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mpeffers

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  1. mpeffers

    Welcome

    By mpeffers,

    Hello and welcome,
     
    I had started writing out my introductory post on here when I was called away from my laptop, it locked itself, refused to unlock and decided to update Windows for two hours when I tried to restart it instead. Rather thrown my off my stride, but there we go. I'll probably keep this brief, maybe add more detail tomorrow...
     
    So a couple of years ago, I attended an exhibition in Milton Keynes, and there was one particular layout there that stood out, primarily just because it was set in the pre-grouping era. Different colours, different trains, different vibe... And since then, it's been a reoccurring theme in my model-based scheming to give pre-grouping an attempt myself. Mostly, I've pushed the idea back down again on the basis of my lack of talent, tools and that helpful spares box that everyone else seems to possess, always containing a vast array of useful items for any project. But lately a couple of things have changed:
    I've moved to London, and no longer have space to have a model railway, as such, on the go. I figured that, if you never give these things a go, you never end up building up the tools, experience, spares box, etc.

    My current circumstances feel ripe for a bit of workbench-focused modelling and experimentation, which is something I've not really tried before.
     

    My pre-grouping railway of choice is the Midland and South Western Junction Railway, which I've taken a particular liking to ever since I started looking into why I could find lots of pictures of U Class Moguls at Cheltenham St James - Cheltenham being where I grew up. To my mind, it has a very interesting history and quite elegant locomotives too - although that could be par for the era...
     
    Naturally, the success or failure of me attempting a MSWJR project is dependent on whether or not I can produce some suitable trains for it. There are some kits in existence of a MSWJR flavour, but I gather they're not particularly easy to work with. I think, here, 3D printing is going to be my friend. Although I lack practical skills in the world of modelling, I am generally pretty handy with CAD and did some modules on designing for additive manufacturing at university. Combined with the knowledge on here, it seems like a more realistic route than the Nu-Cast one...
     
    I expect to learn more in the coming months, but my experience with Shapeways so far is that finer details on the printed models can be quite vulnerable to the rather extensive sanding work that is required to achieve a good finish. With that in mind, my Plan A is to use the modelling software to create and print a simple body shape to keep everything nicely in proportion, and build up the detail manually - boiler bands from plasticard, purchased buffers, rivet transfers, etc.
     
    I can't promise regular updates. Or progress. Or even that I achieve anything at all. But we'll see how it goes. For now, it's definitely bedtime...
     
    Mpeffers
  2. mpeffers
    Longer term, I have ambitions to dabble in custom chassis. I've seen a few people on here who designed them to be 3D printed, although little evidence, one way or another, to suggest whether they have ultimately proven successful or not. I have my reservations, but also no experience, so I'll reserve judgement for now. The sensible option for project number one seemed to be to design something to fit to a commercially available chassis - walk before you run, etc.
     
    Browsing through Nile's excellent thread lead me to the Electrotren 0-6-0 chassis. To my eye, it looks rather alien in most instances where it's been used to represent British outline stock, but it does bear a passing resemblance to the underside of the Swindon, Marlborough and Andover Railway - the predecessor of the MSWJR - Nos. 1-3:
     

    From the excellent Swindon's Other Railway site.
     
    Despite resembling shunting engines, they were diagrammed on passenger services for the SMAR for four full years despite a maximum speed of just 30mph and a frequent inability to match the published timetable. Eventually, in 1885, they were designated as goods locomotives. No.1 continued in service for the MSWJR until 1916, when it was sold on; Nos. 2 and 3 were sold together in 1906.
     
    Measurements provided in Nile's thread, and elsewhere in the forums, suggest the Electrotren chassis has 14mm drivers, set to a 20+24mm wheelbase. This equates to 3'6" at 5'0"+6'0". The SMAR locomotives, had slightly larger wheels, set slightly closer together (4'0" at 4'9"+5'9") - two discrepancies that will likely visually highlight each other on the eventual model - but I hope the combination will still be passable. We'll see.
     
