JSModels

You haven't missed it, I haven't mentioned it! I got it done by a guy I was introduced to by another member of my model club. He's just a hobbyist not a business, so not sure if he'd want me giving his details out. I'll check with him, & if he's ok with it I'll PM you his details. jrb PS - I'm following your North Bridge thread with interest; I used to live very near there, and still live fairly close, and a couple of years ago I did some provisional research on NB myself with a view to doing it in N. In fact I'll be there tomorrow for the Halifax show, at the leisure centre that is on the old site...

Thanks, that's very kind. There are a few (very minor) errors in the drawing that I've spotted in the finished result, but nothing that's critical. And it helps me design the next one. Definitely. If only I had a few grand spare, I'd get a laser cutter myself!!! JRB

All I can say is... WOW! To say I'm impressed with the laser cutting is an understatement! Just spent a few minutes going through all the pieces. Here's the main walls - both the inner window layer, and the outer stone layer, roughly aligned: The cills are separate pieces (from slightly thicker MDF, to make them slightly proud) so they aren't in position. The inner window layers, along with the floors and a small amount of internal detail, clip together really well - so well that they hold together (just!) without any glue: The steps: And lasty, with the outer stone layers held in position: Seeing it now 'in the flesh', I may have to go to the extra effort of putting some internal detail in on each floor - the windows are quite big & give a great view inside (I know I designed it, so should know how big the windows were going to be, but even when designing something in CAD things often look slightly different to how you imagine!) I can't wait to get this glued up & painted!!! JRB

I'm so excited right now - far more excited than I feel a man of my age should be!!! This has just been delivered: I'll post some pictures of the contents shortly...

I'm not James (though I am a J (Jonathan), hence jrb) but thank you! Also, being a cabinet maker helps with being able to cut wood neatly!!!

More work on the chimney/boilerhouse... Added the final 2 straps that I didn't have time to do the other day. This is the side of the chimney that will be seen: ...and this horrific mess is the side that's into the corner, and thankfully will never be seen: I added a sloping roof from some 80-thou plasticard, on MDF supports, and glued an off-cut of stone embossed plasticard to the front wall: And then did something that I've never tried before, and never thought I would; I added individual roof slates, cut from 20 thou plasticard. I always thought it would be far too time consuming to do roofs this way, but it only took around 2 hours to cut and apply them all, and it was actually quite theraputic! I've still to work out how to model the flashing around the bottom (which will have to cover all of the gaps, dodgy cuts, and tiles that in real life would have fallen straight off due to having no means of securing them!) but other than that I'm very pleased with how it came out: Next job up will be the flashing, and then getting some paint on it. Like I said I'm pleased with how it's come out, but most of it won't be seen once it's in position - only the top few rows over the bridge: And the bottom few under it: After not doing any real modelmaking for 12-18 months, I'm very happy I've got my 'modelling mojo' back, and am really enjoying this build. JRB

Thanks all for your kind comments James, That corner joint is where 2 sheets meet (I think they're designed to match end-to- end). I did mitre/chamfer the ends, and then once I'd superglued the sheets to the MDF core I liberally applied some liquid cement to soften the plastic and then manipulated the edges of the plastic with a screwdriver blade, to close up any gaps. Some of the other joints are mitred, but some are simply butt-jointed (overlapped) and then the projecting edge filed to shape. Most of the joints do need going over with a bit of filler before painting though. Steve, One of the main advantages of designing it in CAD first is that it's easy to get the measurements required for every bit of it before making. The decorative course is just 80 thou square plasticard strip, with 'joints' filed into it. jrb

A little more progress on the chimney: I wanted the chimney to have a realistic taper, and after looking at the possibility of 3D printing one in a number of sections, I simplified my thinking & bought a table leg from Ikea! Cut down, it was the perfect size/shape. It's around 55mm dia at the bottom, tapering to (IIRC) about 45mm at the top. I figured I could wrap the timber in embossed plasticard - I knew it wouldn't line up properly round the back, but since it's in the corner & will only ever be seen from a very limited viewing angle, I knew it would look ok. Got the first bridge abutment clad with the Wills sheets: Then made up the other bridge side & made up the bridge with the girders under: Shaped the cobblestone sheet slightly around the girders, and glued that into place onto the bridge assembly, and glued the mating piece to the abutment: The view from underneath: I used slater's 7mm brick sheet for the chimney; this will be painted to look like fairly regular stone blocks. Added some strip around for the iron bands (2 still to be added): All in all, a good bit of progress

