The thing is, these planes aren't really 3D objects, but 2D objects, as they only have one side (as per the video) and no thickness. I need to turn them into proper solid objects so that they can be printed, and I do this using the Solidify modifier (using the Blue spanner). As you can see in the image below, I set the side to 0.8mm. This is reflected in the 3D view as what looks like a solid part. Remember though, this only takes effect when you press the Apply button. Don't do this yet.

 

 

In the above image, the line that we drew, and that we can edit later, is to the right of the object. I want the panelling ridges to cosy up to the coach side, so I want the solidify modifier to create the beading to the right of this. I do this by putting a minus sign in front of the thickness value. In this case, the thickness is -0.2mm. Again, don't press Apply yet.

 

 

Once I got the two objects created, I needed to create the panelling. I used the Loop Cut and Slide command to create edges over each panel edge. In red in the image below.

 

 

I pressed the "Select Face" button as per the red arrow, then I deleted the faces that weren't a part of the beading by pressing the Delete button and choosing faces from the list. As we haven't applied the Solidify modifier, the modifier creates all of the faces we need to create the beading including the narrow faces test create the thickness of the beading. If we had pressed the Apply button, then we could have to make those faces ourselves. You may remember I did this when creating the windows in the door of the Barnum Coach

 

 

You can see in the image below that there are extra vertices left over from the loop cut and slide tool. I selected all of the spare vertices along an edge, pressed the Delete key and chose Dissolve Vertices to remove them. Probably not strictly necessary, but seems tidier. (The main side object was invisible in this image)

 

 

When you've finished, you have the coach panelling.

 

 

You can also use the Loop Cut and Slide tool on the main side to create the windows as shown below. I think if I was to do this properly, I would get all of the Loop Cut and Slide tool actions done first before I then started deleting the individual faces to create the recessed panels between the beading.

 

 

The coach I was working on also had lower beading, so to do this:

• I made a copy of the main side by selecting it and pressing Shift+D.
• I changed the thickness from 0.8 to -0.4. I did this because the panelling object is 0.2mm thick, and I wanted the lower beading to also be 0.2mm thick and stick out through the panelling layer..
• I then went into Edit mode, used the B key to access the lasso select and selected all of the upper faces.
• I pressed Delete and deleted them, leaving just the lower side.
• I used the Loop Cut and Slide tool to mark out the sides of the beading, then in exactly the same way as above, I selected and deleted the faces that I didn't need to just leave the beading.

 

This final image shows what the three objects look like when rendered together in slightly different colours. Still a lot of work to do, but on the panelling and beading side of things, I think I'm on to a winner.

 

 

A note for the future is that I will need to be more careful when placing the initial vertices along the line that forms the edge. If possible, I will make sure that there will be a vertex present already for each of the horizontal edges. As you can see in some of the images, it got a bit messy.

 

Also, it would be possible to created arcs on each corner for rounded panelling by using the bevel tool.

Edited December 12, 2014 by JCL

[uax6]

Blimey, at this rate you won't need to be going back to school, you'll be doing your own range of RTR stuff! Rapido have missed out on a great asset...

 

Andy G

[JCL]

Thanks Andy. If I hadn't moved to Vancouver Island, and even further away from Ontario, there's half a chance I'd have applied for the office boy position.

[JCL]

OK, back to the D3. Today I'm going to start afresh and scrap the previous work I did on the D3 except for two things:

• The placing of the background images
• The chassis - if you remember I recreated the Hornby County chassis in Blender so that I can use this to check clearances. During the process of creating the chassis I found that the distance between the two drivers was about 2mm too wide. I'll need to take this into account when producing the splashers.

The first time I did the running plate I used a combination of spin, Bezier curves, profiles, circles, in fact I threw the kitchen sink at it! This time around I'll take the lessons that I've learned and produce a running plate much more simply and with greater accuracy. The problem with using the Bezier curve method is that the curve has to be halfway between the upper surface and the lower surface of the running plate. This means guesswork. If I use my new favourite tool, Solidify, I can use the top edge of the running plate as the top face of the running plate. Better than that, I can then copy this and use the second copy to start the running plate "strengtheners". My ignorance is showing again; by this I mean the side profile underneath the top sheet.

