Leaderboard

At the end of the previous part, I had printed the main body components but was experiencing difficulty in printing small boiler fittings. The difficulty was that, on their own, these had no flat surface to lay on the printer bed. My next idea was to ‘slice’ these components just above the curved flanges that fit around the boiler and print the upper and lower parts separately, so that they could subsequently be glued together across their flat faces. To my surprise, the tiny components printed remarkably well and could be glued together as I had anticipated. Considering that my E180 printer had only cost me £185 (it was on offer at the time), I considered this a remarkable achievement. Below, I show a couple of these tiny parts in the palm of my hand. 3D-printed Dome & Safety Valve Cover I have always tried to arrange items for printing so that there are no overhangs, which are a major problem for fused-deposition printers like mine. This is because they cannot lay down plastic filament over empty space. I’ve found, however, that my printer appears to be fairly tolerant of small overhangs, where the new layers can adhere to adjacent layers in the same plane. I found that this was the case when printing flanged wheels, when the flanges were reproduced without any support below them. As another step along these lines, I decided to try printing the flange below the chimney of my current model as an integral part of the smokebox and found that it worked very well. I followed this by re-printing the boiler with protruding flanged bases on which to mount my flat-bottomed dome and safety-valve components. The revised boiler and fittings printed successfully, as shown below: Boiler & Smokebox with flanged mounting points Printing the chimney raised some interesting new challenges. Since the mounting flange was already printed on the smokebox, the main task was to produce the flared cap. I started by extruding a cylinder and then, as shown below, used the ‘fillet’ and ‘chamfer’ tools in ‘Fusion 360’ to create a suitable cap. Stages in 3D-printing a flared chimney Some of the finer points are beyond the resolution of my printer but it’s good to know how to do them. Once I had worked out the methods, the actual design went very smoothly and the chimney printed successfully in less than 10 minutes. When printing, I included a wide brim as a support structure at the base, in case the chimney toppled during printing. I suffered this experience with one of my boiler test prints, when I forgot to provide a brim and ended up with a messy blob of plastic on the printer bed! Chimney with support brim on printer bed It was by way of light relief from the design effort I had expended on the chimney that I also printed the smokebox front, with a sloping cover for the fronts of the cylinders. The smokebox door has a very shallow curve, which is obviously layered in the 3D print but I’m hoping that priming and painting will minimise the visibility of the steps. The next, more complex task, was to print the cab. I had decided to provide the later style of cab with a roof, rather than the vestigial version originally fitted by Armstrong. It is said that Armstrong believed that enclosed cabs were unhealthy, which was probably true when coke was the fuel and considerable amounts of carbon monoxide were produced. I designed the cab so that it would lie on the printer bed with the flat front downwards. The first stage was to extrude the cab front and rectangular sides. I then copied a drawing of the side of the cab, including the shape of the side openings and the wheel arch. I overlaid this drawing as a DXF import over the cab side and used the ‘push-pull’ tool in ‘Fusion 360’ to open out these shapes. I also added an arc to the top of the cab front and extruded this to form the roof. Having extruded a drawing of the outline of the back-head and used the ‘fillet’ tool to create the rounded edges, I started adding representations of various controls and pipes, with reference to photographs. In 4 mm scale, I feel it is sufficient to trace the general outlines, rather than attempting to add too many details. I illustrate the steps below: Stages in printing the Cab After printing all these items, none of which took very long to print, although the design time was much longer, it was time to see if they would all fit together and clear the 00-gauge wheels. There are rather large gaps around the wheels, which will be filled when I add the tops to the wheel arches, either from brass strips or plasticard. current stage of my Armstrong Standard Goods I think the result has captured the ‘look and feel’ of Armstrong’s prototype rather well. There are of course, many fittings still to be added but I think my work so far has demonstrated the feasibility of making attractive and robust models by means of a combination of brass sub-structure and 3D-printed overlays. This is not an example of skilled model-engineering but it demonstrates that pleasing results can be obtained from low-cost equipment operating in a domestic environment. The difference in ‘character’ between the Armstrong Standard Goods and its successor, the Dean Goods, came across very clearly when I placed my model head-to-head with my ‘Mainline’ Dean Goods, as shown below: my models of Armstrong and Dean Goods engines head-to-head The boiler of the ‘Dean’ is both shorter and higher in pitch than the earlier design, which give it the ‘pugnacious’ look that I once commented upon in an earlier post, The ‘Armstrong’ has the less robust look of an engine from the mid-nineteenth century. One of the pleasing aspects of ‘rolling your own’ is that you do not have to accept the compromises that are inevitable when relying on ‘bought in’ components, which are rarely designed to meet the needs of the modeller of 19th century prototypes. Mike

Pleased to report that I'm back on track Railway Modelling, after my gentle excursion into 1/35th scale Military modelling I've been building a WEP etched brass wagon kit of a G.W.R. 2 plank wagon, to add to my wagon fleet. WEP 2 plank wagon kit The kit parts fit together well, with very little fettling needed to get a good result, although I had to use some Milliput Putty to fill a few gaps particularly around the top plank join. The kit also incorporates a rocking axle, so the finished wagon is compensated and will hopefully run well Body Chassis Finished Build I replaced the white metal buffers that were included in the kit as they were fairly crude castings. with some sprung ones from Slaters. I'm not convinced I've improved things and really need to find a prototype photograph of G.W.R. two plank wagon! I've had a look through my book collection and the only likely candidate that I found was in "Ewardian Enterprise" https://biblio.co.uk/book/edwardian-enterprise-norris-john-beale-gerry/d/630504055?aid=frg&utm_source=google&utm_medium=product&utm_campaign=feed-details&gclid=CjwKCAjwm_P5BRAhEiwAwRzSO2UnhOzqACv40NBOKoufgC9kkn88Xsj2k0gGd_I3Fow58XKhiuLTSBoCO4UQAvD_BwE I've posted a cropped version of the picture here, which I hope wont infringe copy right. If anyone can help with a better picture of an appropriate two plank wagon, I'd be delighted to hear from them! The picture also shows the wagon carrying a furniture removal container, something that I would like to model Many years ago I built this wagon, which is obviously far to modern to run on Sherton Abbas, but I'm thinking about reusing the container. Container on Match truck The container was built from an etched brass kit, that I found in a car boot sale, the instructions had been lost, so I've no idea of it's parentage. The transfers came in the kit, so I can take no credit for the lettering, but it does beg the question if it's a suitable load for an Edwardian layout! A Google search shows that Pickfords are a very old removal company https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pickfords#:~:text=Pickfords is a moving company,Porters Society was founded earlier. but if anyone can shed any light on whether my example looks Edwardian would again be much appreciated. Sorry for so many questions, but there are some very knowledgeable people on the forum Best wishes Dave

Just a few of shots of the uncouplers at work, partially obscured by protruding brass rod ends (wrapped in masking tape to avoid injury...) Also made a template for the control panel with card. Surprised how good it looks, might try to recreate it with wood veneer. As always, I can't get images to appear in any kind of order, apologies for that!

Never become complacent! After a long spell of trouble-free printing, I started to encounter problems a couple of weeks ago. First off, the old problem of lack of adhesion to the printer bed returned. I had become lazy about replacing the blue masking tape and the surface had become worn. After replacement and re-levelling, all seemed well again ... until the heat wave struck. The next problem was uneven printing. It was too hot for me in my work room, so I left it alone while I got on with designing components for the Armstrong Goods on my laptop. When I ventured back to the ‘hot room’, I noticed that the printing filament seemed to have become hard and brittle. Some reading on the web confirmed that this is a symptom of water absorption in high humidity. I unwound the outer layer and it seemed better underneath. I must take care to keep my filament reels in desiccated containers, as recommended. Next, I tried a test print of one of my outside frame overlays and found that filament was ‘stringing’ between the rivet heads, so that they merged into raised lines. Earlier prints of frames for my Gooch tender had been very good, so I had yet another problem to investigate. Poor-quality 3D Print From more reading on the web, the principal suspect was filament temperature. I realised that, with my work room almost 10°C warmer than usual, the filament exuding from the print head was cooling less rapidly, so I lowered the print-head temperature by 10°C to try and compensate. Results improved considerably, although still not as crisp as I had on my earlier tender. I shall have to wait until the room temperature drops, to see if the previous performance is restored. While trying to solve the problems, I made several test-prints of the side frames, which profligacy was fortunately not too serious, since the cost, calculated by the ‘Cura’ software, was only £0.02 per frame In addition, each print only took 10 minutes to complete, so I was able to assess the effects of changing parameters quite rapidly. This is an important advantage, gained by assembling a model from small individual components. I needed to print four main components to add flesh to the brass skeleton, plus a set of wheels from ‘Alan Gibson’. The quickest to print were the outside frames at 10 minutes per print, followed by the smokebox at 19 mins., then the footplate and splasher fronts at 40 mins., with the boiler and firebox taking the longest, at 57 mins. None of these times was sufficient to present a deterrent to making trial prints for testing clearances and fit during assembly. I printed the boiler vertically from the firebox end. Unfortunately, this precluded adding boiler fittings, such as the dome, as they would require additional support which might be difficult to remove without damaging the surface finish. I decided to print these fittings separately. 3D printed cladding on brass boiler tube After the other printed components were complete, I glued the outside frame overlays onto the sides of the brass chassis assembly. To check the clearances around the wheels, my method is to thread the wheels onto long M3 machine screws and then add nuts to hold the wheels at an appropriate back-to-back spacing between the frames. I have used this method for my broad gauge models as well and find it a convenient way of checking the overall alignment before committing to fixing the wheels onto their axles. The component parts are shown below: 3D-printed parts added to the brass components, with temporary wheel fittings My checks showed that the clearances for the footplate and splashers were appropriate, so I could now assemble the parts to make the main body of my Armstrong Goods engine. With its strong brass skeleton, my model has a good ‘solid’ feel. Components loosely assembled on chassis I tried 3D printing a dome and, while the main shape printed well, the flange to the boiler did not. I shall need to give more thought as to how to support this part of the structure during printing. I did include the dome when I pasted a photograph of my model over the illustration of prototype No. 661. I am very pleased with the results so far, although there is still quite a lot to do in order to complete this model. My next steps will be to print the smokebox front and the backplate. My Model (brown) superimposed over Engine No.661 EDIT - On looking at the photos, it was clear that the hind splashers were incorrectly positioned. Re-measurement of the computer drawing showed I had placed them 1 mm forward from their correct position. I have no idea what happened except that "to err is human". I have re-positioned them and will re-print. this component Mike

