William's Workbench - LBSCR, LC&DR & SER in 4mm, and Gauge 1

[Lacathedrale]

With a filament printer (for my other hobby of wargaming and printable terrain) I realised I could join g1-3d.uk and start availing myself of the wonderful models put out their by the community. Can you imagine a clip-together, fully printable Gauge 1 20t Brake Van for just the price of some filament? Well, it's a reality:

 

 

You can also see an LMS merchandise wagon and the cab of the L&YR battery electric shunter there too - which comes with a fully printable motor mount and gearbox compatible with cheap chinese geared motors.

 

It is an absolutely bizarre convergence of technologies that one can print rolling stock in G1 with freely available 3D models cheaper than buying the styrene to scratchbuild them in 4mm, let alone buying kits or RTR.  Clearly using metal wheels, axles, roller bearings, etc. would provide better rolling characteristics andfrankly there are some things I think would be better left as etched parts (such as lamp irons) - but frankly it's just wonderful.

 

I don't think this is part of a new project particularly, other than I had some of the parts printed and with a new reel of filament I continued printing them as I tweaked the settings.

 

Edited February 6 by Lacathedrale

[martin_wynne]

Hi William,

 

Link is https://www.g1-3d.uk/

 

(no .co)

 

Martin.

[Lacathedrale]

1 minute ago, martin_wynne said:

Hi William,

 

Link is https://www.g1-3d.uk/

 

(no .co)

 

Martin.

 

Thanks Martin, updated.

 

I do realise this is veering quite far off my original workbench subject matter, but rest assured there is still appropriate finescale Edwardian and Victorian shenanigans to come.

[Lacathedrale]

Shocking how a little bit more paint can transform a wagon:

 

 

It'll need a wash and the inside dirtied up quite a bit but I'm fairly pleased given this was my first ever filament print. I should probably attempt a faded 'LMS' and a BR wagon patch, shouldn't I?

[Lacathedrale]

I have done most of my modelling time on my Brighton Trafalgar layout recently, and little time building on my workbench - but after a brief hiatus I decided to get back to building some more Gauge 1 models and this is the result:

 

 

From left to right, an RCH 1923 open wagon (Slaters), an LNWR D88 (3D print, design by Mr. N. Milliers), an MR 5-plank (same) and a BR 20t Brake Van (3D print, design by Mr. T. Waldor.

 

The LNWR D88 is printed on my own design of split-spoke wagon wheels, I made a silly mistake by just downloading an STL off the internet without checking the dimensions and spent hours chasing the problem down until I realised the wheel I had used was Coarse-scale rather than G1MRA Fine - which was why it was clouting the W-iron assemblies (too large of a flange) and scraping the inside of the W-irons (since the wheel is thicker, the same B2B results in an over-width face to face measurement).

 

Incidentally my Fine wheel is available on g1-3d.uk and no doubt will be supplemented by straight, disc and mansell designs as I build the stock that require them:

 

Wheels, bearings, compensation and axles are not really a solved problem in 3d printed Gauge 1, it appears every designer has their own opinion. For what it's worth I'm trying to stick with 3mm silver steel axles in 3x8x3mm ball race bearings (acquired cheaply on aliexpress). The Norman Millier designed chassis are very elegant with pins to retain and/or pivot W-iron units and when I get around to designing my own I will hope to emulate it.

 

Really, 3D-printed Gauge 1 is such an absolutely fantastic convergence of technologies I can't believe more people aren't taking it up. I would estimate for the average 3D printed wagon costs are about as follows:

• 150-200g of filament (£2)
• 3D printer power cost (£1.50)
• 3mm Silver Steel axle (£2.50)
• Peter Korzilius steel sprung buffers (£8)
• Walsall Model Industries sprung coupling hooks/links  (£3) - the latter are a little over-sized but the notional plan is to build up a collection that can stand the rigors of an outdoor track and live steam.

 

Of course Mr. P. Korzilius, Slaters, MEL and Walsall all offer various metal components to further pimp your wagons - individually sprung W-Irons, stainless steel wheels, laser cut pushrods, etc. - but so far I've not found a need for them. One thing I'm going to have to get a handle on soon is transfers and lettering - there simply isn't the availability in G1 for pre-group transfers, and those grouping-era which are available run in the £10-20 per wagon range - time to learn signwriting.

 

For the immediate future I have a GWR Iron Mink on the workbench, and I am awaiting delivery of a GER G15 / LNER Y6 Tram kit from Model Engineer's Laser and GER Brake Van from PreGrouping courtesy of @MarcD 

Edited March 15 by Lacathedrale

[Lacathedrale]

The iron mink is coming together. This is an as built version with the plated doors, grease axleboxes, and single sided brake. I think I might paint this in the GWR like my 4 mm version a la @Mikkel - it’s gone together so well I think I’m going to build the later version with planked doors, oil boxes and the additional single brake break on the other side. 
 

