Charlie586

I think having similar seat covers would be a good explanation, I can imagine the kind of arguments that would regularly happen otherwise. There's no third compartments in the e3 so I've got a bit more time to search before deciding. Light brown or red wouldn't look too dissimilar in a dark coach, but I suppose the question is was it the same in 1880 as 1890.

Thanks for taking the time to look, Annie.

Thank you Chris (and Jimbo) My blue is maybe a bit light, but the inside of the carriage won't be that visible with the roof on and that would make it darker anyway. This is a 2nd class from 1890 and is the best and probably only internal photo I've ever come across. It does seem dark compared to the chocolate sides. https://www.mediastorehouse.com.au/steam-museum-of-the-gwr/places/tracks/norton-fitzwarren-train-crash-1890-15045908.html a much better quality pic of above is still here https://web.archive.org/web/20160307074844im_/http://www.spellerweb.net/rhindex/UKRH/GreatWestern/Broadgauge/Nortoncoaches.jpg Haven't got to the third class carriages yet. I wouldn't be surprised to still see wooden seats on some of the older stock in 1880. I seem to remember red as well from somewhere. I really ought to write things down in a notebook as I find them out.

Forgot to mention carriage upholstery colours etc yesterday. One of the great shames of losing all the old photos is threads like this one: it's a bit frustrating as the information would have been there. Google searches led me round in circles a bit. I've got an Engineer article from 1876 on the new broad gauge express carriages which says walnut panelling and blue cloth for First. Second is mahogany and blue rep. I'm still not entirely sure what blue rep actually is, or the shade of blue for first, but hopefully it's in the right area.

An excellent post, Mikkel. I have to admit I knew very little about the strikes and the army's involvement, it's a very interesting part of history.

The thread's 5th year birthday has arrived amidst a fairly large lack of enthusiasm. Hopefully the mojo will come back before the next 5 years passes. At a guess I'd say I'm a third of the way through a 15 year layout build but obviously life and other things tend to ruin the best plans. I might start the next baseboard soon to see if that bucks my ideas up etc. Anyway, what I have done in the last 3 weeks is Primed the new Grantham, the decorative top panel shows now, but the whole body isn't quite thick enough so has warped. Probably best to thicken the cad and reprint. Given the e3 another coat of chocolate, still needs one or two more coats. Also sorting the compartments out, 2 of the 1st class are in with the seats painted with first coat of blue. And tried printing the clerestory a different way, just sides and ends. I'll fix a roof first before removing from the sprue, not sure if brass or plasticard yet.

Nice finds, Nick, you could pay more than that for just the wheels. Pretty sure it's a v8 luggage van, I've been 3d printing the broad gauge version recently piece by piece. I think the broad gauge society sell etches for it, which means its possibly an old IKB kits one. I could be wrong though.

Thanks John They are similar to a dogs hind leg which I guess is where the name comes from. This is currently where I am with them. Very fiddly to scratch and probably still overscale. The hinges at top of Smokebox door will have to be a 3d print, I had a few goes with tiny bits of metal but just couldn't get the shape right.

Still not a great deal of either mojo or progress around these parts. Little bit of soldering. I'm going to make the smoke box removable as I think I'll have a struggle taking the body and chassis apart if ever needed. Carriage buffers, the white metal one just left of centre came with the kit so I'm assuming is right. It's not ideal as I wanted sprung ones. I've 3d printed some and other chassis bits and found some sprung buffers, on left, but they're not the same design. I'm wondering if I can cobble something together that's sprung with brass tube and 3d printed heads or try to make a resin mould.

Not that much doing here, but got out the e3 underframe from the society etch I started a year or three back It fits but the middle of the frame needs fettling to sit properly. The hangers still need fixing to the other side. They need quite a lot of thinning down on the plates first as the casting comes quite thick. I cant find any coach end steps in any of the etched coach kits I've got, which seems a bit weird, so I'll have to 3d print some. Printed more compartments but need slightly reducing in width / length to fit, I'll have another try next week. Finished cad for the mekarski compressed air tram (left). It split on test printing as I had it too thin where the back meets the body. The window bars didn't work either, far too thin, they need to be brass wire instead. Also printed another Grantham tram, originally I got one printed by shapeways but they couldn't print the decorative panel above the windows. It's now there but not shown up too well in this photo, I'll prime it and see how it looks.