In my previous post, I showed the brass components that will form the ‘hard’ skeleton of my planned model of an Armstrong Standard Goods engine. The fireman’s side of No.661 is shown below to complement my previous illustrations of the driver’s side of No.31: Armstrong Standard Goods No.661 Now, I shall describe my procedures for producing 3D-printed parts to form the ‘flesh’ of the model, which will carry the details of the outside frames, footplate, boiler cladding, smoke-box, and firebox. The methods I used are similar to those that I have previously described for my model of a Gooch Standard Goods. The frames should have been easy but I hit a glitch for which I have a work-around. Since I had a drawing of a frame, including all the rivet details (shown in my previous post), I used ‘Silhouette Studio’ software to trace this drawing. I used this software because I am familiar with it but I also know it has limitations when saving files. Fortunately, there is a website that can convert ‘studio3’ files into SVG format on-line. Unfortunately, however, for reasons that I haven’t yet investigated, the resulting SVG files do not import correctly into my ‘Fusion 360’ 3D-modelling software. My ‘work-around’ was to open my SVG file in ‘Inkscape’ and re-save it as a DXF file. The resulting DXF file opened correctly in ‘Fusion 360’ and allowed me to continue with creating the 3D model. My first step was to select all the raised rivet heads and raise them by 1.33 mm above the drawing surface. I then selected the rest of the frame outline and raised this by 1 mm. This leaves a solid frame with the rivet-heads protruding from the surface. My reasons for doing things in this order is that the original drawing remains visible whereas, if I raised the whole frame first, I would not be able to access the rivet details. Once drawn, I exported the file into my ‘Cura’ slicing software, where I could preview the appearance of the frame before printing: Preview of 3D-model of an Outside Frame For the other components, I used ‘Autosketch’ as an intermediate step towards creating my own 3D drawings. In principle, the footplate was the simplest of these parts but needed care in ensuring clearance was provided for the 00-gauge wheels that intend to use. It is basically a rectangular plate with cut-outs for the wheel apertures. I decided to add the outer faces of the wheel arches and the sand boxes to the plate since it was convenient to add these at this stage. Autosketch Drawing of Footplate My 2D drawing is shown above and, after saving it as a DXF file, I opened it in ‘Fusion 360’ to raise the 3D elements above the footplate. This is the first time that I’ve added details from a drawing in a different plane from the original, then using the Push/pull tool from the new plane. So, another step along my personal learning curve. Adding wheel arches from a drawing in the vertical plane A big attraction for me, as an impatient modeller, is that the print times for these individual components are quite short. This makes it easy to review my designs and to make corrections and re-print as necessary. I found the printing process was extremely tedious when I was printing entire vehicles at one go, which usually took several hours to complete. The print time for one of my outside frames is only about 9 minutes, while the footplate, complete with sand boxes and wheel arches, takes less than 45 minutes. My design for the smokebox followed the same process that I have used previously for the Gooch Goods, in that I simply extruded the length of the smokebox from a 2D drawing of the front face. The shell includes openings for the boiler barrel and the chimney. Similarly, the boiler cladding was designed as for the Gooch Goods, with the addition of the sides of the firebox in the relevant area. Both these component proved straight-forward to print. Before actually physically printing anything, I realised that it was possible to open several components at once in the ‘Cura’ software and arrange them on the build plate, in their correct relative positions, in order to check that they all fitted together neatly. I made a couple of screen-shots of these ‘virtual test builds’: Print previews of 3D Component Assemblies Because it’s rather too warm in my work-room at present, I’m going to leave things on a ‘cliff hanger’ for the moment but I feel reasonably confident that I have a good way ahead, towards a physical model. I also need to wait for my wheel-sets to arrive from ‘Alan Gibson’, so that I can check that all the clearances I have allowed will be sufficient but not excessive. Boiler Mountings Whilst in the 3D-modelling mood, I decided to investigate the possibility of adding boiler fitments such as domes and safety-valve covers to my boiler designs. I recall some correspondence, several years ago, when several fellow modellers were experimenting with ‘Blender’ for 3D modelling. I must admit that my impression that it was all rather difficult has remained with me ever since. Fortunately, times have moved on. I see that, back in 2014, I wrote a comment “It will be nice when there's a 3D equivalent to the Silhouette cutter!” to which @JCL replied “Yep, there's no way I'll be able to afford a printer“. How much the world has changed in six years!!! Fortunately, 3D software has also advanced so that, when I set out to try creating a dome, it turned out to be much easier than I expected. In ‘Fusion 360’, it is possible to make a 2D cross-section drawing and use the ‘Revolve’ tool to rotate it around a selected axis, to produce a solid component. This works in a similar way to the ‘Push/pull’ tool that I now use routinely for linear extrusions. There are one or two caveats, in that the axis has to be outside the area enclosed by the drawing but that is easily overcome by splitting the profile down the centre-line. I created a ‘profile’ by combining drawings of a rectangle and a circle and then ‘revolved’ the profile through 360° to create a dome-shaped object. Extruding a Dome in ‘Fusion 360’ The next move along my ‘learning curve’ was to add this newly created object to my existing boiler model. This was not an intuitive process but, fortunately, the solution was to be found on the web. The first requirement was to select and copy the dome ‘body’ and then to open the existing model of my boiler. The tricky step is to select ‘Create Base Feature’ from the ‘Create’ menu. After that key step, you can ‘Paste’ the body of the dome into a ‘base feature’. Finally, click on ‘Finish Base Feature’ and the dome becomes a new ‘body’ alongside the ‘body’ of the boiler. I have no idea what all that means but it works. Once the two ‘bodies’ are in the same drawing window, it is only necessary to use the ‘Move’ tool to slide the dome into its desired location on the boiler. The lower part of the dome can be slid ‘through’ the shell of the boiler until the height above the boiler matches the required specification. Any excess length inside the boiler can easily be removed by selected the circular end face of the boiler then extruding this face through the length of the boiler, where it acts as a ‘reamer’, to remove any intrusions! The next step is to use the ‘Combine’ tool, to join together the dome and the boiler as a single ‘body’. As the finishing touch, the ring where the dome meets the curved surface of the boiler can be selected and then the ‘Fillet’ tool applied, to achieve the desired radius around the join. Once you know how, it is all very straight-forward and, flushed with success with the dome, I quickly added a safety valve cover as well: Adding Boiler Fittings in ‘Fusion 360’ Well, I may not not have produced any new hardware yet but I have learned quite a lot about 3D modelling, which will hopefully be useful in all sorts of future projects. In the meantime, we must all wait to see how this will turn out in practice, once I start printing Mike P.S. Some time ago, I expressed concern about non-availability of spares for my Geeetech E180 printer. I am now pleased to report that I have received spare print heads directly from the manufacturer in China. It took a while but I’m now set up to continue for a reasonable time ahead.

