The Great Bear

A very interesting set of posts echoing my own recent experience and thoughts. I was lucky that first print out of box was good, using stock resin and settings but am struggling to get consistent results and that will be a obstacle to offering to others or at least an understanding that 1/4 or whatever is a dud and allowing for that in pricing etc, material wastage and the like. Interesting last sentence, because that comparison should be the benchmark with anything sold on the basis that some finishing, sanding may be needed etc, that they aren't getting perfection. I'd also be interested to know what your research on the possible causes of diagonal lines were as my recent prints have them too. Anyway, keep up the good work! Jon

OK, thanks and understood. I have several surplus Railroad Collets and was looking for use for them so will peruse that thread.

Thank you, Mike. Unless I'm mistaken there is still the turn-under ends so they are akin to the one off C55 drawing of which is in the Wild Swann Great Western Coaches drawing book?

Hello I've been looking at Russell Appendix 1 for some more obscure coaches to model and 3d print as detailed here. Diagrams E113 (brake composite) and E115 & E118 (composite) of 1923/24 vintage. Are these modifications of the 57' Toplight series, looking at the underframe and the turn under ends of the body suggest to my (untrained) eye they are, but without the toplights, door vents and rain strips. Is so it would be relatively easy for me to knock up having done some mutlibar toplights and something a bit different. Any information or suggestions would be welcomed... Thanks Jon

There was an overbridge outside of the station a little distance away beyond the creamery, as I expect you know. If you got get the latter in adds more operational interest. Whether you could slightly more compress the station to get that in with the siding to the creamery straight after end of run around loop?

Not well enough (yet) is the answer The design is the same as I had used when getting the underframes done by Shapeways or Sculpteo in SLA nylon. (As an aside the battery box shape is an old one, have somethign closer to GWR ones somewhere.) I am not sure the trussing is going to work with resin, you can see I tried adding a support maybe more needed. This is probably another area where the more discerning modeller would want to separately add detail, brass section? You can also see the floor has bowed. I'm not sure there's such a thing as a stronger resin? The coach sides I'm finding still have a bit too much flex even after curing and not as stiff as the ones I got by the chap in China.I've tried adding bracing to help keep it in shape until cured, but as the picture below shows, need beefing up a bit. Still, once the props are removed there is bit of flex in the body. The coach interor aside from some niggles with supports on the edge of the seats turned out pretty good I think I hope I got the paneling right, not any good pictures of this so this is what I have infered through the windows of photos in Russell The deformation on the seat ends is from supports placed there, you can see I haven't snipped all the ends away either. And here's the coach body, another brake composite, this time an E83 You can see I removed the end details for this design as suggested. Again pity I didn't snip off the remanants of the supports. The photo also cruelly shows other minor blemishes/niggles in the print, the little gouge in the first door being the worst. When the excitement of printing has faded a bit I should paint these up and assemble and see how they look on the layout; in the real world suspect it will look fine. (Or my less than perfect painting/lining will distract the eye!) Despit removing the corridor the bottom of the end is still bowed, though the card the print is on makes it look worse. Thanks for the continued interest shown. Jon

Probably overkill on the supports, but at least it worked I also increased the size of the support tip which I suspect helped a lot too, perhaps try that with a bit less support - as shown that's a lot of resin being wasted!

Yes you're right it has bowed, another one of those little niggles. Wonder if to do with the change in section thickness, having the corridor and indeed there is also a little block inside the coach to receive fixing screw from the underframe. There was quite a lot of support to model at the ends so not sure that was the issue. Regarding shrinkage - negligible I think, length of model measured with tape measure spot on with what it should be Now just when you think you are getting to grips with this 3d printing business you get this: This is 2nd attempt at printing the interiror for the coach. Cleaning this kind of hiccup up is a pain, having to empty the vat and clean stubborn bits of the failed print off the film, indeed may have marked film in doing this. As to why the print failed, I thought I added a lot more supports followigng previous failure so 4 columns across the width of the coach. The coach body prints safely with just supports down the edges and single row down the middle of the roof (that is necessay, when I tried without it failed) but I guess it's the large flatter area with this. Perhaps I need to increase the thickness of the base of the coach interiror from it's current 1mm (the coach roof section is around 1.5mm thick)? Or I also rotate the body on the long axis a bit? I also didn't add holes in base under the seats, I done this with the printing services to reduce cost a wee bit, but here it would reduce the weight of the part, what the support is trying to hold up. Suggestions welcomed. PS - I stopped the print this morning when I saw it had gone wrong so that's why the supports on the right all are cut in a horizontal line

Noted I will do some experiments; omitting the corridor has the benefit of removing a bit of length off the model too, making getting print orientation, supports a tad easier and as Guy noted may help reduce deformation at the ends.

Thank you, Justin. I've also yet to fully get to grips with the sketching function in Fusion 360. The rainstrips I cheated and imported my earlier effort from AutoCAD. My recollection is I drew them in plan - a large radius arc for each, extruded them vertically upward then copied this several times together with the extruded roof profile then for each strip so that the stips cut through the roof. I then used the solid/intersect command to make series of objects for each strip, the intersection between the roof and the extruded plan of the strip, thus giving it in 3d. I think similar method should work in Fusion 360. So yes, trial and error - a sometimes a fair few steps to get what you want. In Fusion, you can, as I expect you know, track the history of the commands so easily roll back thngs, though it can start to slow things down as the model gets complex so occasionally I end up turning this off. As I'm getting more familiar with Fusion - though far from an expert and some things contiune to baffe me - I can now generally do most things using the solid editing in Fusion, start with a box, push/pull, fillet, chamfer, combine (merge/cut) with other solids. Good luck! Jon