Yes, it will be obscured from higher angles, but I want the buildings to go right to the top of the layout. Plus, if I lower the water tank, then I'll have to model the top/inside of it! I have thought about it - there will be some details visible in the left hand one through the open door where the line from the wagon turntable runs, but I think modelling more than that would be far more trouble than it's worth! However - I am thinking that I will have a little cameo scene inside the mill on the nearside of the track - with a cut-out in the fascia board, so you can see the inside of that mill, and see that end of the layout through the windows. Thank you. I've made a minor revision to the bridge design, basically adding a decorative course at the height of the pads that the girders will sit on: This will mean that I don't have to worry about a horizontal joint in the Wills 'Coarse Stone' sheets that I'll be using. And yes, I will be modelling the girders underneath the bridge! Further to that, I've managed to do some 'real' work today, though more woodwork than modelling - I've made the MDF boxes that will form the bridge abutments: As you can see, that decorative course will be just slightly lower than the 3" height of the stone sheet, meaning there won't be any joints at all in the sheets (other than the mitres at the corners). I'm hoping to make a start on cladding the abutments at the club on Monday. Something that I haven't sorted yet (and will need to before the bridge can be fitted) is how I'm going to do the chimney in the back corner...

I've now got the laser-cut pieces for the first building on order, so I should be getting those soon. In the meantime, I've been working on the designs for a couple of the other structures. First up was the bridge; this isn't going to be laser-cut, but will be made from a combination of Wills sheets, plasticard, and for the girders themselves, the Wills 'vari-girder' panels. I've never used these before but they seemed like a fine idea. I picked up a pack, and using the measurements off it set to work designing the bridge abutments in SketchUp. In the end I decided to use only 4 girder sections per side, as that helped with the 'compact' look I was going for: I built one of the sides up to see what it was like to use these sectional parts, and it really was a doddle. The parts all have a slight bevel on the edge rather than being square (due to the moulding process) so the edges needed a quick sand to make them square before glueing them up. The panels need to be be glued bac-to-back, and side-to-side. I was unsure as to which to do first; in the end I glued up 2 lots of 4 panels side-by-side, then when they'd gone off for a few minutes, glued both assemblies back-to-back. After a few more minutes drying time, I sanded the top & bottom edges, and glued on the top & bottom plates: I'm not quite sure of the purpose for the additional strap down the centre of the outer panels, but the instructions were quite clear about using them! Today I've been mostly designing the second building. This is much bigger than the first, and also includes the return down the right hand side: The design isn't finalised yet, and this drawing is missing some details such as the depth on the windows, the vertical mortar courses, etc, and the loading platform needs detailing. Hopefully I can get that done over the next couple of weekends. It struck me whilst browsing Google Images that some mills had water towers and, since the 'vari-girder' pack had many more panels than I needed, I could possibly use these to represent a plate girder water tank on top of the stair tower (note that I've not shown the sides yet): Hopefully all this virtual model making will one day lead to some *actual* model making.

Thanks, didn't know it was still available!

Yes, I have fond memories of building buildings with the Linka system, my dad (also a railway modeller) had a pretty much full set of the moulds. It's a shame that it's not available any more. Occasionally a set comes up on eBay & I nearly buy it just for sentimental reasons!