It’s some time since I’ve scratch-built a standard gauge locomotive, having been spending my time recently on Broad Gauge models. I learned several lessons, however, during the construction of my previous 00-gauge models, the most important of which was to remember that 00-gauge is actually a narrow gauge – closer to 4’ than 4’ 8 ½”, when scaled. My first scratch-build, described in 'Railway Modeller', July 2014, was of a 2-2-2 ‘Queen’ class engine, which was a simple choice because single-drivers create no problems of coupling rods and their alignment. As I commented at the time, building a ‘single’ is little different from building a wagon, especially if tender-drive is used for the model. My ‘Queen’-class model The problem of ‘narrow gauge’ raised its ugly head when trying to fit the large driving wheels since, in 00 gauge, they intercepted space occupied by the boiler! The solution was to cut oval apertures in the sides of the boiler, where they are hidden behind the splashers. It’s a good job I didn’t attempt an earlier version, with ‘open’ splashers. A rather wide gap between the wheels and the outside frames remains obvious at some angles. Later, I built a model of one of the former West Midland Rly. Engines, which was absorbed by the GWR as No. 184, where it retained the ‘Wolverhampton’ livery. My model of GWR No.184, with ‘517’ class In this second case, the ‘narrow gauge problem’ appeared when attempting to fit the outside coupling rods. I found that I had been over-generous in my frame spacing and couldn’t prevent the outside cranks from rubbing on the frames. Because of the way I had constructed this model, it was not simple to reduce the separation of the frames, I had formed the frames by folding down the edges of the rectangular plate that represented the footplate. Part of the problem was that I had forgotten to take account of the thickness of the folded edges, which made the outside dimensions wider than I had intended. Another ‘lesson learned’. With these ‘lessons’ firmly in mind, I began to prepare drawings of my new engine, taking account of 00-gauge constraints. As noted in my previous post, I have a side-on photo of No.31 and a drawing of Armstrong’s earlier No.361, which differed in the style of the frames. By merging information from these two sources, I prepared outline drawings to form a basis for my model, as shown below: My Interpretation of an Armstrong Standard Goods with Original Boiler - derived from various sources In the head-on view, I have marked in red the positions of 00-gauge wheels. Although they will just be clear of the boiler (including an allowance for cladding), they will interfere with the smokebox cladding and the lower sides of the firebox, so I shall need to make allowance for these intrusions. In both cases, the necessary openings will be concealed by the splashers, which I shall maintain close to their ‘true’ locations. I have examined several different early photos of the prototypes and it is clear that some fittings, such as the location of the injectors on the sides of the boiler barrel, varied quite widely. I decided to add a cab, since these were adopted quite soon after the introduction for these engines although initially in a more truncated form. My plan for the actual ‘build’ is to adapt techniques I developed when making broad-gauge engines, such as my Gooch Goods, in that I intend to use a combination of brass components and 3D-printed overlays. This is the first time I have adopted this approach for a standard gauge model engine. It follows my tradition of trying out new techniques with every model I build My starting point, therefore, was to construct a set of outside frames, For strength, I decided to make these from lengths of 6 mm x 1 mm brass strip. In fact, I took a single length of strip, marked off the lengths of the sides at 95 mm and marked the width to give clearance to the ‘narrow gauge’ 00 wheels. I then used a square-section needle file to make vee-shaped grooves in the brass strips at the appropriate positions to fold the strip into a 95 mm x 21.5 mm (inside) rectangle. Cutting groove and folding into rectangle I ‘squared up’ the resulting box form over a sheet of graph paper. Once the assembly was ‘square’, I soldered the final joint and trimmed off the excess strip by using a diamond cutting wheel in my mini-drill. Careful trimming with needle files removed any remaining rough edges. The main boiler assembly was even simpler. I bought a length of 21/32” (16.7 mm) brass tube from ‘Cornwall Model Boats’, which provides an outside boiler diameter equivalent to the prototype’s 4’ 2”. I shall add cladding by means of a 3D-printed sleeve, as I have done previously for my model of a Gooch goods. Brass skeleton of my planned model These brass components will form the ‘hard’ skeleton of my planned model and, in the next stage, I shall add 3D-printed parts to carry the details of the outside frames and of the boiler cladding, smoke-box, and firebox. I intend to use ‘Alan Gibson’ wheels on extended (32 mm) axles, to carry the outside cranks and coupling rods. I hope that my next post will show something that looks more like a locomotive Mike

