TurboSnail

Finished exams for this term today, so I celebrated by spending an hour drawing a leaf spring for the mk2. Truly living the wild student lifestyle over here. Turns out it's surprisingly difficult if your CAD software is a bit dim and deletes all the part relationships every time you change a dimension. Still waiting for the radiator grille mesh for the mk1 to turn up before it gets painted. Probably should be expected from an eBay supplier though.

Whatever you want it to be really! I'm going for SR black, like the second image down on this page. According to the fictional backstory, it was developed in about 1937, so any livery from late SR to early BR could fly, although I doubt it would survive standardisation. Or who knows, maybe it was sold to an industrial concern? It will have mesh in, I have a few sizes on order to try out - I prefer 3D printing for large/simple parts, but all the detail will be seperately added such as handrails, horns, buffers etc.. Still not 100% sure about the size/shape of the hole yet though.

Some people seem to be able to make 6,000 cakebox challenge entries using nothing but their spares box and a few offcuts - not being blessed with a spares box the size of a small warehouse, I'm going the opposite route of buying stuff that I've never tried using before. Hence I am now trying to get to grips with plasticard, of the Slaters variety. Starting with 4mm brick for the various raised sections, I couldn't resist mocking it up to get a feel for how it will look. The plasticard still needs to be painted or coloured in, but that's for another day. Wouldn't want to make too much progress in one go!

I'm in that entertaining stage of waiting for stuff to arrive... Maybe I should make some progress on my somewhat neglected cakebox challenge entry. CAD model for the Mk2 is coming along nicely though. Body is pretty much there, but need to do some more work on the chassis and motorisation.

Now complete with lamp irons, cab steps, buffer mountings and roof. The cab steps are 1.5mm plastic strip and the lamp irons are 1mm strip and were the fiddliest b***ers to assemble that I ever hope to deal with... Should probably have used staples, but I'd run out. The roof is 0.5mm plastic sheet and has a gentle curve formed by taping it to a small jam jar overnight. I could have 3D printed this but a) I wanted to add cab detail, b) gentle curves are the worst for showing print lines, and c) it made the print a bit cheaper.

Any suggestions for this loco's livery? I originally wanted to do SR black like the original Maunsell shunters (see here). But I don't have the transfers to do it properly and don't want to buy a whole sheet for just this. Although I do have some yellow SECR numbers which could probably pass for the SR ones if I don't include the lettering. Alternatives are basically whatever colours I have lying around from other projects, including brunswick green and olive green. Or a more left-field approach might be to do an industrial style livery in grey or silver, maybe with wasp stripes if I'm feeling particularly talented that day, although it wouldn't really be 1930s/40s any more at that point. Any ideas?

All this time off Uni is increasing my modelling output massively - apparently I'm supposed to be doing something called 'revision'... Anyway, the shunter now has a cab interior, complete with massively oversized control desk covering the motor. If I'd planned the chassis to fit this body, I could have tweaked the motor position, but I think it looks alright like this and it won't be that visible with the roof on. Then I added handrails and door handles, all marked up by eye and surprising not all completely misaligned. Manual drilling was very slow, so the Dremel got to have another outing, resulting in my revision notes getting a fine sprinkling of dust. The handrails themselves are all made of stripped single core electrical wire (0.7mm, I think) as it was what I had lying around. Straightening it was a pain though. I used 0.5mm plastic sheet as spacers to make sure everything looks consistent.

The chassis will stay the same for now as I'm trying to keep this project as cheap as possible (I may have spent rather a lot on recent RTR purchases...). However, if it goes well, I'm planning a Mk2 version (CAD already in progress!) with a decent set of wheels and a printed/scratchbuilt chassis - I like the outside frames idea, and it would bring the design more in line with the original 350hp shunters too.

