JCL

I've put together a test side using the diagram in post 353 and it seems to do the trick. Before I do it for real I think I'll lightly chamfer the bottom edge of the backing so that don't put a crease in the panelling layer. Doing the test has also made me realise that I need to go over the scored lines for the beading before gluing up. Here's a photo of the test side. It's a bit rough and ready because it was a miss-cut, and I haven't got the beading technique right yet. The beading by the way is .020" rod that I've sanded - mainly because I couldn't get any of the .010" stuff. I've done a couple of sections, but I'm wondering whether I should just do all the verticals first, then cut where the horizontals will need to pass through, then glue them down afterwards. I think it'll look neater. Obviously the beading will go on after it's been glued up!

I have to, I'm on borrowed time as once I get to Christmas this will all have to stop for the winter season. Then I'll be reduced to reading up about everyone else's work" I'm as much in the dark as you at the moment! Fingers crossed For anyone interested,I found some plastic sheet that was ridiculously cheap. Look for the bulk packs at the bottom of the page. I'm hoping this isn't a typo . If it's true then it might even be worth importing it into the UK! http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/41387-bargain-hunters/?p=1228298 or you can use the direct link http://www.dollhousesupplies.com/hobby-supplies/plastic-styrene-sheet-stripstock-1.html?p=2 - scroll to the bottom. If it's not there keep paging through.

The ends are glued. I just used the bulldog to keep one end together while I was gluing the other end.

Oh, I see, this? There would be an air pocket and the red sheet would effectively glued to the floor at its lower edge. That certainly looks easier!

Hi Jaz I know they are in Canada, but how about this tree shape? They are distinctive and I'm sure you could see them in other places. I bet it wouldn't cause much trouble to you any problems at all. The photo is the Burmis tree, which is pretty famous around here.

Canadian Pacific across the road in Fernie, BC, Canda on the coal drag.

I had to think about that a couple of times, but only because I wasn't reading it correctly. That would make sense because then the scoring on the .010" sheet would be safe. Well it wouldn't take much to give it a go I will put a backing strip on behind the back .020" layer so that the floor has something to hold on to. Hang on, I'll do a diagram. Here we go. So the green is the .020" sheet. There would be one sheet with the windows in, and a 1/2 sheet that would finish slightly higher so that it produces a lip that will seat the floor. The outer green layer would be sanded back to profile, and the red layer with its detailing (panellig and scored lines) would wrap around. It would certainly make things solid I just have to be very careful with the sanding. I might pop into town tomorrow and pick up some emery boards. Oooor, put a handle on a piece of board that would then have double sided tape that would keep the sandpaper steady. I'm also thinking of putting a plastic disk within the rims of the wheels (I'm using replacement wheels in the form of Hornby coach wheels) to make them look like the diagram I have. Do you think this would work?

So the parts have been cut out. First of all the score lines were made, then I opened the cut file and the pieces were cut. The first photo is what it looks like on the sheet. And this photo shows what it looks like after I've pressed everything out. They are slightly warped in places, but most of that is from when I peeled the pieces off the mat. The bits that look like Roman amphora are the duckets. They were scored down the middle so that the can be easily folded and glued together to represent .020" duckets sides. I'm really pleased with how the ends came out. The frame around the more fragile end was great. This is something I'd repeat on the other end if I need to do it again. This evening I'll be reading up about forming tumblehomes. I know how to do it in principle, but I've never seen it done. My current thought is to either put a padding piece behind the bottom half of the side and carefully sand it down or to try to bend it over with the handle of a wooden spoon (I think). Doing it the second way will keep the scoring. Sorry about the size of the photos. I'm trying to do this on my tablet.

Nice one. Looking forward to the frou frou

I used to drive from London to Keswick on a Friday night about once a month when I lived in England. While I love it here, there's been quite a few times that I've wished that I could just go out onto the Cumbrian hills, or bike from Hebden Bridge over to Ovenden over the tops for the weekend.