The base board is fairly clear, which obviously means there's a wiring short I think I've found it, near a frog again, but it's too hot to solder so I'll wait for the weather to break first. I've added a little run off piece to the right so I can better test getting an engine clear of the point then changing and going down the other road. Needs a bit more fiddling to get it at the right level. The porter had a play in the latest print, Matthews tram. As the motion's hidden I'm hoping it should be easier to get a chassis built. The scale coupler at the front, drawbar on the real thing, probably will be too flimsy in 3d. I need to do something for the hughes, similar drawbar, so hopefully I'll work out how to do them in brass maybe. Bit of airbrushing. The paint seemed to be drying too quickly even with retarder, which I guess is the heat. I'm still getting used to it, going to need a lot more practice. The paint wasn't as thin as the first time, which has helped. E3 at top, had a single coat needs at least one more Underneath I think is u20, made it last year on old printer, two halves stuck together, again single coat at mo. Test side piece on right, 2nd coat of choc, this piece wasn't primed. Bottom is side printed at angle primed and single coat. The chocolate hides the 3d printing lines quite well on top two at normal viewing but shows up on photos. There doesn't seem any point printing sides separately and assembling. Need at least another coat or two then varnish to see how that affects the lines. I also need to sort the ends on the e3 and put end steps, not sure that will work in 3d though.

Eileens Emporium send things like that, flux etc via courier. Obviously it's not cheap though. Good to see movement on the line. The station frontage is looking good in the second photo.

Looks really good. That's a really effective way to add that bit extra.

I think when they work out how to combine colour with 3d printing cheaply enough we'll have a breakthrough for all areas. The splashers and tight clearances are always going to be a problem, so maybe a rtr mixed gauge set is still a long way off. An easy to assemble engine kit of some type is badly needed to help get running quickly. I suppose the 3501 class would be the easiest, but it hasn't got that distinctive broad gauge look. The finetrax easy build track kits could be adapted for em broad gauge, although it would be sleepered and not bridge rail on baulks.

Bit more 3d printing Did an e1 which was the first of the newer Dean carriages about 1874 from memory. This one's 38'6 which was a one off with a few more made later as 6 compartment. I printed it slower on 0.025mm , took about 4 hours but it does seem better than the e3 behind. Tried a different method of bracing the end but still not perfect. I've got a different plan for the next ends. Primed them to see what they'd look like but didn't shake the rattle can enough. So I stripped the primer off, started using isopropyl then switched to hand gel as we've still got bottles of it and don't use it as much now. As it's 70% alcohol it worked just as well and smelt a bit minty for a while too. Reprimed and seems okay. I'll get the airbrush out next weekend and give them a coat to see how it goes on. Have to admit I'm itching to use the airbrush again but haven't really got anything at the stage that needs painting. Had a little go at clerestories, but needs to be a lot thicker /deeper in some parts especially at the base. Also printed another v8 side at 0.025 at an angle but didn't fully get rid of the lines. And a Lord of the Isles not yet primed. Was about 5 and a half hours for 0.05 at 1.6s a layer with 45% angle. Bit of vertical lines on the frames but boiler looks okay. I'm about half way through the bottle of resin now so ought to slow down on the experiments. There's a few things I've nearly finished the cad for, and the sash windows I still need to print, so I'll try to get the cad finished.