 

So, here's the running plate.

 

I reopened the file that I had previously been playing with and deleted all of the objects that were in there except for the chassis and wheels.

 

 

I then drew a circle to use as a guide for the curves I was going to make in the footplate.

 

 

The beginnings of the footplate was created using a profile of the upper edge. This profile was created the usual way (I think I've done enough of these now to be able to use that phrase!) as follows:

1. Left-click the mouse on a corner of the footplate.
2. Click on the plane button.
3. Enter Edit mode.
4. Make sure you have the select vertices pressed (see below)
5. Press Alt+M and select cursor (actually it doesn't matter if you haven't moved the plane since creating it). This will create a single vertex.
6. Press E to extend a line from that vertex. Don't forget you can press X, Y or Z to constrain the line in that direction.
7. Repeat until you get to the circle, then follow the arc of the circle until the line you are creating starts to move away. At this point, move the circle to the next position and continue.

These are the select modes below the 3D view. The modes are:

• Select verteces
• Select Edges
• Select Faces

 

You should now have a line like this.

 

 

Next, I displayed the Front View, and selected the profile I've just created. In Edit Mode I pressed E and X to extrude that profile to the other side of the footplate. The image below shows the front view with the footplate in wireframe mode.

 

 

And now the solidify tool. I selected the footplate top surface that I created, then I:

1. clicked on Add Modifier
2. Chose Solidify
3. Used the properties in the panel below. This top edge is 5mm thick on the outer edge.

I'm going to make three copies of this object. One is the footplate outer edge, that .5mm bit, the second is 1mm thick footplate section between the strengtheners, and finally the strengtheners.

 

 

After creating these screenshots I decided that I wanted to create only half of the footplate (as I did the first time around) and then mirror it. I did this by entering Edit mode, then selecting the Front view, and wireframe. I then selected only the right hand vertices and typed 0 into the X location box.

 

At the end of this I have a new top facing of the running plate. You'll notice from the image below a red arrow. Unfortunately this seems to be caused by the solidify modifier (it disappears when I turn the modifier off, and I can't see any problems with the object in its "flat" state. I'm not sure if it's something I've done, but looking at it, it'll not take more than a few seconds to get rid of. I'll do that when I have all three parts created.

 

Update: I had two vertices in approximately the same spot which was causing the problem. Deleting one of them returned a footplate that I was expecting.

 

 

Edited December 16, 2014 by JCL

[JCL]

So as I say, the main part of the footplate is going to be 1mm thick so that it has some strength. Also, 1mm turns out to be the depth of the "strengtheners" (help!), so it all works out well. So, to get this second level, I did the following:

1. Select the footplate that we just created
2. Press Shift+N to create a completely separate copy of this object. Then press Enter, otherwise you will be in "move mode" and the footplate copy will move around with your cursor. You actually want this copy to exactly overlay the original. If you do move the copy my mistake, press Esc and the copy will snap back to the original.
3. Next, make sure you select the copy, then enter Edit Mode and Wireframe view.
4. Select the right-hand edge of object.
5. Press G and X to move the right-hand edge towards the middle a little (I chose 0.3mm)
6. Finally change the thickness in the Solidify modifier properties to 1.000

You should end up with the following.

 

 

That might look like a mess, so here it is at an angle and in solid mode.

 

 

Displaying the chassis and wheels again, I get the model in the image below. You can see that the footplate has no hole in it, and so merges with the chassis and wheels.

 

 

To create a hole for the chassis, I decided to use the Loop, Cut and Slide tool to cut just in front of the front wheel, just behind the back wheel and then along the length of the footplate to give the wheels some space. I then deleted all of the faces within the area that I want filling with the chassis. I didn't click the Apply button on the Solidify modifier earlier, and this has helped me now as it automatically creates any new faces needed to make sure you still have a watertight solid. That is, a solid object that contains all of the faces it needs to be able to exist in the real world.