Thanks Tony! Thanks very much, I'm hoping my thread doesn't get too boring with regards the cutter, as this isn't an IT website! It has been extremely useful, and even with the amount of time I've been sat in front of the keyboard, it's still faster than I could have done by hand. I think it also saves me a bit of money because I'm not having to do things over as often. Physical modelling to come. In that vein, I've decided that I really should finish off the M&GN full brake, so this is where I'm at. I've redone the cutting sheets and split them out with different cut settings: All the parts I need on .020" All the parts I need on .010". The frame on the coach end is like a sprue that will enable me to lift the end off the sheet and glue it down without too much (or hopefully any) distortion of the thin vertical strips. All the score lines on the .010" sheet. These will be barely visible and will be there for me to be able to score a V in there to take the beading. If you did put them together, you should get something like this: It's all cutting out now. I'll post again when I have the pieces on the mat. Hopefully I've left enough thicknesses on the panels to cut them properly.

Your scribing your great Lee, but how in the world did you texture the stone faces?

Hi Jaz, you are an arboreal wizard!

Hi Jason Thanks for asking, yep, the biking is pretty wild around here, and we have some amazing bikers. You definitely have to ask them how good they are before you go out with them. Most of the trails are in the trees, which suits me I'm a bit odd because I like the rooty trails (like Roots funnily enough). Luckily there are a whole load of them I can get to from my front door, you just have to remember not to ride quietly - we have our fair share of black and grizzly bears in the area. If you let them know you're coming they tend to keep out the way though. A couple of friends of mine do the races each year (Trans Rockies, Tears n Gears, and a couple of others) the biggest one, the Trans Rockies, tends to stay in town for a few days. I think that, for the first time ever it's not going to be in Fernie, but they are doing the Fernie Ultra and Enduro races instead. One of the things I get involved in is photographing the dirt jump jam (Wam Bam) every year. This is the annual jump competition - we have a huge dirt jump area behind the swimming pool. I'll see if I can dig out some photos. I'm not a fantastic by any means, but I can get around on the intermediate trails, and I love it - possibly more than skiing, but that'd be controversial...

Some people have said that they quite like my asides about life over here. Well, with that in mind, I couldn't go to Lethbridge without taking some photos for you, and here they are. The Rockies are behind me as I drive over the prairies. (Click for a bigger view on all the panoramas) The Lethbridge Viaduct or High Level Bridge is the largest railway structure in Canada and the largest of its type in the world. It feels like it when you see it in person. At the bottom of the photo are street lights! Huge wheels on the southern edge of Lethbridge Stuffed and mounted, we do railway taxidermy in a big way A CPR loco at a shopping centre next to the station in Lethbridge. Unfortunately it's in a corner out the way end impossible to photograph well. A mine loco on the edge of Fernie What's left of a loco at the kids playground on the edge of Fernie city centre. If anyone is thinking about modelling a mine in Canada let me know, I can photograph these things until they squeak!

Hi Adrian, I 'fessed up on the clumsy modeller thread, there's more than I let on here. You may need a cuppa before you read if

Canada here too. I'm with the GNR crowd and agree with the sentiments above, especially something articulated maybe? I'd have also normally said a GN Atlantic, but maybe this might happen anyway. Thanks for asking

Thanks Andy. I'll have another look at the plans! I was all over the internet yesterday looking for Carriage Modelling Made Easy, but it looks like nobody has a copy at a reasonable price. On the up side, I've a couple of different articles, so I'll make use of those, and of course the help on here You know what, I'm moving towards doing the chassis as well. Well if I'm going to spend time on this I may as well do it right. Sooo, in that case, I'll park this and see if I can find a 4 wheel coach plan first as that will be an easier one to begin with. Edited to say yep, I've noticed the rubbish below uax6's next post. Hopefully it'll be gone soon.

Hi Andy, funnily enough... I'll definitely do a step by step on this one. I can't promise that it'll look pretty, but at least we'll know if it's possible. Personally I think it is. With some styrene strip and [ sections for the solebars, there's no reason why a chassis could be fabricated as well. The best thing is that once you have the cutting plan for the first one, you can knock out any number of them. As it's a carriage and not a loco, I wonder if the whole thing could be done if you get brass bearings for the wheels? On this one I'll use the Hornby chassis, and as you say adorn it with footboards etc if possible. If this goes ok, next one I want to do is a four wheel one and do the chassis as well.