A bit of a catch up on the early morning metal working / scratch building as I'm getting a backlog of photos. I was hoping the next bit on the Hawthorn would be a video of it nearly done going through the point work, but I'm still a few months off that. Added a curved front to the firebox, not very neat soldering. It'll need some filler eventually as I don't want it unsoldering by trying to tack it any better. And a band. I've filed it back a tad (thanks Lez for that tip). I'm not happy with the spectacle plates, too big. I'm going to change them at some point. (Embedded from sspl) As you can see it's a lot thinner. It's also a different style to the other photo I embedded a page or two back for a similar age engine. Smoke box door. Haven't go a wire bending jig so I drilled holes in my second favourite scrap of wood then opened the hole out nearest the edge and bent the wire that way. Bit of soldering the other day, not cleaned up properly yet. The side panel for other side wouldn't quite fit in between splasher and firebox so I need to hack and fettle it a bit. Also is an attempt at the clamp type things for front of smoke box door, whose proper name I don't know. Also i haven't got handrail knobs small enough for the front. Blowing up a better quality photo of the real thing looks more like a bar with 2 prongs so I've wrapped thin brass offcut around wire. Hopefully on cleaning and filing it will pass. I've been doing other metalworky stuff for something else, but I'll save that for a different post.

I'll try 1.6 next. I'm using an older version of chitubox, the most recent doesn't work on the mono x unless you upgrade the firmware, which i don't really want to do on a brand new machine until I'm sure it really needs it. There's a 'blur' option as well as anti aliasing, I haven't played with that yet. I never got on with the anycubic slicer either, it never put supports in the right place. I used the eco resin a while back on other printer but wasn't too impressed with it. I might try the water washable, as you say isopropyl is still quite expensive.

I'm down to 1.7s for 0.05 and still okay, original gray, but definitely can still go lower. The anti aliasing doesn't seem to have any effect, or I can't see any difference. I need to read up more about that.

At the moment bottom layer is 28 seconds, 6 layers with uv at 80%. It seems much lower than other people's settings I found on a Google sheet (via reddit). It's a much better problem to have than it not sticking to the plate, but it's still hard work to remove and the raft usually breaks while removing.

Thank you John. Interesting to think what Brunel would have thought of 3d printers, I imagine he would have welcomed new technology.

Very nicely painted. I especially like the buttons on the moustacheless porter's waistcoat and the bus driver's beard. It's interesting that the modelu ones don't need priming with acrylics.

Thanks Mikkel. I think however slowly you print or how small the vertical layer is, you can't get away from printing a curve as a series of (albeit very small) blobs. Bending a flat surface of plasticard or brass will always be smoother in my opinion. It's probably a waste of resin / printer life to print a roof as well. The roof is probably the most noticeable part we first see as we tend to look down onto a model/layout. The tumble home will have small amount of stepping, printing sides and ends separately would reduce this. Or a few minutes careful filing and priming should get to a similar position.

So, you may remember I got a new 3d printer a few weeks ago. I've no had as much time as I would have liked to play with it. What made this worse was a few errors during the test prints that come with the printer which basically overcooked the resin which also stuck to the bottom sheet which I damagedtrying to remove. Anyway, anycubic sent me a replacement film, so that's all good. I've had a bit of a play, starting with the quickest settings and layer height of 0.05mm Not perfect but quick, the brake van took about 2 hours to give an example. The only bit I've primed so far is in middle (culm valley carriage frame) seems okay. I don't need any more wagons and brake vans, I think they'll pass with a bit of filling or filing/primer/paint. I'm trying to avoid the constant reprints with slightly different settings I did on the other printer as I've still got boxes of similar things from that. I tried this as 0.025mm, springs for the hawthorn. It takes a bit longer, but not twice as long. The exposure time for 0.05 I'm using is 1.9 seconds and 1.3 seconds for 0.025. I can go lower with exposure as the bases are sticking too hard and no prints have completely failed. It's a case of slowly reducing each print by 0.1 of a second until it goes wrong. Fresh off the press, as they say, a 46 foot e3, it really is the maximum length it will print. Did this at 0.05 took just over 2 hours. The ends need a different way of bracing during printing but I won't need anymore e3's for a long time if ever. Need to redo the metro next and possibly do another lord of the Isles. These should ideally be printed at an angle which will up the print time and be an all day job. I might manage to squeeze in some smaller things in the evenings.

Sent you a pm with the rcts picture which might help a little.

There was an article in the broad gauge society broadsheet magazine a few years back, but all mine are still in boxes. Don't know if it would be helpful or not. The broad gauge engines book vol 1, which I haven't got, is probably useful. There's a small sectional drawing in the rcts book that came from The Engineer originally.