NScaleNotes

Hello I've been using the guides on the Hollywood Foundry website to create an etch but I think I need a bit of help with folding. I'm trying to create an etch that will be folded up to create a rectangular section that will sit on top of a tube. I've attached what I've got so far. The metal will be 0.15mm thick. The red areas represent the half-etches to guide the folds. Once folded the sections with the circular cutouts need to be 5mm wide and the rectangular sections need to be 6mm. I imagine folding towards yourself as you look at it but I don't think that matters. There is a tab and slot to help with fixing once folded-up. If anyone has done etch folds successfully before, is this correct? Thanks Simon

So who is the mystery company? Simon

Hi Tom Impressive work so far. Quick question though, how do you make sure you get enough UV inside the model to fully cure that resin with just four small holes? Simon

Thanks. That's useful to know as I can see a potential use for casting for my own models.

I've been following your work for a while but I'm reading this bit with added interest. What you've produced so far looks great but I have a few questions if you don't mind: Whenever I'd read about casting it says you can't have undercuts unless you have a two part mould. However it looks like you've got quite defined raised detail on the sides of the wagon bodies, a single piece mould and you're pulling out finished models without any problems. You also say there's no shrinkage in the width so how are the parts coming out without breaking or damaging the mould? Are the moulds more flexible than I'd been imagining? I guess these models work out quite cheap once you've put in the effort to build the master and moulds? Simon P.S. When you get around to it I just commissioned my first set of decals from a Canadian company called Precision Design Co. (https://pdc.ca/rr/custom_decals/) after giving up trying to get a UK company to do it. Amazing quality: the smallest text, which is less than 0.5mm high is readable, so I'd thoroughly recommend PDC if you can't find a UK service to print for you.

Hello all I've stumbled across a story about Noah's Train; an intermodal train with specially painted containers that is/has been touring Europe to encourage a switch to rail transport. You can read more here: https://blog.railcargo.com/en/artikel/noahs-train-in-spanien.html. Some of the artwork is really impressive and it'd make a great model. Place your bets on which of the manufacturers will produce it first You can find more pictures of the specially painted containers by doing a Google image search for Noah's Train. Simon

Hello Just spotted this article: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/17/soller-mallorca-heritage-train-investors-hostile-bid. Don't really know enough about it all (how it's managed now and what is planned if the bid succeeds) to comment but wondered if it might be of interest to anyone here. Simon

How did I miss that? I think this is a case of not seeing the wood for the trees. Indeed, in the second version of the Ferry Wagon diagrams further down the Barrowmere resources page is a document with the numbers as I expected to see them. Thanks Right, back to research...

Hello I'm posting a question here because I've hit a bit of a brick wall. I was recently pointed in the direction of the resources that the Barrowmore model railway club have made available here: http://www.barrowmoremrg.co.uk/Prototype.html One set of documents are diagrams for International ferry wagons. It's a brilliant resource for someone wanting to produce models of these wagons but having studied the diagrams and more specifically the wagon numbers shown I have some questions that I hope someone might me able to help me with. From what I've learnt I assume the documents are mostly pre-1980's wagons as I'm aware there were some changes to the numbering systems used on these wagons but what I can't find an explanation of, is why the wagon numbers nearly all seem to have a zero in this location: XX.XX.0XX.X.XXX and also why it is they are in this slightly strange grouping anyway. Everything I read says they should be grouped XX.XX.XXXX.XXX. Does anyone know why? The second mysterious thing is somewhat related to the numbering question above. On the website of Paul Bartlett he captions some his photos with the wagon diagram number but I can't for the life of me see how he managed this as the numbers on the wagons in the pictures don't match what is shown on the diagrams I have for either pre or post 1980 photographs! For example this DOW Bromine wagon: https://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/dowbromine. Scroll through the pictures to see the wagon with numbers clearly visible and then the diagram Paul has linked it to. How can you determine the wagon diagram if the wagon numbers don't match the daigrams? The diagram is the same as the one I have so what am I missing that allows you to make the link? The ultimate reason for all this was I was hoping to be able to link some pictures of some 2 axle Continental tank wagons I suspect may have been ferry wagons in the past to some of these diagrams to aid scratchbuilding. I think if I could figure these things out I might stand a better chance of linking a wagon to a diagram. Speaking of which has anyone ever found similar wagon diagrams for more contemporary Continental rolling stock, particularly tank wagons, apart from those that manufacturers sometimes make available via their websites? Thanks Simon

This looks awesome, great use of the space. Keep up the good work. P.S. That looks like a very nice looking model of a Fulcrum in the background of one of your hobby room pictures too. I've always wanted to have a go at building one of those.