 

 

Truth be told, instead of creating the hole second time with the thicker copy, I deleted the thicker copy of the footplate, then went through the steps below to recreate it from the original along with the new hole.

 

Finally, I selected both copies of the footplate and pressed Ctrl+G to put them into a group which I called footplate (I was up all night thinking of that one). Groups only seem to be useful for one thing in Blender, and that is allowing you select all of the items in a group to delete them, hide them or display them. This will become more important later I think.

 

I'm going to leave the footplate there for a while because as you can see, the chassis is going to require some cutting back. I'll start adding other parts to the chassis next and hopefully that will give me an idea of where to make any new cuts. Again, I think this is where the groups will come in useful. Hiding groups of parts will be a lot easier than hiding individual parts - especially later if I end up with dozens of them.

Edited December 16, 2014 by JCL

[JCL]

I'm on a roll - I hope you don't get bored with this. Next I started the cab. I'm not sure if this is going to work, but I'm going to give it a go.

 

Same as before, I've created a profile by creating a single vertex from a plane.

 

 

Then, using the E key to extrude out lines from the footplate to the middle top of the cab. This gives me the object below.

 

 

If I try to create faces and then extrude, I get a solid object like this.

 

 

So I will need to create the cab from two objects. A front face about 0.8mm thick, and then the sides and roof about 1mm thick. As with the running plate, I'll need to create a copy of the profile I made to ensure that the outer edge is exactly the same.

 

So I took one of the profiles, named it cab.front, and extruded two more points. One taken from the bottom of the cab, and moved to a vertex of 0 on the x axis, and the other shooting up from there on the Z axis. Then I joined the first and last vertices together with Alt+M to form a loop. Finally I pressed F to add a face.

 

I then took the second profile, and extruded it along the Y axis until it was the same width as the cab. I now have the outer shell.

 

 

Applying the Solidify modifier to both of these parts starts to give me something that could exist in the real world.

 

 

I couldn't think of an elegant way of doing the window, so I used brute force and rammed a cylinder through it using the Boolean Difference modifier. You might remember I used this modifier a lot in the beginning.

 

 

Finally, here's where I'm stopping tonight. To finish things off I've temporarily added Mirror modifiers to the cab parts and the two running plate parts to give me an idea of what they look like.

 

 

Still a long way to go on the cab, but here's the Shapeways link so you can have an idea of what it'd look like in Frosted Detail https://www.shapeways.com/model/2957249/d3-loco-test.html?li=aeTabs

Edited December 16, 2014 by JCL

[JCL]

So, I had another look at the cab this morning, and I realised that I'll need to change the front of it to accommodate the wheels and motor (doh!). I won't be able to do this until I have the boiler and the splashers done because the hole I need to cut into the front will have to be hidden by those two parts. So, boiler next. Probably the fastest part to produce - once I'd worked out how to make a solid tube. A quick look around Youtube gave me the answer, and I hate to say it, but it looks like it's the solidify modifier again.

 

Firstly, I created a cylinder and used the properties in the bottom left to locate and size it. I also changed circular the end cap to nothing. This would give me just the curved length of the cylinder. It might a bit overkill here, but I made the number of vertices120 after I took the screenshot.

 

 

This gives me the boiler below. I'm not extending into the smokebox area more than a few mm because there were two smokebox lengths, and I want to be able to model both of them. This means that the smokebox will be modelled separately.

 

 

As you can see, with a 1mm thick boiler, I still get good clearance for the motor.

 

 

Although I have good clearance of the motor, as you can see from the image below, I'll need to cut into the cylinder to provide space for the wheels (red arrow and green arrow). While I'm checking, the green arrow and blue arrow show changes I'll have to make to the cab later.

 

 

To be able to make a clean cut-out later, I used Loop, Cut and Slide to put a loop of edges just to the front of the motor. Later, because I haven't pressed apply on the Solidify modifier I'll be able to remove a part of the boiler and have it "self-heal"

 

[JCL]

While I'm at it, starting the smokebox and boiler bands. I made sure that the 3D cursor Z axis was the same value as the boiler. This should have been 0, but the background image is a tad high, so it's actually -0.18716. I then created another hollow cylinder that overlapped the main boiler by about 4mm (arbitrarily).