    The chassis is available for just under £50 from Rails of Sheffield, brand new (or a little bit more second hand on ebay if you want to battle it out with the 0-16.5 modellers). I have one ordered, which should arrive next week. In the mean time, I thought I'd set to experimenting with modelling software. In my school and university days, I was spoilt rotten with ProDesktop and Solidworks, neither of which are a realistic proposition to have at home now. With that in mind, I've downloaded free copies of Sketchup, Blender and 123D Design. My initial impressions are that Sketchup doesn't provide nearly enough control, and Blender perhaps has exactly the opposite issue - I didn't make much progress with it before deciding to sit on it for a while... 123D Design was also a little frustrating, but feels the most promising of the three at the moment. There are still some fairly fundamental features that I've not been able to intuitively uncover, as yet, but I expect they will exist somewhere. And I have found it possible to fudge around these gaps to continue making progress, although it's very unsatisfying.
     
    This is where I've got to to date:

     
    I anticipate this model probably won't ultimately be used - once I've refined my techniques a little, I think I'll want to start it afresh and I've not had a first-hand look at the chassis I'm designing for as yet - but it's progress to share.
     
    Thanks,
    Mpeffers
  3. mpeffers
    How time flies...
     
    In the Summer of 2017, I was preparing blog post number three when my laptop hard drive packed up. As backing all my personal things up had sat at the top of my to-do list for several months, a lot was lost. Most upset about the photographs, although naturally it had a big impact on my 3D printing modelling ambitions too. Short term, I started using my work laptop for internet things. This was fine, although is too locked down for installing any of my own software. I had the merry distraction of moving flats, before finally buying a replacement computer (a desktop this time, to hopefully end the trend of laptops dying on my every two years).
     
    Since then, I have tried restarting this project in both 123D and Sketchup, before growing frustrated by the lack of control either offer. And now, begrudgingly, I've fallen into an Autodesk 360 Fusion-shaped trap. Don't get me wrong, functionality-wise I love it. It reminds me a lot of my beloved Solidworks that I've missed ever since leaving uni. The cloud-based nature has also come in handy when working from different machines. It just feels very... precarious? I feel very much at the mercy of Autodesk, but in terms of CAD software that you can (currently) access and use for free, it's a pretty amazing tool...
     
    So, where was I...
     
    From memory, I believe the big news I had started preparing to share was the arrival of my donor chassis. This was a Golden Valley Hobbies GWR (ex-TVR) 0-6-0T, purchased new from Rails of Sheffield for a very reasonable price that I cannot now remember. It was somewhere in the region of £50, and definitely less than they were selling for second-hand on ebay. Rather sheepishly, I have to admit that over a year passed before I found out if it ran or not - at the time, my only 00 gauge track was 100 miles away and DCC and I had no spare decoders to hand. Thankfully, I can now confirm it does run, and well, which has saved me having to write a grovelling email to the good folk at RoS.
     
    I say GWR (ex-TVR) - it's only being marketed as such. The loco is essentially an Electrotren H0 0-6-0T, repainted into a vaguely British livery. More for my own amusement than anything else, I tried to track down the actual GWR No.629 for comparison purposes:

     
    As you'd expect for something in 3.5mm/ft, it measures up on the small side against 00:

     
    But all the internals are pretty compact, which is very useful:

     
    The only exception to this is the odd placing of the DCC decoder socket. Even on the original Electrotren body, this placement got in the way, leading to some clunky moulding around the smokebox. After some contemplation, I decided it should fit quite nicely in the cab. The higher running plate height in 00 should allow the board to sit under the cab floor, with room for the DCC decoder to sit in the coal bunker in the back of the cab. It all fits nicely on the computer, anyway...
     

    All the intervening time has also given me an opportunity to take a step back and consider my approach. Subsequently, I ditched my ruler-and-guesswork approach to measuring up the chassis and got myself some digital calipers. I then labouriously CAD'd up the chassis first to give me something to test-assemble with later. It was a pain, I hated it, but I have to confess, it's made putting the bodywork together relatively painless.
     
    Current state of progress is as follows:


    The eagle-eyed among you (as if I have repeat readers...) will note it doesn't look significantly different to my last post 18 months ago (save for a colour change). But this iteration is a big improvement in so many ways. With any luck and a bit of momentum, I might even have my first print before the end of the year.
     
