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The Pre-Grouping Pedants Weekly


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Wasn't that the Rev Peter Denny ? I thought Rev Beale was from Edinburgh but happy to stand corrected.

  

You're not much of a pedant if you allow yourself to be corrected and as for being happy!

Yes, but his answer is funnier.

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You're not much of a pedant if you allow yourself to be corrected and as for being happy!

 

You're right, I seem to have wandered into the dubious realm of critical knowledge pedantic relativism, otherwise known as CKPR.

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It could be 'Black Cat or Kitten' for all I know!

 

For me it's a bit like learning metric - it holds no advantage over the system I do understand and I so much can't be @rsed !

 

Only LNW and LCD locomotives should be black, and then only if clean, polished and lined!

 

What colour should this be then........

 

post-8525-0-69469100-1407085042_thumb.jpg
 
Don
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Good to see our worthy stationmaster again, haven’t seen him for a while. Tip, for invisible green, add a small splodge of yellow to the black paint, and mix in. If you add a bit more yellow, you can get near to an “old” GWR green.

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I understood that much of the suggestion of colour in "Invisible Green" or "Blackberry Black" had a lot to do with the reflection of the sky from the highly-varnished and polished finish applied to basically black surfaces. The apparent colour might then be weather-dependent, which would explain the difference between the Cambrian and Hull & Barnsley engines, for example.

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LNWR Black, according to the LNWR Liveries book, was simply that, black. The Blackberry effect came about through polishing the locos and wiping over with oil.

There is an article in an early BRJ on the painting on LNWR engines. What impressed me was not the number of coats of paint, but the amount of rubbing down to create a smooth surface, which probably removed most of the paint, but which would have created a highly polished surface.

 

Also, a lot of railways used varnishes which yellowed with age (copal?) - and possibly cleaning - which would affect things, too: noticeably on white and pale cream panels on coaches.

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I understood that much of the suggestion of colour in "Invisible Green" or "Blackberry Black" had a lot to do with the reflection of the sky from the highly-varnished and polished finish applied to basically black surfaces. The apparent colour might then be weather-dependent, which would explain the difference between the Cambrian and Hull & Barnsley engines, for example.

 

How Green was my valley  engine ?

 

Don

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I don't think any railway company managed to produce such a rough finish as some of the 3D models we have seen on RMweb.

A couple of years ago I saw some 3D printed models on Bill Bedford’s stand at either Railex or Scalefourum which had a commendably smooth finish: I thought he had filled and polished the surface, but no, they were as printed. Probably cost more and took longer, but it shows what is possible.

 

The 3D printing technology was designed for rapid prototyping, i.e. testing designs and concepts, where a smooth finish is less important. As resolution has improved, it has been possible to use it to produce pattern masters for surface finishing, and here it really does come into its own. And as I said above, it is possible the get a find finish, although at such a resolution the printing will undoubtedly take longer.

 

If the lower resolution prints were used as the starting point, with surface finishing, either as a one-off or a pattern for resin or metal casting, then this is a good use of technology. Similarly, for small components such as axleboxes with company names emblazoned across them, then the cost of very high resolution printing is worthwhile, particularly for patterns for casting, which may turn out to be cheaper than repeat printing orders.

 

The problem I have with this, as you identify, Jol, is that the lower resolutions are being used to save cost, but without surface filling and polishing being applied by hand. And if you take short cuts on cost, you usually get lower quality.

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I'm going to put my Engineering Pedant hat on. "3D Printing" only refers to machine that uses deposition of a material to produce. We use a process called "Selective Laser Sintering", SLS. This uses a Laser to fuse powdered material together it gives higher definition than the deposition method. But as You can guess it costs more. Also the definition of models is also dependant on the software being used to to generate the .stl file the smaller the mesh the more detail you get. 

   

We are stopping using metal casting of parts for our kits as the quality of the "printer" we use give us a better finish than the the castings we were using. Also our new products will be available to print from our shapeways shop or ready to run. from ourselves. We have been using "3D Printing", for the last 8 years, for pattern making but with the fall in prices for "printing" and the rise in material costs for thing like resin, brass and rubber now make the production of kits in the traditional way financially prohibiting. 

 

Marc    

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Bill Bedford (Mousa) seems to be following a similar trajectory from using 3D printing to create a master for resin casting to direct 3D printing. For a small manufacturer, and for us as customers in the niche market of pre-Grouping kits, this opens up the possibility of models of prototypes previously completely uneconomic - and eventually to print-on-demand, lowering the stock overhead for the manufacturer. Of course there will still need to be a minimum volume of sales to cover development costs and provide a margin to live on. It's important that quality is maintained so that people aren't put off by a bad first experience - as seems too often to have been the case with etched brass.

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Indeed...

 

Hence why, when looking to create my own pre-grouping locos, I immediately turned to 3D Printing! My sole example so far, a HO Scale LBSCR Class D1 0-4-2T (from Imaterialise, printed in their equivalent of Shapeways' WSF) had a smooth enough finish to just paint it an put the transfers on!

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Of course the LNWR only painted their engines black as of 1873, prior to that they were mostly green with the occasional red engine

SDL_LNWR%20Lady%20of%20the%20Lake.jpg

1.jpg

even after the change they painted this white and lilac with another being red with a blue smokebox and white wheel rims and buffers

26184676072_0578f3bb58_b.jpg

Edited by Killian keane
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I'm going to put my Engineering Pedant hat on. "3D Printing" only refers to machine that uses deposition of a material to produce. We use a process called "Selective Laser Sintering", SLS. This uses a Laser to fuse powdered material together it gives higher definition than the deposition method. But as You can guess it costs more. Also the definition of models is also dependant on the software being used to to generate the .stl file the smaller the mesh the more detail you get. 

   

We are stopping using metal casting of parts for our kits as the quality of the "printer" we use give us a better finish than the the castings we were using. Also our new products will be available to print from our shapeways shop or ready to run. from ourselves. We have been using "3D Printing", for the last 8 years, for pattern making but with the fall in prices for "printing" and the rise in material costs for thing like resin, brass and rubber now make the production of kits in the traditional way financially prohibiting. 

 

Marc

 

Useful info: maybe Bill had used SLS?

 

But when I mentioned 3D printing, 3D printing was what I was criticising.

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