 

 

Then I used the Solidify modifier to provide some presence, and to ensure that the smokebox and boiler barrel overlaps.

 

 

The bands were made the same way. I created a new cylinder with the "nothing" end again. My boiler band is .9mm wide, and has a radius of 10.6mm. The boiler itself has a radius of 10.2mm, so the bands are .2mm thick, the minimum for Frosted Detail surface detail.

 

 

Finally, I copied this band a few times with Shift+D and moved them along the Y axis to the correct place.

 

 

I'm not sure about the bands. As I say, technically, .2mm is the minimum height of surface detail, but they look a bit high - maybe it's because the boiler looks a little odd at the moment only half done. Do I reduce them and cross my fingers, or keep them as they are?

 

[JCL]

Here, I've coloured the bands red and the rest of the loco black(ish) before rendering it. In this composite image, the loco on the left only shows the wheels, and the one on the right shows both the wheels and chassis. By doing this, I get a good sense of what the end model will look like, and I get an idea of clearances - or not. My initial thoughts were confirmed, and the front of the chassis will probably have to go as it's far too high and encroaches into the open area under the boiler. That said, that open area is very small. It looks like a subjective decision will have to be made. As it is, the very front of the chassis will definitely have to go as it is forward of the smokebox door. We'll see this later after I've got that end done.

 

 

Here, I've borrowed the dome, smokebox door and chimney from way back in this thread, again just to see what it looks like. I did this by opening the relevant file, selecting the object I want to add, then pressing Ctrl+C to copy it. Then I go back to my main file that I'm working on at the moment and press Ctrl+V. Finally, I just move the object into the right position. As my model straddles the X axis, I know that to be centred on the boiler, I just need to make sure that the model I've just pasted into the workspace has an x axis location value of 0.

 

I'll be deleting the pasted objects and recreating them later, but next will be the splashers so that I can finish my work on clearances.

 

Edited December 16, 2014 by JCL

[JCL]

For the last couple of pages I've been putting up the odd image in colour to show approximately what the model would look like printed and painted. I'm going to show you how I did that now. and I'll talk about view types.

 

View Types

In the image below you can see the four view types that I've been using during the creation of the different models. These are as follows:

• Wireframe - good for selections when you want to select both the front and the back of an object. Also good for lining up edges by eye.
• Solid - a view that updates quickly and gives you an idea of what the model would look like if it were a solid. Also easily shows you if there are any faces missing in an object.
• Material - quick and dirty view that gives you the colours, but none of the shadows or transparency.
• Rendered - the best view type to show you what a model would actually look like in the wild. In the image below, I've used the rendered view and a glass material type to see inside the boiler. This view has had its default background lightened from the mid grey to better show the model.

 

Material Colours

 

Without going back through the thread, I think it was Tom who mentioned the use of colours to differentiate parts. Since then I've looked into it, and this evening I've even looked into transparency. In reality I was looking for a style to emulate Shapeway's FUD, but this glass will do, and it has the added function of being transparent. I'll say at the beginning that there are two different rendering engines in Blender: Blender render and Cycles render. I'm using the Cycles one, and this is set in a dropdown box above the 3D screen.

 

You assign a material to an object, and the colour is a part of the material.

 

On the right in the properties area, where I normally go to find modifiers, there is a button four in from the right that looks like a circle. If you click on that, you will display the materials panel. If you don't see the options below, you need to click on Add Material.

 

 

You can then click on the Colour box in the Surface section to select a colour on the colour wheel. This is the colour that will be rendered.

 

 

If you want to see the colour in the 3D edit screen, you have to click on Viewport colour (dropping off the bottom of the image below).

 

 

In render mode you will see this. I clicked on the fourth button from the left at the top of this image to open the "World" options and changed the Surface colour to a lighter grey. This helps the model pop a bit more.