Wow, nearly 18 months since I last updated this thread! I haven't really done much modelling at all in the intervening period, I lost my mojo a bit, but it's slowly coming back. I have done a little bit more work on it, so a couple of updates: Warehouse Modules: I did quite a lot more work on these. Basically I got all the different modules drawn up (over 30 different ones!) & ready to print, however the total cost to get them all printed ran to several hundred pounds, which I didn't have. Also, I made loads more castings from the moulds I had, to work out the best/most efficient way of doing it. Doing this I discovered that the moulds weren't quite as good as I thought, and contained hundreds of tiny air bubbles just below the surface. As the moulds got more used, more and more of these holes became exposed, resulting in tiny little 'balls' of resin on the surface of the casting. The only way round this would be to 'de-gas' the rubber in a vacuum chamber after mixing, before pouring the moulds. Again, more investment that I couldn't afford to make. I costed it all out as a business plan, and the figures just didn't add up. The price I'd have to charge for the castings is considerably more than I feel the vast majority of modellers would be willing to pay. This, combined with the lack of funds to invest, meant I abandoned the whole idea just over 12 months ago (this was partly to blame for the loss of mojo mentioned previously!) The Layout: Having abandoned the warehouse modules, I needed to go down a different route for the buildings I needed. A few people at the club had bought laser-cut MDF kits, and this looked like a promising option. There were no 'standard' kits that I felt were right, so having found someone willing to cut some of my own designs I set about trying to get some designs done. Firstly, I used some polystyrene blocks, timber offcuts, etc to 'block out' where I wanted the buildings to go. From the left, we have a mill chimney in the back corner, and then a stone-piered, cast iron road bridge at an angle across the track. This will function to block the view of the left hand end of the layout where the track just ends (and IRL, would continue to the rest of the world): This will be further obscured by other buildings to the front of the layout: Progressing from this I drew the layout up in sketchup in order to block out the rest of the buildings in increasingly more detail: The mill next to the wagon turntable is the only one I've draw in full detail yet; it's a big learning curve, but I've had some help from the guy who's hopefully going to be cutting it for me. I'm hoping to get this laser cut in the next week or two, and use this to enable me to be more efficient in designing the other buildings (I don't want to draw them all, get them all cut, and then find I've made a schoolboy error that affects all of them!). Plus, I want the buildings to differ from each other in terms of architecture, so hopefully they'll look like an evolving collection of buildings rather than all looking the same. Drawing them separately helps massively with this. Here's a screenshot of the 2D drawing, done in LibreCAD: This should (!) all fit together nicely; the 3D sketchup model of this building was created from this 2D drawing, so should eliminate any stupid mistakes (in fact it did help me spot, and correct, a dimensional error on the inner window skin). I've also used the sketchup drawing to get an idea of how the layout will look with the facsia on: The other buildings are shown just as blocks, and will be 'fleshed out' as each of them is designed. Lastly, since it's a shunting puzzle (and therefore requires 8 noticeably different wagons) I decided that a wagon works would be a good reason for so many varied wagons. The layout now has a name, "Haigh Sidings", and the mills will represent the wagon works of "Frank Haigh & Son", in memory of my dad. Hopefully, it won't be 18 months before the next update...

That wouldn't have been 'printed' from the metal. It will likely have been printed in wax, then a mould made and cast.

There's also Copley Cricket Club, situated between two sides of the triangle just below Halifax on the Caldervale line: And as modelled on Peter Langthorne's rather large N gauge layout 'Calderdale': JRB

The layout is now set up and ready for our open day this coming Sunday, so if anyone wants to come and have a play, you're more than welcome. AVRMC Open Day Spring 2018

I'm running a choice of 2 Bachmann 1f's on my shunting puzzle, and I've never had either of them short out on either point. Maybe I've just been lucky...

For those interested, I spoke to the chap on the Peco stand at York about ETA for the new diamond and slips. He said most of the design work is well underway, but that they were currently looking at November/December 2018 for release.

The silicone is very durable, and I don't think there's a particular limit on how many castings I can get out of each. Obviously they won't last forever, but they last for years. That's a very good question, and one I've been pondering for some time. I have already been asked the same by a few others. I realised pretty early on that there's potentially a market for this, and I've already developed the system on paper way beyond what I initially needed for this layout - for example, I could in theory build the warehouse I originally designed with as few as 9 different modules; so far I've got 26 drawn up & ready to print*, with at least the same number again as a rough outline, plus ideas in my head for even more that I haven't even sketched out yet! *This includes duplications/variations of commonly used modules, e.g. four of the 2-window modules, identical other than a slightly different stone pattern (there's nothing worse than a 'random' pattern that repeats across every module!). The other consideration is cost; with so many potential modules, the cost of 3D printing them runs to several hundred pounds at a minimum. Then there's the cost of making moulds of them all (which isn't nearly as much, but still considerable). I wouldn't want to bring this to market with only part of the system available; it would have to be a complete offering from the get-go, and I fear I have neither the money nor the time to do it justice at the moment. So the short answer is, I don't know yet!