I thought it was about time that I finished my Dean Goods, so here it is virtually done. It has taken an awfully long time to do, although in fairness it has been resting untouched for long periods while I worked on other projects. The loco has the original twin flywheel Oxford mechanism that came with the lined pre-grouping version. Mine is a very smooth runner, which is why I found the project worthwhile in the first place. Indeed I've bought another one at a sale, which also runs very well. Below is a summary of the main steps since the first post on the project, with some further photos of the completed item towards the end. Cab The cab floor and interior splashers were built up from styrene. A cut-out was required in order to clear the motor when fitting the body. The cab detail is a bit quick and dirty. I found a backhead in the spares box, spruced it up a bit and moved it 0.5 mms into the cab to clear the motor. It’s too low, but don’t tell anyone. The raised floor section in the right hand side of the cab can be seen on No. 2516 at Steam, but I’m not sure if it was there in the 1900s? According to Martin Finney, cab seats were a later feature so I didn’t fit any. Brassmasters have some lovely Finney fittings for the cab, but I wanted to save my pennies, so modified the Oxford lever and springs to look a bit more accurate. The cab side beading was made from 5 thou strips, cut on my Portrait and curved gently with my warm and healing fingers. Stuck down with Limonene and secured by rolling a brush handle against it. Further beading and handrails were made from wire. The cab roof was built up with four laminated layers, here are the first two (10 + 5 thou). And the uppermost two (2 x 5 thou). The join between cab and boiler was also built up piecemeal, very close to the spectacles as per my prototype. Fittings Handrails were fitted using my well established formula: "Measure once, drill thrice !". Boiler washout plugs from Coast Line Models. Alan appears to have temporarily withdrawn these, I hope they’ll return. I fashioned a new reversing lever, and fitted a loco jack from the Broad Gauge Society. Photos of the uprights on which loco jacks were mounted during this period are rare, here's a crop from an image I found (left). Also a standing version, which I suspect was an earlier arrangement. The curvy “piano lid” cylinder cover was a feature of some locos during the short smokebox period. They were sometimes left in open position while running! Fittings on the smokebox side were cobbled up from bits of brass. Chassis The loco chassis required very little modification, which means it can be easily replaced in case of a major failure. However, an indication of the ash pan and nearby components was needed. So I nicked Coachmann’s idea and made a simple screw-on unit. Later the ashpan was painted and Archer's rivets applied. Tender The Oxford tender is generally a good representation of the 2500 gallon variant, but various mods were needed to backdate it to 1900s condition. First, the fenders were cut off using a scalpel, and the area was filed clean. The protecting plates at the rear and front were too high for my 1900s prototype, and were therefore filed down to appropriate height and shape. I left the casing for the water filler untouched. Subsequent discussions suggest that the shape may have been different during this period - but I will leave it for now. Next up were the coal rails. I first tried cutting some 10 thou Evergreen on my Silhouette cutter. It looks OK here, but as might be expected it was just too flimsy. Instead I used wire from Eileen’s Emporium, halfround as per the prototype. I considered soldering but thought the joints might come undone every time I applied heat, so used epoxy. The result is quite solid. The uprights were fitted into holes just inside the flare of the tender sides, taking care not to break through the sides. I think the top rail sits a trifle high. Ah well. Photos suggest that most of the fittings at the front of the Oxford tender are not appropriate for my period. Replacement toolboxes and air vents from Brassmasters (ex-Finney) were fitted. Maybe the latter should be smaller on a 2500G tender, not sure. Sandboxes were cobbled together from bits of styrene. The front steps of the early 2500g tenders had an inward curve. A couple of round files solved this. The plastic protects the chassis from metal dust. Here is the result. The finished tender (less brake gear). Loco and modified tender. Painting and lining The loco in primer. After recovering from an "orange peel" disaster I got the paint job done. The green is Vallejo 70.850 with a touch of black (5:1), the red is 70.814. Lining was done with HMRS Pressfix transfers. One side done. The triple panels on the tender were tricky. Halfway through I ran out of lining, and discovered that new HMRS lining sheets are a different colour from the older ones. The samples above show the old sheet, and three new sheets. The latter came directly from the HMRS, whose own illustration still shows the older shade. A Fox sheet is also featured. In the end I cobbled together the remaining lining from an old sheet, using 26 pieces for one cabside . It does show in places. Final details Cab windows were made by filing and sanding the teeth off watchmaker's cogs. The glazing was cut on my Silhouette cutter. Not perfect, but I can live with it. Bit of fun: The Oxford model comes with a choice of coarse or fine screw link couplings (bottom two). I modified mine by adding a “Tommy bar” (top), fashioned from a part that I found in my box of watchmaker’s spares. A last few shots of the loco. Photos of 2487 and some other Dean Goods shows the safety valve slightly off-set from the center of the boiler band, so I copied that. Annoyingly I forgot to add the safety valve lever. Too late now, I can't get in there to fit it properly. The big compromise is the seam line in the boiler, although I only notice it from certain angles. I had planned to distract from the join by carrying the lining all round, but experiments showed that it had the opposite effect, so I left it off. Were I to do it again I would give more attention to matching the angles of the two edges as they meet, which could have been better. Still, I'm happy enough with it. The short smokebox and piano-lid cylinder cover makes it a bit different from available kit versions. No other comparison intended! So that's about it. Loco lamps and crew are on the workbench, and I need to fit couplings bars between the buffers. I also need some work plates, the one seen here is a stand-in of unknown origin. Does anyone know a source of 4mm works plates?