 

 

Back to materials. To create a glass material, change the surface in the surface panel to Glass BSDF. Suddenly you have a transparent model. It is more like milk bottle glass than computer screen glass, but it works for me.

 

 

You can easily change the colour by selecting the button inside the red rectangle in the image below. These extra colours are set up using the + button to the right of the rectangles. I haven't found a way of deleting the ones I don't need any more.

 

 

And finally, orange glass

 

 

This is a huge subject and I've just scratched the surface to get the basics. I tend to use colours to help me with clearances and such, and as I said earlier, they help me visualise what the model looks like with a basic paint job. If you are creating a model you could be weeks or months, so visual feedback like this can be morale boosting.

 

 

[JCL]

Last week I put together some splashers for a Highland Railay loco for Andy G which gave me an opportunity to try to work out the best way of doing this. In the end I did it the same way that I did the cab. Make one profile and then use multiple copies of this profile so that I can do the splasher wall and roof and be happy that the curve on both is the same. How I actually made the curve is slightly different in this case though. Here goes.

 

The best way of getting an arc in Blender is to somehow use a circle. Until now I've created circles that I've used as guides to trace around. This time, I thought I'd actually try to use a cylinder (a circle with ideas above it's station). There are two good reasons for this. One is that you know that the arc will be accurate, and secondly, you can specify easily how smooth your arc will be when you specify the number of segments on creation.

 

First of all, the cylinder. I could have (and maybe should have) used a circle, but cylinder it is.

 

Then, in Edit mode, Right view, and wireframe I selected all of the vertices that didn't line up with the arc of the splasher and deleted them. I made sure that the last vertex at the top would be the one that would allow me to create a smooth transition from curve to straight.

 

 

That gave me this arc.

 

 

Then I chose edge select (see a couple of posts ago) and selected the top leading edge, pressed E and Y and extruded that edge on the Y axis until I reached the cab.

 

 

An application of the Solidify modifier with a thickness of 0.8mm gave me the top edge of the splasher. I purposely added the Solidify modifier at this point because I knew that the chassis I have is has a slightly longer wheelbase than the D3. In the image below you can see that as it stood, the wheels would rub on the splasher

 

 

By displaying the wheels that you may remember I modelled earlier, I could select the arc with it's correct thickness, and then move it towards the front on the Y axis using G (for grab) and Y to clear the leading driver. I don't want to use E here as I'm stretching the splasher without adding new vertices.

 

 

I then made a copy of the splasher and removed the solidify modifier from this copy. I also removed the vertices on it's inner side to produce a plane.

1. I pressed E and Z to run a vertical edge down to the footplate and
2. then E and Y to run a second one to the bottom of the arc.
3. Finally I used Alt+M to join the two end points together.
4. Selecting the object, I pressed F to make a face.

Unfortunately the lower edge is below the curve of the running plate, so I then added vertices using subdivide, and used the manipulator (the white circle with the different coloured arrows) to pull the new vertices upwards so that everything looks neat.

 

 

And this is how it looks in Solid view.

 

 

Finally, an application of the Solidify modifier gives me the front face of the splasher. The moulding is practically the same width as the splaher top, so to make this, I moved the splasher sidewall in a fraction of a millimetre. Checking of course that there would still be clearance.

 

Edited December 17, 2014 by JCL

[uax6]

Couple of things:

 

1 WOW!

2 I note that you haven't put the coupling rods on your 'chassis', Make sure that they do actually clear the rise in the footplate!

3 WOW!

4 I would cut the chassis down as close to the front axle as you can. This will mean that you will have to make a set of frames for under the front footplate, but they will help stiffen that area anyway. The bogie mount will have to be designed into that area too.

5 WOW!

6 Have you thought how you are going to get some lead into the body? You'll need as much as you can get into the body, preferably near the rear, but if you put a suitable spring around the bogie pivot you can get some up front too.

 

Did I mention WOW!?

 

Andy G

[JCL]

Cheers Andy,

 

Yep I was just thinking of those cockamamie coupling rods, I'll have to delve into the moving boxes and see if I can find the chassis. There's going to be a fair bit of cutting up both at the front and the back of the chassis to be able to put it under the body. The front, well you can see what's going on there, and the back because, not only is it a tad high, but also because there is fillet that arcs down and to the back that is exactly where the backhead will be. Leadwise, see below.