Phil, The uncoupling method is not mine, I copied it from others, but thank you. Have just seen your thread, that's a very nice layout you've got there. JRB

A great looking layout, Phil! JRB

The rubber and resin arrived yesterday as expected, so last night I was able to pour the initial moulds: I could say that the different shades of grey were a result of me experimenting with the amount of catalyst used in the rubber; in truth it was just a **** up on my part! They were left roughly 24 hours to cure, and then earlier tonight I pulled the moulds, and they were way better than I could have hoped - hardly any air bubbles in them, very little clean-up required either. I was so excited I forgot to take any pictures of the moulds before I mixed & poured the first castings: This resin cures quickly. And I mean, really quickly. It starts going off in 2-3 minutes, so you have to work fast. It mixes clear, but then becomes opaque white as it cures, which is cool because you can literally see it going off, here it is just starting to go under the window: First castings: I was able to take these out of the moulds within about 1/2 hour, so I managed to get 3 sets made in a pretty short space of time. I need to do some experimenting to determine the best level to fill the moulds to (too little and you miss some details, too much, and there's more flashing in the windows to clean up) but once I've got the hang of it I figure I can get quite a few made in a couple of hours. Here's the first couple of batches just loosely assembled: And here's some with a bit of cleaning up done (though there's still a little bit more to do): Again, these aren't glued, just pushed together. I'm really pleased with how this has worked out. I haven't done any resin casting for about 25 years, since my dad and I built this OO gauge model of the viaduct in Todmorden, for the Tod MRS layout. That was in polyester resin, with moulds from homemade masters: That's the only picture I have of that layout (the days before digital cameras!) and I've no idea what happened to that layout; I assume it got broken up when the club folded (I was no longer a member when it did, I was in my late teens IIRC, and had developed other interests...). If anyone has any other pictures or info about it, I'd be curious to know! Anyway, back on topic. The last couple of evenings have convinced me that this is definitely the way to go with the buildings for the layout, so the next step is to order some more 3D printed masters, and make more moulds (and obviously more castings, too!). JRB

OK, I need a bit of advice regarding the large door opening. Originally, I put the large lintel right to the top of the module to give as much space as possible in the opening, even though it interrupted the continuous stone 'floor line' (for want of a better phrase!) as per the module pictured above. Now I'm thinking that, since there's ample space, I could restore the 'floor line' stones, and put the lintel under those. Here it is as originally planned: And the proposed lower version: This would still give enough space for rolling stock to fit in. Which do you all think looks better? JRB

Today was another good day for progress; firstly, I got a couple of light coats of primer on all the modules. After drying, I got a few pictures of them on the layout: A close-up of the door and step modules: And the extended open door, showing the clearance around a wagon; there's way more space than I expected, particularly on the height: I also got a few pictures of my latest aquisition; another LMS 1F, this time the closed-cab version, so I now have a choice of loco to run on here. I picked it up for a very good price, mainly because the toolbox at the front was missing: Since I was getting the modules printed, I made a very quick 3D model of the missing box, using the one on the open-cab 1F to get the measurements from, and got a couple of those printed at the same time. Once painted it looks pretty good, and once the loco is weathered you'll never be able to tell! The modules are now bonded into some shallow trays I made, ready for pouring the rubber mould (I ordered that, along with some casting resin yesterday, and should get it all on Monday). I'm hoping to get chance to get the mould made, and get a few resin copies made to prove that the whole concept works, before next weekend; if the castings come out ok, and this project looks like it's going to be successful, I can then order the rest of the modules from Shapeways before the BRM discount code expires at the end of the month! JRB

The Shapeways delivery arrived yesterday as promised, and everything looks really good! One minor note for future reference - it's all very well stacking multiple items closely together to try to keep the costs as low as possible, but it's also good to leave enough room between them that you can actually fit a tool in between them to cut the supports! I've done a tiny amount of (repairable) damage to one of the modules, as I had to basically prise some apart as I couldn't cut the support. The FUD is great, but it's extremely brittle! Anyway, here's the stack pretty much as it arrived (I had cut a couple of bits off already): They were so close together (as little as 0.5mm in places) that there was quite a bit of the support wax still present, so the first job after separating them was to give them a good clean with warm soapy water & an old toothbrush. Then I trimmed back the last bits of the supports, and checked to see if they fitted together - and they do!!! On the warehouse door module, you can see a 'ghost' image of the left-hand door module. This is because that was printed above it, so there was support wax on some areas & not on others, and the surface is very slightly different. This shouldn't be noticeable once there's a dusting of primer on them (I'm going to spray them before I make the moulds, since it's very difficult to see what's going on with them because they're so translucent!): Here's the larger height warehouse door module, and the extension modules too: I couldn't stand those up, as the support columns would need trimming to length. Next up I need to spray them, check them, make any minor alterations, and then I can start making some moulds... JRB