EDIT: This project is now finished and the kit is available from my Shapeways shop here. Features include: sprung buffers, NEM pockets, flywheel drive, pickups on all wheels, cab detail, etc. Due to the variability of the 3D printing process, I can't guarantee that everything will be a perfect fit, but the test model featured in the video went together easily. If you do decided to make one, please let me know (by private message or thread post) any feedback you have so I can make improvements to this kit and any future ones. Read on for an insight into the design and build process! An instructions and parts list sheet is attached, and the posts in this thread can help supplement this. Original post below: _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Does 3D printing count as scratch or kit building? I've put this thread here rather than in the 3D printing forum as it's not about the process, rather about using a basic shell as a starting point to build up a model, which in my opinion is more like resin kit building. If it's in the wrong place, I'm sure someone will let me know... Anyway, I had a modified Hornby 0-4-0 chassis from an experiment into reducing the gearing to make it a good slow runner. This was mostly successful, so I felt like I had to make a body for it, which will be equally as experimental. One of my sources of inspiration was the Maunsell 0-6-0 diesel shunters (more info here) with the sloped windows in the lower cab, so here's the story: during development of the 350hp shunters (designed to compete with the Z class steam shunters), Maunsell also designed a smaller 0-4-0 version to compare against the Terriers and the like. Being short of time, some of the work was outsourced, hence incorporating some industrial shunter design into the mix (I should probably work on this justification a bit more, but I wanted to get on with the model! It's supposed to be fun, not super accurate). I drew up a basic shell on CAD, then got it printed by Shapeways (only £12!) in the 'Strong, White and Flexible - Polished' material as the shell was only ever going to be a base to detail up, so there's not much detail in it. First job, make it fit the chassis. The dimensions are approximately the same size as a Terrier, only slightly shorter, so the chassis needs cutting down. Once done, the body is a tad wonky... Adding some microstrip spacers cured this.The footplate needed a little massaging on the inside to allow the wheels to rotate freely - this took surprisingly long, and the help of a dremel, so they weren't kidding when they called the material strong! So now I have a decent starting point and I need to add: cab interior (to cover the motor), roof, handrails, access door handles, lamp irons, buffer mountings, buffers, coupling hooks, steps and anything else I can think of to improve the detail. TS01 Instructions & Parts List.pdf

Found a pic on the Abandoned Miniatures facebook page of a diorama by a chap called Gustavo Andrade. A good source of inspiration, although mine will depict a much larger engine, with a lot less rust!

Thanks! To bring things slightly back towards on topic, it made a nice easy repaint job to improve my skills without getting too frustrated at trying something way beyond my ability. If you're interested, the build post is here: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/110012-secr-terrier-751-build/

I dug out the 'White, strong and flexible - polished' model and here are the worst bits. As usual the curse of the camera makes it look worse than it is (the model is OO scale). The sides are better and just have a rough finish rather than print lines - could probably fix with some high build primer.

The 'white strong and flexible - polished' material might be worth a try, I've got a couple of models in it and the layers don't really show very much - unfortunately I don't have an normal WSF version to compare it to though.

The mirror acrylic tile turned up, so I've made a start on the structural card parts. The whole thing is designed to fit into a space of 200x200x150mm, so should meet the 8x8x6" size rule which is about 203x203x152mm (I'm too young to remember what inches were...). All the dimensions are taken from my CAD model, so I can just copy measurements without having to work anything out.

That looks pretty good actually. I've previously done a van in no. 32, which I think is a bit dark, but it's fine for that as it will be heavily weathered in it's role as a grounded body. Trying to gauge an accurate colour is not easy as the preserved examples vary wildly in colour, from the Bluebell's dancehall being quite light, to their freight wagons being much darker. Assuming that Pheonix's research is better than mine, no. 67 is probably worth a try.

Time to play with test the layout! I took a short video and had a go with some free editing software, not the easiest thing to get the hang of... Filmed on my rather tired Windows Phone camera, maybe Father Christmas will get me a better one? The Terrier is working well, as are the points and controller. The remote uncouplers still need some fettling, although I think that's mainly down to my test wagons all being old Wrenn/Hornby/Triang items with all the tension locks at different heights and different states of rusty!

I got back from Uni to find a package from Shapeways has arrived. This means I might have to do some work on the world's slowest progressing Cakebox Challenge entry... So I have a flywheel, starter motor (basically a small steam engine used to start the massive steam engine) and a couple of bearing blocks for the flywheel. All were printed in their 'White, strong and flexible - polished' material; the polishing should mean that the individual layers are less obvious, and it seems to have worked pretty well, although it will be easier to tell once I get some paint on them... eventually. Going for the 'Frosted ultra detail' material would have massively increased the cost and not completely got rid of the issue, so I'm glad this material choice paid off. The flywheel and starter motor even mesh pretty well. The starter may be pretty crude, but I can add some more detail like pipework and valves later on, as these aren't particularly suited to 3D printing.

Going back a while... but what paint did you use for the brake van? I have one on the go at the moment, and it looks great in this livery.