    So I guess I'll see you all again in 18 months...
  4. mpeffers
    More incremental progress - my SMAR 0-6-0 has gained:
    a smokebox, a chimney, a dome, boiler bands, a safety valve mount, sandboxes, some semblance of water tank filler lids.

    And frankly it's starting to look like the real deal... (If I do say so myself). I feel close to a test print, now. It's hard to say. Cab steps and buffer housings are definitely going on, and I want to put some small holes in to help locate some of the details I'm not going to print (handrails, pipes, etc.). Beyond that, I'm not certain what else I want to include at this point. I'm very conscious that the 3D printed shell is going to be quite brittle and require a fair degree of primer and sanding to get rid of the banding created during the print. This will obviously make any small details vulnerable to damage if I include them at this stage and I'm minded not to. Rivets also feel relevant to this discussion. I've actually seen them rendered very nicely on 3D prints, and it'll be less fiddly to include in the design at this stage rather than trying to introduce them later with resin transfers.
     


    A few other decision points are also knocking around my head. Namely brass components - Shapeways will produce brass components (I presume it's some form of 'lost wax' casting method) and designing them myself would mean they'd fit the model like a glove, but fair representations of most things that I need are probably available at more economic rates through conventional means. I'm also undecided on how best to represent the smokebox hinge arrangement and feel disproportionately afraid of adding the cab steps in case they wind up being too brittle and unsupported, wind up fouling conventional 00 loading gauges, don't look fine enough or any combination of the above.
     
    Still at work until Thursday this week, but then should have good chunks of spare time to get this over the line and maybe still get a print done (or at least ordered) before the end of the year. We shall see...
  5. mpeffers
    By the end of the year, he said... It's looking slightly unlikely now, although I guess for more positive reasons than that I just haven't been making the progress...
     
    The last major chunks of the model - the smokebox door hinge, buffer guides and cab steps - have been added. Rivets have also been counted (I know...) and drawn on and I decided to add the cab handrails to the main body. I had envisioned locating wire into pre-drawn holes for these, but the space I'm working in between the sides of the cab and the edge of the running plate is quite tight and actually I don't think there will be much difference visually than a separate wire that would have ended up being hard up against the cab side anyway.
     
    The cab steps feel chunky. I've thickened them behind, with tapered edges to try make them look thinner than they are from normal viewing angles. There's also some additional bracing on the back that I hope will give some support without being visible. Time will tell if it will be enough - their sticky-out nature is highly vulnerable to mishaps during postage. Checking the full assembly post-creation showed that the cab steps are also significantly misaligned relative to the rear wheelset, compared to the prototype. Part of this is on me - being slightly lazy, I decided to retain the original couplings, so used some selective compression to avoid extending the body much beyond the length of the donor. The fact the wheels are the wrong diameter and axle spacings also don't match doesn't help the situation though. Having said all that, it doesn't jump out at me as looking wrong... There were always compromises to be made in this project, and I still feel like the essence of the prototype is there.
     
    I have also come to a decision regarding the detailing parts - I want to include the safety valves, coupling hooks, vacuum hoses and buffers in the print, and will attach them to a sprue inside the body. They should be safe there in transit and during sanding and priming, and it should be little loss if they don't print well and I need to buy brass parts anyway (or could investigate printing the sprue in brass). Whistles are probably too small to even attempt to include in this, and I suspect the smokebox door handles are the same. The front handrail will likely be made up of Alan Gibson parts, with other assorted small items (lamp irons, filler cap latches, etc.) also added via some as-yet murky conventional means.
     
    Along with the progress has come a wave of paranoia that maybe Shapeways will reject the design. Going to go back through the material specifications on the website at some point and see if anything seems suspect. Otherwise, just some holes to locate and it'll be ready.
     
    Oh, and the vacuum brake hose - I've held off adding this only because the vacuum brakes were retro-fitted to all three of the class in 1900. In all likelihood, I'll never personally have any need for a 1800s version and will want the vacuum pipe on and visible. However, I'm conscious that it will date the model, so want to split off a version without it before adding it in. Naturally, this is easiest to do right at the end...
     



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