Modelu Figures & Component News

[GWRMember]

Hi Chris

 

I am a 4mm modeller and the figures I had problems with are:-

 

1361-076 Milkman with crate. He seems fine having glued his leg back on but ordered new one in ant case.

 

0124-076 Workman with shovel. The shovel end came off when removing from base. Have hopefully glued it back.

 

0129-076 His saw blade broke in half. Have managed to glue it back

 

1629-076 Brass Band set. Trombone player lost his slide whilst carefully trying to remove supports. Cornet player on removing last support to instrument suddenly lost the bell from his instrument. Am going to try using fine brass wire to replace trombone slide but again have just ordered replacements

 

0135-076 Man with sickle. Lost sickle on removing supports. Thinking about this one.

 

1049-076 Signalman holding tablet pouch. Lost loop. Hoping to replace with wire loop. Not ordered replacement yet.

 

Will get some Delux superglue in case this has some magic property the locktite doesnt.

 

My replacement order with survey discount is in system so hopefully will try again more carefully.

 

I use Tamiya side cutters and scalpels plus tweezers and magnifying light.

 

I have noticed the old red plastic and light grey plastic seem more flexible than the later dark grey plastic so not sure if I need to modify my technique between them.

 

Keep up good work. How about some suitcases and hand trucks like you always see around heritage stations?

 

Regards

Ken

 

[Godfrey Glyn]

Many thanks ModelU Chris for your replies. One thing I love about the ModelU is that the proportion of head to body is correct (obviously!) whereas in many of the traditional white metal versions previously available the heads were far too large. The only factor which doesn't seem to apply to the figures is that once you go back in time before the '60s and '70s people were much smaller and many workers would have spent a childhood on such a poor diet that they had no chance of growing to the heights of their modern peers.

Great products and great service, keep it up!

 

all the best

 

Godfrey

Edited January 17 by Godfrey Glyn

[big jim]

I was going to ask if you do a driver and fireman for the Bachmann improved precedent then I spotted it in the survey on the ‘would you like to see’ bit so obviously not one you do!

 

Can anyone recommend any other of the range that would look good on that loco?

[jaym481]

I'm getting an odd occurrence on the website. When I first select an item, the price shows as a lower price than the ex VAT price in parenthesis. Coincidentally the lower price is what the ex VAT price would be if they were reversed. I sent an email, though I know they aren't always reliable.  In any case, when I select the scale of the item the lower price disappears. I haven't complete an order yet, as I would like to clear this up first. Is the lower price displayed a glitch (he asked hoping the glitch would be a result in his favour)?

 

Jay

[Jeremy Cumberland]

18 hours ago, Modelu Chris said:

The issue with having the size of the figures on each item is the range of scales we are providing means that it would be a huge undertaking. 

It will be a big task to measure every figure, I'm sure, but you only need to show either the 4 mm size or the full-size height. I think most people accept that 4 mm is the most common modelling scale, even people like me who don't work in anything smaller than 1:32, and we are all pretty used to working with scale.

 

Perhaps (if you happen to know which they are), you could just list heights for particularly tall people.

[2ManySpams]

Big thank you to @Modelu Chris for sorting out the issue I had with the holderbats. Excellent customer service. 

[Modelu Chris]

On 15/01/2024 at 16:41, GWRMember said:

Hi Chris ...

 

 

I will do some testing on them this week to get try them myself in the office, I will send you a message when I have tested them all. 

On 15/01/2024 at 22:05, big jim said:

I was going to ask if you do a driver and fireman for the Bachmann improved precedent then I spotted it in the survey on the ‘would you like to see’ bit so obviously not one you do!

 

Can anyone recommend any other of the range that would look good on that loco?

 

Someone came up to me at Warley wondering about the crew for this, after having a look at the loco the placement of the splashers makes this difficult to recommend a crew from our range, this is why we would love to make a custom crew for it. 

On 16/01/2024 at 08:49, Jeremy Cumberland said:

It will be a big task to measure every figure, I'm sure, but you only need to show either the 4 mm size or the full-size height. I think most people accept that 4 mm is the most common modelling scale, even people like me who don't work in anything smaller than 1:32, and we are all pretty used to working with scale.

 

Perhaps (if you happen to know which they are), you could just list heights for particularly tall people.

 

I will look into us putting the original height of figures onto the website. 

[The Stationmaster]

On 15/01/2024 at 14:23, Bucoops said:

Thanks Chris - I can't help with dimensions (yet) but there's two types by the looks of things. I wonder if the rounded ones are the same as on 08s?

 

I can't think of any sort of lamp which would fit on those lower, rounded, brackets so I suspect they are not lamp brackets.    As there is no socket for a shunting pole in the front end footsteps on the 04s with side plates I do wonder if they were intended for a shunting pole.  I can't find any photos of them being used like that but I have found one of a shunting pole laid across a buffer housing on one of the earlier tram engines.

 

The brackets seem to have been restricted to 04s including some without side plates but I can't find them on photos of any other diesel shunters and I certainly never saw anything like them on a 350 shunter or the later 204hp shunters (Class 03)

[Jeremy Cumberland]

Here's what looks to be a shunting pole and a lamp on an 04:

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:British_Rail_Class_04#/media/File:Drewry_Class_04_D2309_(8273246908).jpg

[Bucoops]

12 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

I can't think of any sort of lamp which would fit on those lower, rounded, brackets so I suspect they are not lamp brackets.    As there is no socket for a shunting pole in the front end footsteps on the 04s with side plates I do wonder if they were intended for a shunting pole.  I can't find any photos of them being used like that but I have found one of a shunting pole laid across a buffer housing on one of the earlier tram engines.

 

The brackets seem to have been restricted to 04s including some without side plates but I can't find them on photos of any other diesel shunters and I certainly never saw anything like them on a 350 shunter or the later 204hp shunters (Class 03)

 

Hi Mike,

 

I agree those brackets are most likely for shunting poles. It's the electric lamps that I'm hoping to persuade Modelu to produce 🙂

 

The skirted one in my photos is a fake - sold from new to industrial use. Mangapps now own the real 11103 so I wonder what will happen to this one. I actually rewired this loco about 25 years ago and rumour has it it still works!

Edited January 17 by Bucoops

[cctransuk]

53 minutes ago, Bucoops said:

 

Hi Mike,

 

I agree those brackets are most likely for shunting poles. It's the electric lamps that I'm hoping to persuade Modelu to produce 🙂

 

The skirted one in my photos is a fake - sold from new to industrial use. Mangapps now own the real 11103 so I wonder what will happen to this one. I actually rewired this loco about 25 years ago and rumour has it it still works!

 

Definitely shunting pole brackets - I have come across quite a few photos of them in that use over the years.

 

The rounded ends were an aid to locating the pole in the bracket furthest from the shunter.

 

CJI.

[Fair Oak Junction]

I was just looking through the website at the new Victorian figures, and noticed some existing Victorian figures are described as Edwardian.

Edwardian Woman 3 & 4 are both in 1870s dress, which match very nicely with the new Victorian figures but the product names might need changing for clarity 👍

[Mikkel]

Indeed yes. No 1535 a.k.a Mrs Sanders being one of them. From the front she could perhaps pass for Edwardian, but once you see her behind...

 

 

[Fair Oak Junction]

The 1870s ushered in a stark change in women's fashion from what had come in the decades before, and more minor changes happened in the 80s and 90s.

Makes modelling those periods more challenging for sure 😄

Edit: To be fair, only very specific periods of the 19th century are really catered for in model form. AC Stadden Victorian figures are great for the 1840/50s. These figures for the 1870s. There is next to nothing for the 1820/30/60/80/90s. But I get these eras are too niche really to justify proper ranges of figures.

Edited January 29 by Fair Oak Junction

[Suffolk Dave]

Recently I painted an Edwardian family group. I'd bought 'Mrs Sanders' but realising she was in a more Victorian era dress decided to paint her as an older lady with greying hair - a mother with her grown up children. I made an assumption that in the times before mass produced clothing folk would have had fewer clothes and wore them for longer. Hence, the old lady is still going out in the fabulous red silk number her late husband bought her years ago!

 

And, just in case anyone is wondering, her two sons are identical twins! 

 

[Enterprisingwestern]

12 hours ago, Mikkel said:

Indeed yes. No 1535 a.k.a Mrs Sanders being one of them. From the front she could perhaps pass for Edwardian, but once you see her behind...

 

 

 

Bakkushan?

 

Mike.

[Modelu Chris]

On 29/01/2024 at 19:07, Fair Oak Junction said:

I was just looking through the website at the new Victorian figures, and noticed some existing Victorian figures are described as Edwardian.

Edwardian Woman 3 & 4 are both in 1870s dress, which match very nicely with the new Victorian figures but the product names might need changing for clarity 👍

 

Thank you, I will get that looked into. 

 

On 30/01/2024 at 07:22, Suffolk Dave said:

Recently I painted an Edwardian family group. I'd bought 'Mrs Sanders' but realising she was in a more Victorian era dress decided to paint her as an older lady with greying hair - a mother with her grown up children. I made an assumption that in the times before mass produced clothing folk would have had fewer clothes and wore them for longer. Hence, the old lady is still going out in the fabulous red silk number her late husband bought her years ago!

 

And, just in case anyone is wondering, her two sons are identical twins! 

 

 

This looks fabulous, thank you for sharing.

[Fair Oak Junction]

3 minutes ago, Modelu Chris said:

Thank you, I will get that looked into.

 

No problem, happy to help! 🙂

And thanks again for producing figures for a period not covered before. I've actually revised the setting of one of my 009 layout plans just so I can make use of them 👌

[Modelu Chris]

Good morning, 

 

Its that time again for another newsletter, it has been a busy few days moving office and we are nearly there now. Please see the below from Alan:

 

After a great 12 months in Barton Hill we've now moved back to Easton Business Centre into a new 1100 sq foot office.  Moving again so soon is obviously time consuming and expensive, but with our fleet of 3d printers growing and our new scanning booth extra space has been essential. 

When I look around our workshop today we are quite a different company compared to this time in 2023.  The latest resin printers and a new automated labelling machine have enabled us to cut order turnaround time by half and our exhibition stand has grown from displaying 48 products to over 200.   

 

Our new office gives us a dedicated room for our body scanner, workshop test layout, retail stand and a customer area with display models, prototypes and refreshments!  We are planning an open day to launch the new workshop and we'll most likely time it for our 9th birthday in April.  Look out for more information soon.

 

7 years after winning the Innovation of the Year Award at Warley we are delighted to have been nominated again with our brand new scanning booth!
 

Debuted at Warley last year, our new scanner has increased speed and the range of poses we can recreate.  Within minutes of being 3d scanned you also receive a digital version of your scan that you can explore in augmented reality (AR).

We are proud to have been nominated and would really appreciate any votes we receive.  We are on page 6 and you can cast your votes following the link at the top of this webpage.  Winners will be announced at the BRM London Festival of Railway Modelling in March.

 

 

Thank you to everyone who completed our 2024 New Product Survey.  The responses give us a fantastic insight into what you, our customers want.  Over the next few months we'll be shaping our product development to match the choices made.  If you haven't yet completed the survey, you can do so below. 

https://mailchi.mp/modelu3d/2024-product-survey

 

 

FEBRUARY / MODELRAIL SCOTLAND - MODELU NOT ATTENDING
Unfortunately due to the huge costs of insuring our new scanner for this event we sadly will not be able to attend ModelRail Scotland as originally hoped.  We'll continue to work towards a cost effective solution for 2025.

MARCH / BRM LONDON FESTIVAL OF RAILWAY MODELLING
In March we return to London in a new larger stand directly opposite our friends at Accurascale.  Come along to the stand to have yourself 3D scanned as custom crew for any of the Accurascale fleet!

APRIL / MODELU BIRTHDAY OPEN DAY TBC
We are making plans for an open to day at our new office in Bristol to celebrate or 9th year in business.  The day will feature a couple of layouts, demonstrations and local traders.  More information to come shortly!

APRIL / MODEL WORLD LIVE, NEC NEW SHOW
We are really excited to announce that we'll be attending the brand new show at the NEC this April.   We're working on a new military range which all being well will debut at this show.

MAY / BRM BRISTOL MODEL RAILWAY EXHIBITION (THORNBURY)
We'll be back in Thornbury for our local show, look out for new product announcements and collaborations along with our 3d scanning booth.

 

We are pleased to announce that Tierney Model Shop have joined our network of stockists. 

Based near Southend-on-Sea the shop prides themselves on being operated by modellers, for modellers.  Expect to find our best sellers in OO and N Gauge.  Take a look at their website, or if you are local, stop by and see our range in the flesh.

You can see a full list of our stockists and their locations on our store locator.

 

 

Something that has been on the drawing board here for many years is the platform and yard lamps. We've blown the dust off this project and have started working on prototypes for an LSWR Barley Twist lamp and GWR No1 and No3 yard lamps.

4mm scale 3D print tests have confirmed that we can use 0.5mm brass tube through the columns to allow for illumination using either nano LEDs or fibre optics.  With the assistance of members of Modelu Modellers, we'll be trialling the lamps in February with launch at BRM London.