I've got a new toy , A It's a Phrozen Shuffle XL, out recently and the larger brother of the normal Shuffle having a build voluime of 192mm x 120mm x 200mm ie just enough for coaches up to 60'. (Damn those 70 footers!) It cost around £1200. Here's it in action Much to my suprise my playing with it has gone well, everything so far has printed, no unmitigated disasters. Here's a E95 Brake Composite just done This one was printed at 100 micron layer thickness (that took 12 hours). Overall I'm happy enough. The print quality seems better, bit crisper than the samples with another printer I got done a while back. Yes it's not as good as the stuff I got done in China but I think it's more or less on a par with Shapeways FUD. The photos do cruelly show some niggles to try and improve on - bit of deformation at the end above and bent steps (more supports needed perhaps?) and the stepping on the sides (may improve with printer or software settings). Oh and I forgot to tidy up where the supports were at the end. So some more testing (all good fun!) is needed to get consistent and hopefully wee bit better prints, but positive so far. I know a few people have asked if I can make the models available, I if can reliably get good results then that could be an option. Watch this space... Jon

The Phrozen Shuffle might be an alternative for a bit more, £700.Uk distributor www.bluecastjewellery.com

I do like the shots of the goods yard, nice to get some everyday scenes without the glamour of main line expresses

A whole new city the size of Milton Keynes is one of the ideas being considered by the government/authorities. See work done for the National Infrastructure Commission as part of the Oxford-Cambridge arc of growth. Section 3.9 in this report for instance shows a new "City in the vale" at Calvert https://www.nic.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/171122-NIC-Final-Report-5th-Studio-optimised.pdf Whilst at that location the hs2 trains will thunder through, there is in addition to East West Rail, the branch from that down to Aylesbury. It is only one of a series of options being considered but if the government aspiration is for a million new homes that is going to be a lot easier to do in big chunks such as this. Edit - PS: as someone who has worked on large infrastructure projects including hs2 I am not anti them, but there is a lack of joined up thinking about the arc of growth. For instance there is an Oxford-Cambridge Expressway (Motorway) being planned which is supposed to connect all this stuff, bit difficult to do if you don't know where all the dots (and how big) you are trying to link,

See here http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/137944-cosmetic-point-rodding-options/?p=3316178

Those dimensions were for road bridges over the railway based on what I've done on recent road schemes. From my time on hs2 working on roads for the Warwickshire section I only recall one section where cycletrack ran parallel to the railway, that was at Burton Green, where it was on top of a retained cutting IIRC.

I used a combination of Modelu stools and piano wire and Brassmasters bits for the cranks and compensators. http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/26456-marlingford-langford-lane-more-toplights-in-action/?p=2202883 http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/26456-marlingford-langford-lane-more-toplights-in-action/?p=2560784

That does look very good in termsn of detail, the corners on the base cubes also look nice and crisp. Pity the build volume is too small for my needs.

Thanks - yes, the images of 3930 I've used as best I can work out for the compartments. Plus some pictures of a David Geen kit in an MRJ. But not found anythign really showing the luggage sections.

Hello Can anyone post or point me in the direction of pictures showing details of the the vestibule and where applicable guards and luggage compartments. In particular it's the wood paneling detail in the vestibule and on the doors as will be seen reasonably clearly through the corridor windows. I think it is was horizontal boarding alongside the compartments and vertical boarding at the WC end. The detail both sides of the luggage compartment and doors to it I can't find any details of so I've guessed. (My reason for enquiry is over past few months I have been drawing up and getting 3d printed a variety of coaches http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/130385-3d-printed-gwr-coaches-getting-to-grips-with-fusion-360/page-7&do=findComment&comment=3249949 but so far in my designs the vestibule walls have been plain and I was thinking the paneling detail might just be visible, worrth adding - the Geen masterpieces have it I believe.Not that my stuff approaches them I hasten to add.) Here's what I am currently assuming, interiior wallas for an E95 Thanks Jon

I doubt it. He's a politician and an ambitious and scheming one (somewhere he was described as making Francis Urquhart look like Eddie the Eagle), this kind of thing plays well to party members.

iMaterialise and Sculpteo in Eurpoe, at least and I think US. I haven't explored what's available in the marketplace on either. iMaterialise you have to make a design before selling and prices don't include sales tax until checkout Sculpteo shipping signifcantly more than Shapeways both offer SLS nylon aka Shapeways WSF or whatever it is now Neither do something like Shapeways FUD, iMateriliase do a resin with a better finish but very picky and conservative design requirements I've used Sculpteo a fair bit, they give you the option for delayed production at a discount, but their shipping costs are 3x Shapeways.

Some back of the fag pocket costs: Typical length of bridge over hs2 - say 60m Width between parapets no cycling faciltites - 7.3m carriageway + 2 x 2m verges = 11.3m Deck area - 678m2 Bridge works cost - say £2700/m2 Cost = £1.83m Width between paraperts with cycling facilities = 2m verge + 7.3m carriageway + 1.5m separation to cycletrack + 3.5m combined cycletrack/footpath + 0.5m allowance for edge shyness = 14.8m So extra width = 3.5m Extra bridge cost = £0.567m Now that's just the cost of the physical works. To get a total budget cost say multiply by 2 (it can be more, probably is on hs2!) so thats £1.13m for the bridge alone. Add in a bit for the extra earthworks and bits and bobs either side so you're looking at £1.2m extra per bridge crossing or thereaouts. Now on a project this size even with well over 100 bridges I'd guess arguably that's not significant but neither would I say it's "minimal". I

Could you care to explain, please? Having spent he last 2 years working on a £500m plus road scheme with a BCR betweeen 3 and 4 that comes as a surprise.

Sublime modelling, Mikkel...