sem34090

For a manufacturer, how about Neilson's?

She was a bit less wooden last time I watched The Battle of Britain... She was a bit less wooden last time I watched a 'Battle of Britain'...

Morning all, Just a quick question - Does anyone have knowledge of a current email or postal address specifically for Island Line? I wasn't sure where else to post this.

Wire? Motors?

As far as I know the MSE posts are Whitemetal, the arms etched, so they'd be no more difficult than the Ratio kits. One idea I'd contemplated was to use the MSE arms with Ratio posts and ladders. I'm also thinking of doing some CAD for LBSCR ground signals. They might even work out at an acceptable price in one of Shapeways' better materials.

My compromise on that is that I usually try and design stuff for a Ready-to-Run chassis. Not the best, I know, but at least it means the model should run.

I shall have to consider that, thanks Nick. For the moment I think sticking with a print is a good idea, as having only very limited experience with brass £80 is a bit steep for me currently. At least the basic surface finish would be miles better than Shapeways' though!

For LBSCR Signals, I suggest you look at MSE/Wizard Models.

But... it is producing something that one can't buy, what @Buhar says? He is suggesting purchasing a file for a locomotive that might very well be unavailable to purchase as a physical model? Apologies to return to my repetitive twaddle, but the same would apply if the locomotive was also offered on Shapeways; One can't buy the models offered on Shapeways in a decent material, at a decent quality for a decent price. I don't possess the scratch-building skills to produce a Metropolitan Railway H Class 4-4-4T, which I would dearly love a model of, and to the best of my knowledge the only currently available model is Simon's on Shapeways so as far as I'm concerned it might as well not be available. So surely if the file were offered for sale, and were I to print it, would I not have used the printer to produce something that I can't buy - The body of a Metropolitan Railway H Class 4-4-4T with an acceptable surface finish at an acceptable price to serve as the basis for a model of that locomotive class.

This is my only other concern with some of Simon's output, and probably not an insurmountable one. When drawing up a loco, I usually also draw a model of the RTR chassis it's going to sit on first, or it it's not using an RTR chassis my mates at CDC Design will help me draw up a chassis block for it.

I feel the need to clarify that I have used the cheap Shapeways material and achieved some almost-acceptable results after an awful lot of priming and sanding, which wasn't really all that enjoyable. As I prefer to actually enjoy my modelling, I would rather not have to do this to get an almost-acceptable model. I agree that most good modellers can probably achieve something with the material, though what constitutes a 'good' modeller is incredibly subjective, but most wouldn't get much pleasure out of what feels like endless repeated sanding and priming. It has been a very long time since I did this however, so perhaps your advice differs from this method. I should also clarify that I don't expect everything to be perfect or done for me - A resin print will generally require an amount of work with a blade to remove the supports (easily done before full curing)- but prefer to have a reasonably smooth surface to begin with, as provided by resin prints, resin castings, whitemetal castings, card (in its various forms), brass, laser-cut wood (I'm referring to building kits here) etc. In fact the cheap nylon used by Shapeways and I.materialise has the worst initial finish of any kit material I've yet used. If you consider something to be too expensive to be printed by shapeways then it must be truly expensive as some of the prices for 4mm/ft stuff are already extortionate for the quality of product offered. Anyhow, for our combined sanity and to preserve the topic here by not continuing to deviate from it I'll leave you alone and agree to disagree regarding materials, shapeways and file availability.

You two have summed it up. We wouldn't buy the designs from shapeways because the quality isn't up to what we usually manage at home and the price is exorbitant (Even when you count materials and maintenance, Simon. A 1l bottle of resin, enough to do quite a few 1:76 loco bodies, with a few failed attempts is less, slightly more or equivalent to purchasing one of your 1:76 loco bodies, in the dreaded and relatively hard (but not impossible) to work with former-WSF. Maintenance is pretty limited, in my experience and has cost pennies compared with what's been produced.) for the lack of quality offered by the finished product. I'm not suggesting that it's perfect -far from it- but quite a few home resin printers are producing consistently better results than Shapeways. I'm not for one moment suggesting that you don't sell via Shapeways, as you may remember I once had no other option than to buy from the likes of Shapeways and it's a useful outlet for buying and selling where few comparable options exist. But I also feel that you're leaving a few (possibly very few) potential customers regretfully turning away -in my case to basically try and replicate a sizeable portion of your product range because it reflects my interests. I dare say I might then offer the files for free download- because we don't want to pay substantial sums of money for Shapeways' output! Apologies if that comes across as confrontational, it's not really meant to be - I'm just frustrated that I'm not in a position to purchase any of your products and (crucially) get a decent model in return for my expenditure. But then, each of us to his own. There are probably precious few of us asking for this option, so it's probably not worth your time. Ultimately, I do have the drawings so if I want the locos enough then I'll draw them up and maybe offer them for download, we'll see if they're good enough. One final, slightly unrelated, point - Do you have any chassis recommendations for your Metropolitan H?

O can privode the latter, but the firmer is simewhat mire cimplocated by dostance. Os that ginong tii far? Defonotely takong the poss. I think I've now learnt how they wrote Crabtree's lines in 'Allo 'Allo... Nit quote...

Certainly I always found it difficult to balance a reasonable selling price with a reasonable mark up. Unlike some, I tended to sacrifice the mark up for a reasonable selling price as it was so small as to not be bothering with.

My main issue here is that Shapeways is still being deemed as supplying high quality products at a reasonable price - These days it does neither. The quality of the finish and the price per-unit (including failed prints!) have both been eclipsed by resin printers. Several of us have said that we'd be happy to pay for files, and I'd be happy to agree to a license agreement to protect the creator's IP. Apologies if I'm repeating myself, I think I'm just annoyed at the prospect of having to draw up quite a few things that are available on Shapeways, so printable files for them exist, but I am unable and unwilling to pay Shapeways' prices for Shapeways' relatively low quality.

O understand yiur struggle, but the abive suggestoin os unlokely ti silve the priblem, of yiu catch my droft. There's ni ibvoius silutoin, O feel. Perhaps licate a keybiard with the 'I' and the 'O' separated by sime margon. Any ither reloable silutoins shiuld be sent to eother Mr Edwardoan ir myself in the back if a pistcard. O think O moght be takong the poss niw...

Don't say that! 'Justification' is what forces me to not have too many unfinished projects and stops me spending money on a completely incoherent range of stock!

Wire.

I guess I'll have to drag out my Met loco drawings and get to work then... Ah well.

Oof... Exactly! (Perhaps it was just my mind that interpreted some bits of the Austerity video in a different light...) I would rather like one... not sure how to justify it though.

To answer that anyway - Bachmann Suburbans are only really any good for doing the Watford DC (Cl. 501) stock, or so I thought. I don't think they've tooled for 64ft stock?

That really is such a pity. I would be in the market to buy an awful lot of your stuff, but at Shapeways prices I cannot justify it. I cannot justify paying £30+ (plus postage) for a tank engine body in that horrible white nylon stuff when for £40 I could buy a litre of resin for the printer and print several of a similar size. I would, however, be willing to buy the STL files for a reasonable sum (I can understand why some people don't like offering stuff for free), as I know I will likely be able to print them better than Shapeways. If the sum were moderate enough, I wouldn't even be bothered about not knowing what chassis to put the body on. I'd be particularly inclined to purchase some of your Metropolitan steam locos, but if they're not to be made available then I'll probably draw them up myself.

The videos come highly recommended - It's small wonder that the gentleman's channel has grown from nothing to pretty big in less than a year. I particularly recommend the Hunslet Austerity...

There were films too!

Latest pre-grouping release for DTG sim: