TurboSnail

I had issues with clear transfer printer paper showing bad "silvering", so I tend to cheat these days and use white transfer paper. However, this means you have to get a very good colour match between the body colour and the ink colour, which is tricky. Does work well for black locos/wagons though!

14 hours ago, BusDriverMan said:

I'd never heard of this unit until reading your blog - what a unique design!

Interesting to think what might have happened if it had become a commercial reality - maybe BR might have had fleets of these instead of other small Diesels like the 01s...

15 hours ago, BusDriverMan said:

Could it still be used as a grounded van body in a goods yard, set a few decades later? 

Quite possibly, but I suspect vans would have been used in preference to brake vans, as there's no ballast weights or brake gear to remove before taking the body apart. Could be a good use of some of my reject prints though!

15 hours ago, BusDriverMan said:

What kind of errors did you encounter?

A couple of polarity issues and footprint size errors. It also makes a bit too much noise on startup for my liking (buzzing at low speed)

9 hours ago, Caley 439 said:

 Interesting to see this, as I have considered cutting out frames in (3mm) acrylic - this doesn't suffer the problems of warping, though finer parts are more likely to break (having done 16mm scale ornate Caledonian Railway benches).  It definitely opens up interesting possibilities for creating chassis for locos where no commercial one is suitable

3mm acrylic might be workable, though possibly not in OO - you run out of space to fit a motor and gears very quickly (the outside edges of most chassis are around 12mm apart). 16mm might be good though, you could definitely do the gears in it too (though delrin would still be best for gears). I've got another plan though that appears to be working using a different material, but I don't want to give away too much until I know it works!

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

What's the push-up count?

"Ouch" is the only comment I'm prepared to give on that front.

8 minutes ago, Invicta1958 said:

All been interesting, followed you each day - now, whens that SER brake van out?!!! Keep safe and thanks again!

Thanks, keep an eye on the workbench thread (linked above) or ts3dmodels.blogspot.com for that!

48 minutes ago, Invicta1958 said:

Now that is a print I would happy to buy if you add it to your list!

I intend to at some point, but I need to make sure all the mechanical bits actually fit first!

6 hours ago, Florence Locomotive Works said:

If I may, I suggest that you do a second coat of red on the running plate and brake gear, or if your going for the weathered look then the current coat will look fine. Excellent work though. 

Thanks The red on the footplate and chassis is supposed to be a different shade, more purple-y than the bufferbeams, so I think it's fine, though it will get weathered too. The chassis is already partially weathered as it was much easier to do this while it was apart for repainting.

The etched ones definitely have a finer look to them, but my version was designed to be as cheap as possible as I'm modelling on a very tight budget. I think it still captures the look pretty well. And pretty simple to put together too.

1 hour ago, wainwright1 said:

Hi Tom.

 

Thinking about it again, having the pair would help with current collection, but not sure if the combined weight would require both cars to be motorised ? I imagine it would, like Hornby's original 142 Pacers were.

 

All the best

Ray

I don't really know on this - I'm not planning to build another one to check as the layout doesn't need it. The biggest issue I had was making it heavy enough to turn the unpowered front wheels, so it should probably be 4 wheel drive - but unfortunately I don't have the time to redo the powertrain with all the other projects I've got going on at the moment. I think it would work as two motorised units, but with one of them having the pickups wired opposite to the other, so they work together. Maybe a little connector between the two so they can be plugged in and share pickups.

8 hours ago, wainwright1 said:

You mentioned the broken buffer and I was wondering just how brittle this material is.

I've not found it too bad actually - it's brittle, but reasonably strong and careful handling has never caused me an issue so far. The problems I've had, and the times I've broken things are either when removing them from the support material, or when modifying bodyshells later on (usually to remove old weights when I'm messing about with chassis). Both of these situations usually involve levering something, or bending it, thus putting a lot of force through the part.

In terms of strength, my rough estimate would be equivalent to a plastic kit, except it will snap instead of yield under high loads.

However, if you can find the bits that ping off, they usually glue back on very cleanly!

1 hour ago, ianmaccormac said:

The hobby is important! Thankfully we do have something that is both absorbing of time and of interest too! I've just bought a Mars Pro and the difference is clear, a better UV source gives better prints.

Cheers Ian

I've been looking but they're out of stock everywhere at the moment - and is it worth another £300-400 for a 5% improvement? I still need to work that one out!

Interesting, haven't heard of that method before. I've had a Google though, and I think I'll stick with lead for now, as it's much, much cheaper and I already have a big roll of it! I've resolved to use less glue in future though, and to leave a corner cutout so I can peel it out more easily

13 hours ago, ianmaccormac said:

Have you increased the gearing? or is this a belt drive also? Keep it going!!!!!!!

I'm keeping this type of chassis under wraps for now until I know it works - I've got a few locos to do in the same style and it might work for the steam locos too! Hopefully...