I make no secret of the fact that I find it hard to keep up momentum once I’ve completed the main structure of an engine and have to think about adding the various small details. Gooch Goods ‘Tantalus’ – bare bones One particular irritation with my Gooch Goods was that there were some things that I could easily have included in the main 3D-printed components but had neglected to do so. This was largely because, like most of my projects, it was experimental in that I was exploring new methods of construction. In fact, I had found a simple and sturdy method to construct the engine around a brass tube for the boiler barrel. When it was pointed out that the external dimensions of the boiler should include the thickness of the cladding, I simply added a 3D-printed sleeve, which also carried details such as the boiler bands. Since then, I have found some text about boiler cladding in an early book about locomotive construction: ‘Railway Machinery’ by D.K. Clark (1855) “Cleading [sic]. The boiler should be completely enveloped, at all approachable points, in a non-conducting garment, consisting of several plies of felt, covered with ¾ inch pine battens grooved and tongued, and finished with sheet iron, No. 17 wire gauge, strapped well down.” This text indicates that, in the early days, the cladding was rather thin and that its main purpose seems to be have been to protect personnel, rather than reducing thermal losses. Another surprising statement from the same book is: “There should not be any brass ornamental work about locomotives; as, to appear well, it requires continual cleaning.” It seems that, as early as 1855, cleaning was beginning to be considered an unnecessary expense! Detail Painting One advantage from having built my boiler with removable cladding is that I could paint the brass fillets, at the firebox and smokebox ends, with no risk of over-spill of paint onto the cladding! One of the many ‘fiddly’ details to be attended to was painting the ‘bright-work’. Fortunately, I still have steady hands, although I need to work under an illuminated magnifier to be able to see the details clearly, as shown in the photo below. Credit must also go to my excellent Winsor & Newton series 7 brushes, that maintain the fine tips that are essential to be able to place paint accurately. I used to prefer enamel paints for models but now find that acrylics have advantages, although they have to be used in a different way – more like water colour painting. The important thing is to keep the brush suitably moist from a clean pot of water to hand. I then add pigment to the tip of the brush and sweep it across the surfaces, making sure that they stay moist. Keeping the surface wet, I add pigment until the depth of colour is sufficient. The ‘Rustoleum’ ‘Dark Green’ I used is a water-based paint and I added black to achieve my required tint. It seems strange that the colour, as I perceive it, appears to become less blue as I add black! As I mentioned in my post about ‘Rob Roy’, I find the colour feels ‘right’ to me for early GWR locomotives, although it is very different from the later chrome green. For comparison, I photographed one of my Gooch boilers, painted in my interpretation of ‘Holly Green’, placed in front of my ‘1854’-class saddle tank painted in ‘Precision Paints’ 1881-1906 GWR Green.: I also used acrylic paint for the outside splashers on the goods engine, which have half-etched central recesses between the upper and lower edge beading. These are components from the Broad Gauge Society (BGS) kit for the Gooch Goods and I found it easier to paint this detail while the frames were still on the fret, as shown below: Adding details An important omission in my initial construction was that I failed to add a plinth for the safety-valve cover on the top of the firebox. It was a new challenge to work out how to add this feature on top of the curved surface of the firebox. The method I devised, using ‘Fusion 360’ software, was to create an ‘offset plane’ at an appropriate distance above the crown of the firebox cladding. I then drew a square (using ‘sketch’ mode) on this plane and used the ‘push/pull’ tool to extrude this square to meet the curved surface of the firebox. Finally, I used the ‘hole’ tool, to make a central hole to accept the spigot on the base of my lost-wax casting of the safety-valve cover. My method is illustrated by the screen-shot from ‘Fusion 360’, shown below: Because of my modular method of construction, it would have been easy to replace the original firebox with this revised version, although I had already completed some tricky painting of the original firebox, including the polished brass trim. When I added this extra plinth, however, ‘Fusion 360’ offered the option to make the feature a new ‘body’. This new body could be separated from the original firebox and exported as a separate file for 3D-printing. I was somewhat sceptical that such a small item would print successfully but decided to have a go. Considering that my ‘Geeetech E180’ printer is an inexpensive machine, I was pleasantly surprised by the result. Two adjustments to my usual print routine helped to capture the detail: Firstly, I selected ‘extra fine’ in the ‘Cura’ slicing software, which reduces the layer height to 0.06 mm and, secondly, I reduced the ‘line width’ to 0.3 mm. The ‘help’ information in ‘Cura’ suggests that, even though my printer nozzle is 0.4 mm in diameter, there can be an advantage in selecting a smaller line-width and this appears to have been borne out in practice, as shown below. These changes extend the printing time by at least a factor of two but, for small items like these, the time is still only a matter of a few minutes. These plinths are suitable for both my ‘Rob Roy’ and ‘Tantalus’ models. After cleaning up the stray bits of filament, I painted the plinths by threading them on to a cocktail stick then brushing all the exposed surfaces. Engines Compared As I stated at the beginning of this post, the aim of my models is to capture an overall impression of the prototype, rather than the small details. Apart from a few replicas, the Broad Gauge is well beyond the memory of any living persons, so making models that help me to appreciate the ‘look and feel’ of the period is my strongest motivation. In the case of my current models: the Waverley-class ‘Rob Roy’ and the Goods engine ‘Tantalus’, I have been struck by the difference in ‘grandeur’ of the two designs, despite the fact that they both carry the same type of boiler. Two factors strike me as important: the more obvious being the size of the exposed driving wheels on ‘Rob Roy’, which conveys an immediate impression of power and speed. As a consequence of these large wheels, the boiler had to be pitched considerably higher on this engine than on the smaller wheeled Goods engine and this second factor adds to the imposing impression given by the express engine. In fact, the difference seemed so marked, when I first placed the models together, that I made copies of the relevant drawings and placed them head-to-head, in order to confirm that my impression from the models is correct. Drawings Comparison – Waverley class and Gooch Goods And below, a similar comparison between my two models: Waverley 4-4-0 and Gooch Goods compared Not complete yet, I fear, but I’m pleased to see that the broad outlines reflect some of the ‘spirit’ of the prototypes My model of a Gooch Standard Goods Two sprues of lost wax casting for lamps, whistles, and injectors have just arrived from the Broad Gauge Society, so my next task will be to add these small fittings. I also have a nickel-silver fret for coupling rods and some valve gear parts. Mike