Anyone have any good tips on what colours make good approximations of the pre-grouping liveries? I'm hoping for answers in Humbrol, Revell, Games Workshop etc. that I can get cheaply from local shops, rather than Pheonix stuff. If enough people reply, we could have a good reference source here, which would save a lot of Googling when looking for this info! I'm talking anything from SR to pre-grouping and from engines to buildings. My particular interest is in the SECR, so I can recommend: Humbrol 164 makes a reasonably good SECR wartime grey, as used in my model of 751. Matches up pretty well to a Bachmann N class in the same livery. (Someone else on RMweb came up with the idea of using this colour, but I'm afraid I can't credit them as I can't now find the original source! I think they were making an O1 though). As a starter, can anyone recommend a good SECR freight wagon grey? I have a 'Dancehall' brake on the go at the moment.

Some more progress made, including simulating what it might look like with a mirror on one side. Some stuff has also gone off to Shapeways to be 3D printed - the flywheel, starter engine and bearing mounts. This is my first order with them, so it will be interesting to see what happens. Once I get home for Christmas, I'll be able to make a start on the box and supporting structure.

Adding a very basic model of the static engine's frame makes me a bit more confident that everything will fit. For an idea of scale, the base that the engine stands on is 30mm high - a 6ft OO scale person is about 24mm. I still need to figure out how and where to include the conrod and cranks though. I've also added part of a chimney in the front left corner to obscure the edge of the scene.

Since I'm pretty unsure about the layout of this project, I'm planning to make a mockup of it in CAD to get a good idea of how it will look before I commit to buying parts - it's also much easier to make scale dimension changes than drawing it out by hand. Initial ideas came and went, I'm now thinking of something like this: We have the narrow gauge line coming into the building at the back, which drops coal into the bays below. The engine will stand on the platform on the right, with only the flywheel modelled at present. Since I'll only be making about half an engine, I'm thinking about strategic use of a mirror to disguise the join with the left hand wall...

My entry for the cakebox challenge will be based on the interior of a large water pumping station, inspired by that of the Kempton Park preserved static engines (see here: http://www.kemptonsteam.org/) and some even larger American ones - I haven't looked at many of the other entries yet, so hopefully no-one's got to this idea before me! I did a placement year for the Thames Water research department so was a frequent visitor to the nearby site and surrounding area, hence the name Asheton Row, cobbled together from various local place names, with a 'e' added so that the lawyers of the same name don't come after me! I want to use this challenge as an opportunity to try out some new stuff, including: 3D printing, using textured plasticard, and a foray into 009. If all goes well, I have (distant) future plans for an entire layout based around a water treatment site, so it could be integrated into that some day. If it's anything like my normal projects, progress will be very slow, but I've managed to make a start on some of the CAD work, namely the flywheel for the steam engine - and yes, I am planning the engine to be a scale 10+ metres tall! The cakebox will be on it's side, looking into the 8x6 end, which will hopefully give quite a different perspective. Finding a large OO scale flywheel is not the easiest thing, the old Airfix kit was my immediate thought, but that is now fetching over £20 on eBay, which is a bit steep considering I only need one part of it. Traction engine flywheels were also considered, but would require machining that I have no access to, which is why I'm turning to 3D printing. I drew up this one on CAD - 75mm diameter, or in scale, about 5.7 metres. Only part of the engine will be modelled, to do the complete engine would require significantly more cake.

Yes, brass I think, but it's a bit expensive for me and I have no prior experience with brass. It also has the correct wheelbase, which doesn't match up with the Wrenn body. So I'd rather be wrong, but at least consistently wrong if that makes sense.

The other day, I got some Duck fresh discs through the post. Slightly bemused, as I had not ordered anything like that, I had a closer look and it turned out to be the Wrenn R1 bodies I bought off eBay. Some guy seems to be selling old factory surplus, so I picked up a couple of bodies to have a go at detailing them, and it doesn't matter if they get too damaged. Assuming I get at least one of them into a reasonably good state, I'll need a chassis. The old Wrenn ones are very difficult to come by without a body attached and would need a lot of work anyway, so that's not an option. Maybe I could use a cheap RTR chassis, but none seem to have the same wheelbase as the R1, so I'd have to live with the inconsistency. The most promising option at the moment is to buy a wheelset and rods of the correct diameter, modify the rods and fit them to a 3D printed chassis, unless I can find an old Wrenn chassis block without wheels and motor. The CAD is easy and I can get dimensions from another complete R1 I have (which has sentimental value, hence why I'm not cutting that one up), and I may even be able to include motor mounts and other fancy things. It will probably be slow progress as I have hardly any modelling time at the moment, but if all goes well I might end up with a detailed, slow running R1 for probably under £30 outlay.