 

The next thing that I did was to start to cut out the underneath of the boiler. Until now it was just a cylinder, but this means that the wall of the boiler goes all the way around. I needed to remove a good proportion of the bottom of it to get the chassis to fit in there. To do this, I hid the splasher sides (not not the top) and the running plate. This gave me access to the underneath. I then used the Loop, Cut and Slide tool to make a couple of rings around the boiler near to the front of the splashers This then allowed me to use face select to select the faced that needed to be deleted. If I hadn't used Loop, Cut and Slide, then the deleted face would run the entire length of the boiler. As it was, they only ran to the new loop of edges. Does that make sense?

 

Here's a picture that will hopefully help. You can see the model is upside down and the running plate and splasher sides are missing. I've coloured the boiler green so that you can see what's going on there as well. The yellow lines are me moving the last vertices out of the way. I find that manipulator very useful here as I generally want to move things cleanly in the X, Y or Z axes. If you start to get crooked lines all over you'll soon get into a mess. Finally, I didn't get the ring of vertices looped at quite the right point, so I used the E command to drag the underbelly back a bit. I'm going to use the Shapeways' sale to order one of these in WSF (clearances look good) so I can use it as a test on my chassis. I'll know then if I need to cut any more out, but it looks like it should work as it is - it depends how much of the chassis I can cut off. I don't want to take too much out and weaken it.

 

 

Leadwise, as you can see from the image above and the "glass" one, there's not that much space, so I'm going to stick as much as I can to the sides of the chassis at the back, and then I think you're right, the bogie is going to have to be sprung to keep the whole thing level so that I can lob some towards the front as well.

Edited December 17, 2014 by JCL

[JCL]

I was on a roll last night, so I started the cab detailing. To do this I hid the cab sides and created what I think the backhead looked like. I only have the plans to go from, and photos of different unrelated locos, so a lot of this is guesswork, but hopefully it'll look near enough - especially as you won't really see it. I'm not going to go into detail here, but here's a summary.

• The upper part of the backhead is a shallow cylinder that I used the Bevel tool (Ctrl+B) on. I used 4 segments, and the depth was basically the depth of the part. I did this by eye.
• I chopped off the lower part of the cylinder by deleting an arc (as I did with the splashers). I then used the Face (F) command to rebuild the faces on the cut part.
• The straight pipes and other cylinders are just that. As these are really small, to stop my computer from slowing down even more I reduced the number of vertices on these cylinders to about 12. All of the cylinders are embedded slightly into the backhead. Again I won't notice, and it stops Shapeways from giving me errors.
• The lower part of the backhead is a thin cube. I made sure that it is the same thickness as the upper part and in the same location on the Y axis, so there shouldn't be a seam. This cube must allow clearance for the wheels. The bottom of this is at footplate level. I'm not sure this is going to work with the chassis so I may have to file some of it out. Hopefully I can file the chassis back far enough.

 

Here's another view with the running plate, footplate and "back splashers" displayed. The fact that 00 is effectively narrow gauge means that the cab area is slightly narrower in the model than on the plans.

 

 

Here's the render of the cab. Next up is to shape the cab sides to include the cutout and my old nemesis, the beading.

 

 

As always, please let me know if I've got something wrong or if I've overlooked something. Andy's spring suggestion, for example is something I'd not thought about which will change how I'm doing things.

 

 

[uax6]

The rear of those toolboxes/splashers/seats in the cab will be a good place to hide some more lead......

 

Mind you if you get it done in platinum it might just be heavy enough anyway...

 

Andy G

[JCL]

A quick warning...

 

Be really careful using Blender. I've just spent about an hour doing some work on the bufferbeam and suchlike. I then decided to copy the buffers from the tender, so thought I opened that file in a new copy of Blender, only to find that it was the copy with the loco in it and all the work I've done was lost. It seems that the program didn't warn me that I'd lose my changes; even though it has done so in the past. I tried renaming the .blend1 file (an autosave copy) but that didn't work either.