I think you undersell yourself! I used to use the original version of Corel Draw a looking time ago. The software that comes with the cutter isn't too bad - a bit clunky at times. The only major downer us that you can only export to a different file format through some major bodging to create a kludge, that is a PDF file. I have tried the free Inkscape a few times in the past, and while it's promising, their development is glacial, and there are some major stability problems - I get somewhat annoyed if the work I've done disappears in a split second! On this, I downloaded FreeCad the other day. I haven't had a chance to try it, but they seem very confident. It exports into a file format that can be imported into the cutter software which would be cool if it works! Sorry everyone, I've gone from modelling to computer software... What plotter/cutter do you have?

Cheers Al. This thread is going to get very boring when I start on the fencing, isn't it? ;-) Before then, I found this thread by MikeTrice (http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/75178-reproducing-varnished-teak-improving-latest-Hornby-thompsons/) about painting teak models. In for a penny, in for a pound! I'm going to call the model shop in Lethbridge. If they have all the doings I'll make a day of it and drive over and do some other stuff as well (I need a new hob), if not I'll wait until I drive over to Vancouver as there's a model shop in Chilliwack (a great name!), and a couple in Vancouver and on Vancouver Island. Google maps suggested the Coquihalla Highway to Vancouver for some reason. Well I don't think so. There's a reality program on TV over here about all the rigs that are pulled from ditches and the avalanches. I'll be taking the more sedate highway three route through the vinyards

Thanks very much Andy! I did think about actually using the card in the model, but I have a problem with delamination. Pritt Stick doesn't seem to be strong enough to last and can become unpeeled, and PVA (including the waterproof variety) causes the layers to warp on me - I know I'm doing something wrong but I've no idea what. I *can* get the plasticard, but it's a couple of hours drive, so I'd rather not use it for testing I will have a go at putting together the coach in card though as you've just given me an idea ;-) On the scanning business, well yes you can up to a point. If I have a clean plan and scanned it in in a high resolution you could get the software to try to trace around the lines. Unfortunately you often finish up adjusting the points so much that you may have well drawn them freehand by tracing over the plan yourself. The tracing I did was over a plan from a magazine, and it took me about 30 minutes. The way I did it was as follows: 1. Draw the whole thing in one go making sure you colour the lines as you go so you can separate out the two different layers of each side and three separate layers of the ends. 2. Duplicate the layers the appropriate number of times 3. Remove the detail not needed on each layer. 4. Copy all the layers on one side and flip them to form a mirror image. Doing it this way means that i only actually drew one side in full, and I know the side layers are exactly the same size and shape, and the slots for the duckets and the windows in the blue layer will be exactly in register with those in the red layer. The other great thing about doing this is that once I get this right,vin theory if I had more chassis I could create another set of cut out parts fairly easily, of I could make some changes to create an all third for example. For me, it's faster than actually getting out the scalpel and doing the panelling manually as I promise I wouldn't get it right first (or second) time! Cheers Jason

Thanks Jack

Here we go. I've roughed in the cutting file for the coach. To start with I'll be cutting the parts out in card to test them out as it's a lot easier to come by around here than plasticard! The card will be a different thickness to the plasticard, but it'll do to test the height of the sides for example. They will be longer than the plans show because I'll have to take into account the tumblehome. Doing this in card also means that I'll also be able to make sure there's nothing that I've forgotten or plain done badly! I've already decided that the panelling on the end will be a lot longer and joined at the top so that it stays stable when I'm gluing them down (think sprue). I did this with the handrail verticals on the footbridge otherwise they'd have been all over the place! On the plan, the colour coding is as follows: red = .010" plasticard (or .050" plasticard when I can get it) blue = .020" plasticard I'm in two minds about the beading around the bottom. An MRJ journal advises to score the location of the beading into the side and use this to mount very thin plastic rod. This would definitely give the fine line I'd be after. I'd also score the sides of the doors at this point as well, so I'd need three files, one for each thickness of plasticard and one for the scoring. Here is the result of the cutting file. The layers are just laid on top of each other at the moment. I haven't done the lower beading (as you can see!). I'm hoping that the slots would be used for locating the ducket. If this works I[ll be happy to give the file to anyone else that wants it. Although a 4 wheeler, here's a coach on the M&GN site with he same look I'm going for. Nothing like aiming high on the first go eh? http://www.mandgn.co.uk/images/rollingstock/129%20500px.jpg