So it seems having cork under the track causes problems with my 'mix wall paper paste with the ballast' approach. Basically the paste flakes won't stick to the cork, and rather than soaking into the baseboard (always chipboard back in the day) it just sits there and expands if the ballast is re-wetted, say for tinting with a wash. . So for everything else (so far, anyway) I've reverted to placing the ballast dry and then misting on a 20% PVA solution with a sprayer - from a safe distance so the ballast doesn't get moved around. When it's damp a bit more aggressive spaying makes sure it get nice and soggy. Initially I topped it up with dilute PVA from a dropper, but that turns out to be over kill. Having done some replacement of the original for a test piece the difference is all too obvious . I've also manged to omit the FPL rod on the double slip. Out with the chisel.... Some testing shows that the paste problem might be the ballast itself. I'm using Woodland Scenics which it appears is made from shells, but with some old real stone ballast the method works ok.

It's not my fault, blame John of Cambridge Custom Transfers. As he's pointed out the decals I require are all on one of his giant decal sheets I've placed an order. What do I do in the meantime ? Make another wagon that has the markings included on said decal sheet !! As a result I started last evening without the camera by my side and made up a rolling chassis for the Cambrian Dogfish ballast wagon. I have said before that Cambrian have a few quirks and often need some experience to get 'right'. One of those problems to look out for is finding what is flash and needs trimming away, and what is needed as you key the parts together. Here is one of those places of doubt. Do you trim off the thin edge to the chassis cross members ? NO you do not, and leaving the one where it's attached to the runner needs care. The footplate sections have this ridge all around, the parts have this below the top edge of the solebars. Easy where there is a moulded stop, but there is no 'stop' for these to sit on. The packet and bits this morning I sat wit the rolling chassis in my hand, very squishy and deliberately twisted it until I had the axles lining up exactly. Ahh and I'd put the wheels in holding in with a rather loose elastic band around all 4 axle boxes. The rolling chassis is now flat no diagonal rock at all. More tonight, all being well. Geoff T.

Quick "aerial" shot of the layout. The main line leading in will be fed by a traverser - there is a two island station with three arrival and departure platforms. These lines are isolated at about half way along their length and the isolated sections controlled by on/off toggle switches. Opposite the station are three sidings, similarly isolated. Two of the sidings will, at busy times, serve as a holding areas for waiting EMU's and diesel locomotives (plus or minus coaches.) The "top" siding will represent an area unused by the railway, having since been taken on by a scrap merchant. There will be a couple of engine sheds, converted into workshops and the siding itself will be occasionally visited by a shunter collecting or delivering small amounts of scrap metal, waste oil etc. I've had a play around with it and, even without the traverser yet installed, it's a lot of fun to operate. With only one way on and off the layout there's a great deal of scope for running to a good timetable (along with dealing with all the "unforseen circumstances" that might arise on a normal day!) I particularly like the way that the scrap yard siding becomes a "trap" that the shunter can't escape from while the adjacent line is occupied by a loco and coaches. Like an old lady crossing a busy street, he has to nip in and out quick! Have included a shot of the wiring too, not very neat I'm afraid - but it works as planned! Next job will be adding third rail...

Sorry for the gap. Spent a week fussing with Magic cards. Hardly worth posting here. In the past week, though, I took on a commission from a friend. He has a kit he wanted painted. This is a kit of a Kaempfer (should be spelled with an umlaut, but I don't feel like finding it.) A 'bad guy' robot from Gundam. This week was priming. There's still a little more to prime. I ran out of primer before I finished tonight's lot. Annoying. I'll pick up more tomorrow night. He wants it in gloss white. This will be lovely. We'll see.

I realised this week it has been over 10 years since I started this layout, which was a bit terrifying. Life has a way of making things take longer than expected and the model of the station building at Kingsbridge is no exception. Thanks to those of you who have been with me since the beginning and all the commenters along the way, you have all helped keep me moving forwards, even if the pace has been a bit non existent! Last time we left the building at the elevations stage, I matched the plans to my kit bash as best I could and tried to keep everything proper. I got through 3 station kits in total I think. With that done it was assembly time. I needed to get all the dividing walls in the right place, Dad had done his best guess at the floor plan from site pictures and book research, so I copied that. I used the internal dividers from the kit and made the wider ones for the original building using styrene sheet. I forgot to take any pictures until I got the roof on, I got a bit carried away. This is the front elevation, original building on the left, extension on the right. Windows and doors were from Churchward, Ratio and Peedie Models etches. Some came from the Ratio kit. I am not sure all of them are absolutely correct but I had no way of checking. Yard elevation. Chimneys are modified from the kit ones. I wrapped them in Slaters stone sheets to match the real ones. The big holes in the roof are for the very tricky roof lights, which are a big part of the building. I used Peedie Models industrial windows etches for these, plus some scrap from the station kits. I thought about the side louvres and decided only a maniac with binoculars will see them from viewing distance. Here are the etched parts soldered up. Next I made a surround and added some plastic at the ends, which hid some shoddy fit and made them a bit more rigid. They are a shade “heavy” vs the prototype but it was a compromise. I couldn’t resist dragging the platform out of storage to test fit everything. I think this is looking about 80% like the real location, it is a bit further back from the platform edge than I would have liked but if I bring it too far forward the bay platform will be too far behind the table end, which will not look right. This is a result of me not thinking about the station area as a whole model when laying out track, it was the first (so far only!) station I have ever modelled and the mistakes are legion. It was also the second baseboard I ever made. So there it is, somewhere for passengers to alight at last. Next will be painting, I have already finished that IRL since I stayed up til 2am the other night working on it! So what are my future plans? I really need help with the back scene now, I need a 600mm high one about 12 ft long in total and have photos to use. The new Peco modular one is quite good for Devon hills as an alternative. Any thoughts on who could print me a photographic one? I also intend to put the whole layout together to make all the board connections and get the second station board working, which needs a very large space for several weeks.