Because of the size of the grease axle boxes there’s only space for solid brass bearings, so I’ve used the slaters wheelsets and they’re just perfect. It’s obviously significantly cheaper to print wheels and mount them on steel axles, but the running qualities seem to be quite different. I think a bit more investigation and testing is required!

 

My prototype eight spoke wheels are in the foreground of the photo.

[Lacathedrale]

GW Iron Mink almost complete - it needs a bit of weathering and overspray clean up, marking and a roof (which I'm getting laser cut for my own sanity) :

 

 

 

[Lacathedrale]

If I had to have one set of coaches to get me by in G1 my gut feeling is BR(S) in green.  Obviously they are distinctive designs, but if you squint they’re visually similar to pre-war Bulleids - at least in the sense of being green and smooth sided!

My justification for this is that I have two groups of locomotives I’m interested in: SECR/GER/ELR which can both run with teak four wheelers, and SR/BR steam/BR diesel all of which can run with green smooth sided carriages without looking incongruous.

 

Now to see how I can make that happen… 

[Lacathedrale]

 

The last of the 'easy' G1-3D printed designs, an MR/LMS 3-Plank Drop-Side Wagon from the fold of Mr. N. Millier - unfortunately a link broke on the Walsall coupling hook, and there's a bit of a puzzling mis-fit on the brakes so they're just resting in place presently. I'm still umm'ing and arr'ing about whether to go with slaters or 3D printed wheels. For these I rounded over the axle ends in the lathe so they don't catch on the inside face of the axleboxes and that's helped a little but they're still not quite as smooth running even with the ball-races.

 

 

[Lacathedrale]

Just in case anyone things they come off the printer like that, they are typically in the form of a kit of parts, something like this:

 

 

 

After printing the body, chassis, headstocks and wheels on the filament printer the brims are peeled and trimmed off.  The wheels were reamed 3mm to accept the axles. (note, the spoked wheels are upside-down, they look a bit more detailed than that from the front side !!). The brake gear, axlebox-springs, and W-irons were printed on a resin printer, so are washed and cured.

 

Everything gets a coat of primer: the wagon getting grey followed by a mixture of Heavy Bluegrey tempered with German Camo Black Brown (all paints are Vallejo acrylics) and everything below the solebar getting black primer and then a misting of neat Camo Black Brown. I painted the wagon interior with Light Brown, again moderated with Black Brown and Pale Sand to desaturate and darken slightly.

 

The pivoting w-irons were reamed 8mm (in the red sleeve) and the roller bearings inserted, and the wheels mounted on 3mm silver steel axles cut to length. The pins shown outboard of the w-iron units are used to attach them to the wagon body.

The Axlebox assemblies are attached using M1.4x4mm screws (you can just about see the teensy holes in the underside of the chassis) which self-tap into place, and the buffer housings are opened out to 2.5mm on the housing and 1.5mm through the headstock, and the sprung buffers inserted and bolted into place from behind. The hole in the drawplate and headstock is de-burred by twizzling a drill-bit in there, and the hooks inserted and spring/washer/retaining pin added.

 

In this particular case for some reason there's not much lateral space for the pivoting W-iron assembly to move around, but the screw/bolt/pin arrangements mean I can take it apart and fettle it without risking damage to any components. As I've said I would probably err on using Slaters wheels going forward, but at (effectively) £18/pair it's a significant investment, so I think I'm going to sit on my hands until I've got a track and loco so I can validate the real world impact.

 

 

 

 

 

[Lacathedrale]

I have just been reliably informed that the G1MRA Fine profile wheels I've been using so far on my stock are quite niche when it comes to usage, and G1MRA Standard is what track and RTR companies use. Luckily I've only got to tweak a few parameters in my 3D model and I can pump out the new wheels for a few pence.

 

From a rolling stock perspective the main difference is 0.5mm on the flange depth, and 1mm overall wheel width. It does unfortunately result in a much larger flangeway on turnouts - 3mm instead of 1.75mm - but frankly that kind of fastidiousness is not really appropriate for garden railways IMO! I can always run ScaleOne32 indoors if I am so inclined, I guess!

[Lacathedrale]

"Can ya guess what it is, yet?"

 

[Penrhos1920]

13 hours ago, Lacathedrale said:

"Can ya guess what it is, yet?"

 

 

Well it isn’t LBSCR, LC&DR or SER.  

[Lacathedrale]

20 hours ago, Penrhos1920 said:

 

Well it isn’t LBSCR, LC&DR or SER.  

Very observant of you 😜

 

Point taken, I’ll keep the gauge one stuff off this thread.