 

Oh well, back to it.

 

[JCL]

I've done a few bits and pieces like adding rivets and such, but this has mostly just been "gluing" stuff or creating a part from a profile, such as the step on the splasher and the curved area in front of the smokebox, which I've been through a few times now. Tonight before I go to bed I'll run you through creating the cutout for the cab.

 

I was worried about this because there are angles in three dimensions and the cab just has to be as right as possible - it is after all the main bit you'll see from above. I've bee trying to work out how to do this when I remembered the knife tool. It's mentioned in the videos that Tom wrote about a while back, so I had a look to see what could be done. Turns out that this was exactly the right tool! Here's what I did.

 

I've already produced the basic wall of the cab as a flattened arch. You can see in the image below that there is a cut out on the back edge that needs to be formed.

 

 

To do this I pressed the K key for knife and, starting from the bottom edge, I clicked around the cutout until I reached the top. While doing the horizontal and vertical sections I toggled the white constrain line on and off so I knew that these parts were exactly right. After getting this as right as possible, I then zoomed in and tidied up the curves by moving the new vertices that I've just created. On occasion, where I hadn't put in enough vertices, I selected one either side of where I neededa new one and pressed the subdivide button on the left.

 

 

Eventually I was left with as smooth a set of curves as I'll ever get.

 

 

Next, I changed to Face Select mode and selected the bit I'd just cut out and deleted it. I also deleted all of the thin sections where the roof curves as these are all separate faces. It was easiest just to use the B key to lasso them.

 

 

After cutting out the bit I didn't need, I went back in and tidied up the points again - just to make sure.

 

 

And finally, this is the new cab sides. It certainly makes a big difference. The loco is feeling pretty close to finished now! Still the chimney and dome to redo first though. That'll be tomorrow.

 

 

My clearances and thicknesses means that I can buy it from Shapeways in Strong and Flexible, and as there's a sale on there I'll make use of that. Doing this means that I can use it for testing clearances with the wheels and chassis. (Did I say that before?)

 

Edited to add - just worked out how to do the beading, so I'll write that up next. It's not as onerous as I thought, especially after messing about with the beading on the tender...

Edited December 18, 2014 by JCL

[JCL]

OK, not much further to go.

 

Chimneys

 

Each time I write up how I do a chimney I find a new step that (hopefully) makes a better version. Therefore, my method now isn't revolutionary, but is based on the work I wrote up a few weeks ago. The only part I'll not go through again is the creation of the profile as this is the same as before. I will also show you how I made some adjustments after the chimney was created.

1. So I created the profile, then moved the 3D cursor to the inside edge of the chimney as represented by the profile by copying the X, Y and Z location values from the vertex closest in the middle to the location boxes for the 3D cursor (red arrow on the right in the image below)
2. I changed to the top view, and clicked on the spin tool. I changed the number of segments to 25 and made sure the angle was 90 degrees.
3. I clicked on the Mirror modifier and clicked on X and Y to mirror the quarter chimney in both directions. So making a whole one. The great thing about this is that I can then just edit a quarter of the chimney, and the other three quarters will automatically update. This is why only a quarter of the chimney contains the mesh.
4. Next press the A key to select all, and then in the toolshelf on the left, choose Remove Doubles. This will get rid of any vertices you don't need, tightening up the mesh.
5. Now, going around the edge, pull down the outer edge of vertices only by clicking on each one and dragging using the manipulator or by pressing G and Z.

A lot less work, and a guarantee of symmetry. Of course, what the symmetrical chimney looks like in practice is the bit that does require some work. Hopefully though, the rest of the steps below should show you that it's not that difficult (I hope).

 

 

Next, I applied the Smooth Vertices tool, also on the toolshelf on the left.This slowly smooths any errant vertices. Creases become bumps which eventually become straight lines. I can do one of those animated GIF files if anyone's interested.

 

 

Interestingly, because this is a "smoother" and not a straightener, the curve over the top of the boiler (image 2 below) stays put.