Readers with long memories may recall that, back in March 2017, I started to think about construction of a Waverley Class locomotive – ‘Rob Roy’. This was a part of a project to build the components of the two trains involved in the Bullo Pill accident of 1868. My modelling of ‘Rob Roy’ became a test bed for many different ideas – how to build sandwich frames, adapting a brass kit intended for a Goods engine, exploring the working of early valve gears, and so on. In between, I was easily distracted into simpler tasks, such as building Broad Gauge (BG) carriages. GWR Mail Train 1868 Then, in early 2019, a revolution hit my modelling world, as I struggled to get to grips with the use of computer-aided design and 3D-modelling. This spurred its own series of experimental projects, including making a model of a Gooch Goods engine ‘Tantalus’, using a mix of traditional brass construction with 3D-modelled parts. Through all this, ‘Rob Roy’ has taken a back seat, partly because I was otherwise occupied and partly because the main outlines were complete. The fiddly job of adding the small bits and pieces (those bits that are crucial to a ‘good’ model) is all to easy to keep putting off! I have also considered the thorny question of ‘colour’ in BG engines. The general opinion is that the colour was ‘Holly Blue’ and it was also referred to as Dark Blue-Green. Early copper-based blue pigments, such as Malachite, tended to have a bluish tinge and I began to speculate whether the early GWR colour was actually more like that later used (or continued) by the Wolverhampton works, when Swindon changed to Chrome Green. I had already used Rustoleum ‘Painter’s Touch’ Dark Green paint for a Wolverhampton locomotive model but it seemed rather light to match the BG descriptions. For ‘Rob Roy’ I decided to try this paint again but with added black pigment to darken the colour. Whereas the original, lighter colour looked distinctly blue (to my eyes), it seemed to look ‘greener’ as I darkened the mix. Painted Boiler I find the result very satisfying and, for some reason, I find myself believing that this is a very appropriate colour for that period. It has a ‘distinguished’ appearance and sets off the brass-work very well. Others are, of course, entitled to disagree, as reliable evidence is lacking. One thing leads to another and, once I had applied a couple of coats of paint, I began to think about how to deal with the awkward rounded ‘fillet’ between the firebox and the boiler. This is always a problem when building etched brass kits but I had side-stepped the issue with my model of the Gooch Goods ‘Tantalus’ by 3D-printing the firebox, with the fillet included in the Computer design. Then I thought, why not simply extract the curved front of the firebox from the Goods engine model and print it as a separate component? The dimensions were already correct since ‘Tantalus’ and ‘Rob Roy’ used the same type of boiler. I ‘sliced’ the front of the firebox in my computer modelling tool, ‘Fusion 360’ and also cut the resulting ring just below the mid-point of the boiler to leave a horseshoe shape that would clip around and hold itself to the boiler, intermediately in front of the firebox. Once 3D-printed, I applied a coat of ‘gold’ paint and clipped the fillet into position on the engine. In my opinion, it looks good and solves an awkward construction problem. 3D-printed Boiler Fillet After that, I decided to apply 3D-printing to those strange inverted springs between the two leading wheels of ‘Rob Roy’ Although my computer model looked quite good, the detail of the springs was too fine to be rendered accurately by my printer but I think they are adequate for 4mm scale. 3D Printed Spring As my title indicated, this has been an ‘odds and ends’ post but it got me working on some of the finishing stages of ‘Rob Roy’ There are still many minor items to add, such as buffers, whistles, handrails and the like but I already have the necessary parts to hand and the same additions are required for ‘Tantalus’, so I will tackle them on a ‘production line’ basis Mike

It has been a long time since posting, and as ever you wonder where time goes. However since the last post still being working on various things at a very slow rate! However, earlier in the year, I picked up a Hornby Super detailed Class 56 in Colas Railfreight livery, which has been in the wars. There is some damage to the right hand side of the cab roof dome, smashed windscreen, buffer beam damage, which could suggest it’s been dropped. An outer sanding box is missing. It has also lost a left hand side bogie frame. Hornby don’t make spares such as sanding boxes, cab interiors, bogie frames, and other detailing parts as spares. However it’s possible to modify a Mainline / Dapol / Hornby Class 56 bogie frame to fit. These are well detailed and accurate. By removing these from the moulding, cleaning up the plastic between the axles, adding brake pipe detail using 0.33mm brass rod, and finally fitting 1.3mm copper wire mounting points, to replicate how the original bogie frame side mounts to the bogie.