6 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

I'm probably good for a couple in the fullness of time. I hope you won't mind if I mention some points re the guard's door, from looking at photos in Southern Wagons Vol. 3. The lower panel, whether plain or planked, is flush with the framing but has some raised beading around its edge. The top panel, above the droplight, is not inset to the full depth of the framing, unlike the planking on the body sides and ends, which is fixed behind the framing. See plates 148 and 150. 

 

I've just spotted something I've missed before - the ends are different. At the guards end, the windows do not extend right up to the top rail of the framing, whereas at the other end, they do - but they are, I think, the same size, it's just that they sit higher - plate 147.  Altogether a fascinating vehicle!

 

The continuous upper stepboard seems not to be an original feature - plates 147 and 148 show separate stepboards for the guards door and the double door. How much faff would it be to change the CAD to represent this (and the plain-panelled door)? It would mean that the two solebar/axlebox prints would be different - opposite handed.

Corrections always welcome, especially before I start putting things on sale! I'll have a look into those bits when I get a chance. I don't really want to model the separate stepboards, as it reduces the strength of the print and isn't too hard to cut out if not required. The solebar prints are already opposite handed, as the stepboard hangers aren't evenly distributed! There may have been some coarse language when I first noticed that... The ends are also different on the model, a pain to do as I couldn't do my usual trick of just mirroring the other end. I've left the external gears off too for now, that's a bit fiddly to do at scale.

Sure - though in this case, managed to snap off half the bufferbeam with it! I might be able to make a special with guide holes instead of buffers, but I'd have to re-export and set up the print again

1 hour ago, Guy Rixon said:

Which kind of brake is this: passenger or goods? It looks a bit like an 1860's passenger brake. Either way, I'd like one please,  if you get to selling the prints.

It's a diagram 1553 10/13-ton goods brake - loads made  from 1879 to 1903 with all sorts of variations for different purposes and routes. Some very similar ones made before and after too (more info in Illustrated History of Southern Wagons, vol 3). I've been having difficulties printing these to high enough quality, but it will get there at some point

31 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 "where one of the buffer holes cracked out when I was drilling it out for the buffers, leaving a big hole in the bufferbeam. I swapped to a needle file to do the rest after this!"

 

Been there, done that. I described it as a knack but was firmly put in my place - it's a bodge. The correct procedure, I was told, is to run the drill bit counter-clockwise. I subsequently did this (installing cast buffers on the second of your Brighton Open As) and it works.

 

I found the needle file in a small power drill worked well run in reverse, with the added benefit that it was easy to move the hole a little bit if it started to wander from the centre. I think the maximum drill size for this sort of material is about 1.5mm, and even then it's a bit risky. Lessons learned and fortunately not too much harm done!

11 hours ago, ianmaccormac said:

Can't you mask off with bluetac or something else?

Looks interesting! Cheers Ian

 

I can (and will) mask up as much of it as possible when the main body colour goes on, but when it comes to painting the bufferbeams I haven't yet found a red that covers well, so it usually takes several coats and some will inevitably get in. I've got a fresh pot of Revell red though which I haven't tried before, so we'll see how that goes

21 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

Can't the buffer heads be removed during painting?

They're the Bachmann ones, so they come pre-assembled with no obvious way of disassembling them. Unfortunate, but since none of my stock gets close enough to compress the buffers anyway, it seems unimportant.

5 minutes ago, Invicta1958 said:

Looks very nice! Just needs an SER 'break' van to go with this and the others... ;-

I'm working on it! And on a way of getting them made more professionally, so we'll see how that goes...

Thanks for that Chris, I've had another go and you can see the results appearing in a new post about now! The brick colour is less uniform in real life, I think the camera compresses it quite a bit to save memory. 

30 minutes ago, MikeTrice said:

Once cured put them in near boiling water and watch them relax. If necessary you will probably be able to straighten them in your fingers and then hold them under cold water.

This is one of the tactics I've tried, and unfortunately it hasn't worked so far

1 hour ago, Compound2632 said:

Nothing unusual at all about the three-ways - unless you mean in the inglenook context. I'm just toying with variations on using them heel to heel as you do here.

I though 3-way points were relatively rare in real life, due to the additional complexity? I'm learning new things all the time (and will have to give the person who told me that a ticking off!)

57 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

I like the pair of asymmetric three ways. I'm toying with a biscuit factory layout idea - have a think about what happens when you put a pair of three-ways heel-to-heel with the middle road common. You'll need a couple of short diamonds... 

 

To remain closer to your existing plan, keeping the run-round more or less where it is, join the top road of the RH three-way to the middle road of the LH three-way. Only needs one short diamond.

 

How close together can the three-ways be squeezed?

 

Even with your current plan, I think you really need a train length (or maybe train less guard's van) to the right of the toe of the RH three-way.

The plan is more or less fixed now, as the baseboard has been made - if I had more space, I would have made it bigger. The 3 way points while unusual in reality help condense it into that space. All the spaces at the end of points have been measured up to allow the biggest loco I'm planning to use (SER R), plus the biggest wagon (Open A), plus a bit of space left over. Smaller locos and wagons (e.g. Manning Wardle B plus 2-plank ballast) might be able to fit the loco + 2 wagons, which would alter the challenge slightly