 

 

When I'd finished, I realised that I had a create in the chimney where I wasn't quite as accurate with the profile as I thought I was. Actually, it was because I ought that have added a couple more loops of vertices.

 

 

I had to do something about it, so I added a two more loops and resized them until the base was smooth. First of all, I selected all of the vertical edges around the whole chimney using the B boundary select tool. I had to do this three times, turning the chimney as I went around.

 

 

Then I pressed the Subdivide button. This puts a new vertex into the middle of each vertical line, so creating a new ring of vertices that are themselves joined horizontally around the loop. Have a look below.

 

 

Now, this is still a straight line at the moment, so I deselected everything using the A key, then pressed the Alt key and right clicked on a horizontal edge on the new loop. Pressing that Alt key selects the whole loop. This is incredibly useful doing domes, chimneys or boilers, etc.

 

 

On the left in the toolshelf you'll see there is a scale tool. Click this or press the S key and then move your cursor towards and away from the chimney until you get the curve you are looking for (the image below shows I went in towards the chimney a bit too enthusiastically!)

 

 

And when you're happy with it, let go of your mouse button. If you are still a little out, the scale properties are on the left hand side, and you can change them in the X, Y, and Z axes. You must change both the X and Y if you want the chimney to remain symmetrical.

 

Before I'd finished with the chimney, I widened the aperture at the top a little, narrowing the ring around the top, by again pressing Alt and right clicking an edge before using the S scale tool, and I pushed the base within the smokebox up using Alt+rightclick on an edge on the base and then G for grab and Z to move the base vertically along the Z axis. I also made the lip a bit narrower. The rivets I copied from the tender file.

 

Hopefully it'll still go through the Shapeways check.

 

Edited December 19, 2014 by JCL

[JCL]

Beading

 

Next the cab side beading. To do this I have continued to find out the capabilities of the Solidify modifier. To give the beading the same curves as the cab itself, I need to create a copy of that cab and then scale it up a bit before cutting a whole chunk of it out by creating a front edge that follows the back edge. The front edge will also have larger radius curves in some places (outside edges), and smaller radius curves in others (inside edges). Even if I was only doing thi for half a cab (because the side of the cab is mirrored), doing this by hand would not be for the faint hearted.

 

First of all, have a look at the edges of your cab and make sure that the curves are as smooth as possible. You don't want any jaggedness as this will affect the steps to come. The current cab has a thickness of 0.8000 (mm) and an offset of -1.0000.

 

 

Make a copy of the cab. Change the thickness to -0.4 and the offset to -0.34 (or whatever you think is right for your scale, etc). Apply the Solidify modifier on this new copy of the cab. If you don't to this, then we won't be able to reuse the Solidify modifier later as it only works properly on faces.

 

 

Next, move the cab copy out of the way using G and Y, and in Edit mode, and wireframe view, select all of the vertices that make up the front edge of the cab and delete them.

 

 

If you've selected the right vertices, you'll end up with just the back edge of the cab

 

 

Now, with only the back edge of the cab selected, create a new Solidify modifier and give it an initial thickness of 1.0. This will create a solid piece of beading. The beading will be 1mm wide. You'll notice a big fat arrow i the image below. This is because the beading is noticeably thinner here.

 

 

To fix this, click on the Even Thickness check box.

 

 

And you end up with a twisted piece of, erm, not metal, virtual metal like this.

 

 

This image shows the beading slid back on the Y axis (G and Y) and coloured slightly so you can see the difference.

 

 

One thing, you may need to do a bit of pixel shifting depending on the style of cab you are creating. Here, the curve is pretty tight, so the edges have overlapped. I'll need to go in and shift vertices around a bit on the front edge. Do this by selecting edges across the thickness, and pressing G G to slide the vertices backwards and forwards along the lines. This is called a vertex slide, and can be very useful.

 

 

Even with the proviso at he end, to say I'm pleased with this is an understatement. I've no idea the number of hours this would take me by hand, and it still wouldn't be as good.

Edited December 19, 2014 by JCL