GWR57xx

@Mikkel, thanks for the compliment 🙂. I must get on and finish it, but I keep getting distracted… As it happens, I’ve spent the past couple of days 3d printing test piece walls to determine the optimum size for brick spacing and mortar depth to give the best result for the polyfilla method. It works well for me in 7mm, but probably needs larger gaps than 4mm can provide to give a realistic result. I’m finding that the 3d resin printed walls need wider and deeper gaps than laser cut ply, mdf or card, probably because with the latter the paint is at least partially absorbed by the material, leaving space in the mortar course, whereas in the former the paint sits on the surface of the resin and closes the gap, which therefore needs to be bigger to start with. I also found that it is necessary to give the base colour time to fully harden and also give it a coat of Matt varnish to seal it before applying the filler, otherwise the colour can bleed into the mortar. I’m very impressed by your station building, as I have been by all your other Farthing builds. It is modelling like yours that has inspired me to want more from my own modelling. Thank you.

Wow. There is virtually nothing in those photos that would lead me to believe they are of a model rather than the real thing. Perhaps, on the last shot, the bottom link of the 08’s three link coupler is not perfect but that is being really picky! Superb modelling.

Hi Alan, I couldn’t find any drawings of the GWR engine hoist, in GWJ or anywhere else I’m afraid. I need a 7mm version, so if you’re going to produce one that would save me the effort of bodging one up from photos and copying the Ratio OO one (and be much better to boot). Looking forward to seeing what you come up with 🙂.

They’ve arrived. First impressions are very good. They seem well made. They are very light (79g including a pair of lenses) and comfortable using the standard sides (I didn’t feel the need to use the included headband, they feel very secure anyway). I could use them without my normal reading glasses (I’m lucky in that my eyes are fairly equal in terms of prescription so I can get by with ready readers), but if necessary I could wear them as well but it’s a bit awkward. I’m very pleased with them.

I'm also having the same problem of growing old and diminishing eyesight. Up till now I've managed with a little 3" (75mm) round magnifier on a stand, but recently that isn't enough any more (even for O gauge). I've just hit "buy now" on these from the big river company: According to the specs (!) they purport to be about one third of the weight of the Borg ones. Currently with 40% off they are cheaper than the usually cheap Chinese resellers of identical kit. At the price I thought they were worth a try, having never had anything like this before. They should be delivered this weekend so I'll report back...

If I were you I’d go for the middle option - mostly on the board. This seems to give the best compromise between the length of the headshunt while still leaving enough space behind the buffer crossbar to get a decent representation of overgrown shrubbery. 🙂

Lovely layout. Any further progress?

Here's an example of the "traditional" method (glue is still wet, please excuse the clingfilm) as a comparison:

@TangoOscarMike I've had a play around with OpenSCAD and your scripts. I don't know how to do the python bit, so I improvised and came up with an stl I could print. This is the result, using Elegoo Standard Grey resin (the exposure parameters could do with a bit of a tweak, this is just a first attempt): Then with some primer (half dark grey, half black): And in a (prototype) wagon body: I'd say that was quite a good result, and better than the moulded coal loads provided by the RTR manufacturers (although to be fair it does still look like moulded coal, not a pile of discrete lumps). I'll make up a "traditional" coal load for comparison and report back...

I also started with Elegoo standard grey resin. Had plenty of successful prints, but they were very brittle. OK for some purposes, but I wanted something more resilient for printing wagon chassis. I then tried Elegoo ABS like v2 grey and this has been much better (much less brittle, much more forgiving while still being plenty rigid enough for what I wanted). I did do a lot of exposure test prints though, to find the combination that gave the best results for my needs. So far these are the only two resins I’ve tried. I’m sticking with the ABS v2 grey for now, until I find a reason to change.

Hi @chuffinghell, when I was trying Elegoo abs-like (v2, IPA washable) @beejack suggested I try an 8s exposure for normal layers and 60s for base layers. I thought these would be far too high as they are a long way from the Elegoo suggested values, but I went ahead and printed lots of test pieces at exposures up to these figures and was pleasantly surprised by the results. I was still getting all the detail, but the prints were much more rigid and not brittle. I am now settled on this resin and use 8s normal / 20s base, getting consistently good results. ps: I use a flexiplate which makes removing prints a breeze.

That’s looking very good 👍.

Fillet steak a la Beef Wellington yesterday as a special treat. No Christmas Pud though, but I wouldn’t have been able to find room for it anyway. Something a bit lighter today.

Hi @Shaun123, and welcome to RMWeb & 7mm O gauge. As suggested above, a search of RMWeb will yield many threads describing layouts which make use of Peco O gauge Set Track. The easiest way to find them is to go to the 7mm+ forum and enter "set track" (including the quote marks) into the Search box (top right), select "This forum" from the options list and click the magnifier icon: Result: The Peco Set Track points have a very large (and sharp) sideways displacement. If you want a more realistic result there is a very good description of a fairly simple modification you can make to the points here: Since you're new here you might not yet be aware that there was a catastrophic server outage sometime around April 2022 that resulted in the loss of a great many of the photos and images on the website. Turns out the (now ex) service providers weren't doing proper backups. So if you see a blue rectangle with a "?" icon, that is one of the "missing". Good luck, and hopefully you'll share your progress here ...

Thanks for mentioning OpenSCAD, which I hadn't heard of previously. I've been reading through the tutorials and rummaging around on the web, during which I came across two very useful free downloadable OpenSCAD files, one for coal and the other for stone walls (so hopefully @nberrington will forgive our off-topic discussion about coal!). Here's the coal (uploaded by af12689): https://www.printables.com/model/170915-g-scale-coal-pile/files Here's the stone walls (uploaded by Vendicar Decarian): https://www.printables.com/model/400716-stone-arch/files The corresponding scad files will give a very good idea of how these effects are achieved (obviously please credit the original author if you decide to use them). I think the coal looks ok from a distance, but up close it becomes obvious that there are repeated geometric shapes (triangles, squares, pentagons, hexagons etc). I'd prefer my coal to look more natural and random shapes, which may be a lot more difficult to achieve.

Merry Christmas everyone 🙂

Maybe a bit left field, but would the end of a golf tee do it?

Yes please! This is very timely for me as I’m just trying to print removable coal loads for some loco coal wagons. Hopefully the information will be useful to the OP and others too.

Is it something seasonal? Will all the children be getting a letter from Santa?

Is it your entry into next year’s Turner Prize competition?

Is it a POCKET HALFTRACK GRAFT by any chance? 🙃

Some track planning software might be useful, such as AnyRail (there’s a free version).

No. It comes in a small tub. To use it I just take out a small amount at a time and mix it with a drop of water (so it’s moist but not too wet - a bit like toothpaste consistency) then spread it over the brickwork with my finger. At the rate I’m using it I think one tub will last a lifetime.

Didn’t @MrWolf & @chuffinghell make something similar recently?

“Knocked up”!!? I think you must have found a way to clone yourself, or you have a team of minions working on these. Top stuff.