 

 

[Modelu Chris]

Newsletter continued:

 

 

A long term dream of mine to bring 21st technology to the world of aviation figures has taken a huge step forward.  In March we'll be working with Jed at Up An' At 'Em History to produce a brand new range of RAF themed figures from RFC through to present day.  With Jed's huge collection of clothing it is a daunting task of where to begin, but our plan is to mark the D-Day 80th Anniversary with a new figure set whilst also turning attentions to some long neglected areas such as ground crew and pilots. 

We'll be targeting the Model World Live in April as a launch date for the range.  Needless to say we are hugely excited to work with Jed and look forward to creating some amazing new figures!  

 

 

Following on from our release of modern image passenger packs, we've now added two new discounted packs suitable for the 1930s-1960s.  These packs feature 10 pre-cut seated figures to make more cost effective to populate your coaches than ever before.  Retailing at half the price of our existing packs, prices start at £18.00 for 10 seated figures in N/HO/OO. 

 

 

 

With the imminent arrival of Dapol's latest variant of the GWR Mogul we've added a bespoke crew to the range.  Suitable for the Dapol and Heljan 43/53xx and 63xx models along with many other GWR classes.  3D scanned with the kind assistance of the Didcot Railway Centre using the cab of 5322.

 

 

Ever since Freightiner's Bessie visited us last year we've been wanting to do a crew for the Bachmann model.  Finally with the assistance of Craig of Iron Horse Railways we've finally been able to crew this distinctive looking loco.  Crew pack figures driver and second man and is available via our website now.

 

 

With Valentines approaching we thought we'd look back through our catalogue of scans and add a little romance to the range!  Three new couple packs figure Modelu customers restaging their proposal at BRM London a few years ago and Modelu's very own Harrison and his wife Ellie and Chris and his wife Coretta.  Perfect to bring a little happiness to a church on your layout.

 

 

 

 

We are extremely grateful to the almost 100 subscribers who receive our monthly digital releases.  We started our Patreon subscription service as a pilot back in July with just 10 people and through Harrison's hard work it has grown month on month.  For anyone who is interested in printing figures on your own or club 3D printer this is a fantastic way of getting involved.  Multiple tiers of subscription allow you to download monthly figures, or even shape the direction of our development using suggestions and voting. 

We are excited to see what else our subscribers vote for and look forward to more people coming on board.  Here is an example of the last 4 months of releases which you can also buy directly from our website.

 

 

Fans of the Modelling BR Blue Facebook page will be well aware of Mark Wilson's amazing dioramas.  He lately turned his skills to our train spotter figures, based on photographs of young train spotters in the 1970s and 1980s.  Not only has Mark captured the scene perfectly, his accompanying write up of his own memories as a spotter in the 1970s bring the scene to life.  Check out his post in the group and his other inspirational work with dioramas of Swindon works, Birmingham New Street, Paddington and Stewarts Lane.  Mark wins a £25 Modelu voucher.   If you'd like to enter, please email your photos to info@modelu3d.co.uk, or tag us in on social media.

 

 

[Bucoops]

On 30/01/2024 at 07:22, Suffolk Dave said:

Recently I painted an Edwardian family group. I'd bought 'Mrs Sanders' but realising she was in a more Victorian era dress decided to paint her as an older lady with greying hair - a mother with her grown up children. I made an assumption that in the times before mass produced clothing folk would have had fewer clothes and wore them for longer. Hence, the old lady is still going out in the fabulous red silk number her late husband bought her years ago!

 

And, just in case anyone is wondering, her two sons are identical twins! 

 

 

Is that Sylvestor McCoy (twice)?

 

[Suffolk Dave]

5 hours ago, Bucoops said:

 

Is that Sylvestor McCoy (twice)?

 

I certainly hope not! 

[Modelu Chris]

Happy Friday everyone, it's time for another newsletter from Alan. Please see below:

 

February has been a challenging month for us at Modelu - I want to be the first to reconigse that we've not provided the level of service that many of you are accustomed to.  Recovering from our office move has taken longer than envisaged in part due to an exceptionally busy start to the month.  We've also seen our 3d scanner in use more than ever this past month with customer visits almost every day.

In particular correspondence and order lead times have taken a hit whilst we've juggled the many tasks of keeping things running smoothly.  I'm looking at a new email system at present to make it  much easier to prioritise your queries and to ensure that requests are responded to promptly.  

We really appreciate your patience and your custom and will be making an extra effort to ensure that you receive a high level of customer service.

Thank you

Alan

 

We are continuing to learn more and more about the capabilities of our new 3d scanning booth and one of the benefits has been the speed of the scanning process.  With capture times of 1/200 second this has finally allowed us to 3D scan children and even pets.

Our daughter Margot turned 3 in February and with a little encouragement agreed to be 3D scanned and the results were superb.  

We also had a visit from GBRf's Bessie who brought her two pugs along, both of which managed to remain still enough for a scan!

We'll continue to test the 3D scanning of dogs with some of our friends pets, but all being well we'll be able to offer this as a new service very soon!

 

 

We've a number of new releases scheduled for Ally Pally in 2 weeks time, these include:

Dapol / EFE J94 Crews in O and OO
Available in 3 themed packs of drivers and firemen, the new packs will feature:

11253 J94 BR Crew Pack
11254 J94 Industrial Crew Pack
11255 J94 NCB Crew Pack

With thanks to Nick Willcox from the SVR for the assistance with 3D Scans, Neil at Dapol and Dan at Derails for the loan of O and OO locos for test fitting.

 

Sutton Loco Works Class 25
We are really excited to be working again with Phil at Sutton Loco Works on new crews for their superb Class 25.  SLW were the first company where we worked directly with the manufacturer to produce bespoke models with a perfect fit.

We'll have 2 packs of driver and second man in OO and O gauge, the new packs will feature:

10231 Class 25 Early BR Crew Pack
10232 Class 25 Late BR Crew Pack

Thanks to Phil for the loan of a Class 25 cab interior and for Brian McCulloch for assistance with creating the poses.

 

 

Sadly we've not had time to make any progress on the new lamps, but once we've been to Ally Pally we'll be able to devote development time.  The first step will be sending out samples to the customers who kindly offered to trial the lamps.

Our plan is to offer two versions, firstly a full kit including all components required for illumination, and a second kit which will be just the 3d printed components for those that either don't require illumination, or have their own solution.

We hope this will provide a highly cost-effective way of adding as near-to-scale lighting as possible to your layouts.

 

 

Jed from Up An' At 'Em History is booked in for a day 3d scanning in March to kick off our new range of RAF Through the Ages figures.  We'll be focusing initially on the Battle of Britain and D-Day with a range of figures to be launched at Model World Live at the NEC in April.  Over time we'll be working with Jed and his colleagues to cover all manner of eras and theatres of the RAF's history.  Look out for images of prototype products on our social media in the coming weeks.

 

 

Thanks to Luke Griffen at the Ffestiniog & Welsh Highland Railway, we now have brand new crews for the modern-day 'Ladies' Blanche and Linda.  Both crew packs feature a driver and fireman sitting in the distinctive poses associated with these two locos.  Available now in all scales.

 

 

[Modelu Chris]

Newsletter continued:

 

 

With thanks to Fourdees for the loan of 3d printed locos we are pleased to announce two new sets of crews.  These include driver and fireman figures for the Corris/Talyllyn Tattoo and Talyllyn Dolgoch.  The crew poses and attire are inspired by photos of the locos and crews at Tywyn in the 1950s.  Available in all scales now.

 

 

 

 

With the new Peco Large England almost in the shops, we've decided to add another crew pairing to the range.  Our Small England crew was one of our most popular crew pairings so we hope this second set brings some variation to your fleet.  Available now in all scales

 

 

 

[Modelu Chris]

Newsletter continued further:

 

Our final release this month is two crew packs for Hornby's diminutive Ruston 48DS.  Designed for the open cab versions, the packs feature a driver and shunter with photographs inspired by images of the locos at work.  Available now in all scales.

 

 

 

Our products would be nothing without the people who volunteer their time and expertise to help us produce accurate figures.  We've recently been working with crews from GBRf, DB Cargo and Colas to completely overhaul our modern image range.  This will include new bespoke crews for Hornby, Bachmann and Heljan locos for early and late BR periods, Sectorisation and the modern Privatised era.  We are grateful to Bessie and Ollie of GBRf and Phil of Colas for bringing their day-to-day experiences to life in miniature.  Look out for new figures in the coming months!

 

 

Anyone who has followed Daryl Barne's ZL Swindon Works Facebook group will have seen his superb O gauge diorama based on his own experiences in the 1980s.  He recently began to add our figures to his scene, show here painted by Dan Evason.  Daryl has worked his magic to bring this scene to life, capturing the end for a Class 25.  

Daryl wins a £25 Modelu voucher for his entry.   If you'd like to enter, please email your photos to info@modelu3d.co.uk, or tag us in on social media.