I promised an update so here is the work I've completed so far. Interestingly I find I'm using the blog posting process to overcome any procrastination to force myself to make progress on this module. Knowing that the area I wanted to recreate would fit on a T-Trak module I thought the best place to start would be with the roads and pavements. The Stadtbahn itself runs right across the middle of the board and laying the roads/pavements would help me make a more accurate guess at the span of the bridge that is the centrepiece of the module; I'd also have a much better idea how much space I'd have available for buildings. I know that an N scale T-Trak module represents a real-World area of about 50m x 57m. Using the scale built into the maps and images of the Universitätsstraße area I drew a box this size over the area I wanted to model. This locks in the area I'm modelling and gives me edges to measure from. Using the same ratios, I then calculated the width of the roads and pavements. First I figured out the width of the pavements in various parts of the scene and cut these from white styrene. I debated for a little while whether I should try and replicate the various pavement surfaces (cobbles/square paving/diamond paving) by scribing the surface of the plastic but I think whatever I attempt might look over-scale. Perhaps I'll come back to this later. I then figured the width of the roads. I decided to use grey card (the kind you find on the back of pads of paper) for the road surface. It's not completely smooth (that didn't look quite right) and has just enough surface texture without looking over-scale. I'm hoping the lip created by laying the pavements on top of the road will allow the buildings to sit behind/inside the lip help hide any gaps that might be present at the bottom of the buildings. Here's a picture of the first card roads: As you can see I hadn't quite finished laying all the road and my excitement at the progress and how it was already looking made me jump ahead to the next stage, the tram tracks. A tram track runs parallel with the Stadtbahn across the centre of the scene. I debated for a while whether I should try and use Kato TramTrak or even scratchbuild some tracks but decided this might give me reason to put the project on hold so went for the option of creating non-working tram tracks instead. If I made them correctly there was no reason why a static model couldn't sit on the tracks later. I calculated where the outer tram tracks ran in relation to the edge of the road and cut the surface of the road in half at this point. I then removed 9mm from the edge of the inner piece of road. I used 0.5mm x 0.5mm styrene strip to represent the rails and 0.25mm x 0.75mm styrene strip to represent the inner 'check rails'? I glued the roads and rails down with tacky PVA glue. being careful to maintain a consistent gap between the rails and 'check rails'. I might add a second piece of styrene to the rails to make them a bit higher as they are currently slightly below the surface of the road. I haven't yet glued down the pavements but here's a final shot of the scene as it stands now from the kind of perspective I hope the module will be viewed from: Next steps, finish laying the road and glue everything down. In the meantime I've also started drawing plans for the first building: Until next time. Simon

Wow, doesn't time fly? Back in January I wrote my first post about how I built a light-weight and relatively cheap T-Trak module using Gatorboard. Since then almost three months have passed but in that time I've finally decided what to model and have actually made a start. So what did I chose to build on my first module? After weeks of deliberation, trying to decide whether to create a river bridge scene, a US rail-served industrial building, a city scene or a road bridge, I can now announce the winning idea is a Berlin Stadtbahn scene. More specifically, I've chosen to model this view down Universitätsstraße. It’s going to be quite a project but I like to throw myself in the deep-end. I’ve always wanted to create a European city scene having been inspired by the Cross Street layout of David Lund, the exhibition layout Schwungischerplatz and the scratch-built card and plastic building models of Grahame here on RMWeb. I have to admit it won’t be a prototypical model as I’ll be taking some liberties with the buildings in the scene. The coffee shop on the right is staying but I’ve found another building I want to put in the foreground on the left and also on either side of the road behind the tracks. Here’s a map of the scene with T-Trak module sized overlays; Universitätsstraße is on the right: I’ve transferred a rough plan to the surface of the Gatorboard and can confirm everything I want to include fits on the module. I’m currently creating scale drawings of the roads, pavements and buildings before I start cutting and assembling. Watch this space for progress reports and photographs…

I was going to suggest this too. I read a blog called 1zu160 about European N gauge and they mentioned there was a company manufacturing clips that would hold pantographs at the right height. I don't know if anyone makes anything similar for 1:148 models, perhaps someone here will know though. Simon

What if it didn't lift or drop but rotated out the way? That way you'd just need a break in the wires. You need to get the shapes of the various boards right but it should be possible. Pretty sure I've seen that somewhere but of course I can't find an example now but the principle would be similar to a curved sector plate. I'll keep looking. Update: Here's the concept, from Pintrest: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/bc/e3/0f/bce30f15fd9eaf0d141e78bdc0c321d5.gif Simon

Hello all I've recently been working on an N scale swap-tank. It's got some very fine detail. It's within tolerances for the fine detail plastic but it'll be interesting to see how that comes out. In the meantime I've also been putting together some etches for the models in the posts above. Currently waiting for some prints to arrive from Shapeways so I hope to be able to post some pictures of the finished models with etches soon. I've also been asked about making these available in 1:148 which I can. I probably won't be test printing these myself as I don't model in that scale but as they are basically scaled-up versions on the 1:160 models they should print without any problems if anyone here was interested. RP82: I've decided I probably won't be making these available in 4mm. It would require a complete redesign rather than just re-scaling the existing model. Sorry. Simon

Hello I've been blogging about real-World locations that might make good modules or cameos on my own website for a while now and I've recently become very interested in building T-Trak modules. In a nutshell, T-Trak is a set of standards for building very small modules. The standard ‘single’ module is only 308mm wide and 355mm deep. If you model in N scale like I do this means that a ‘single’ module represents about 50m x 57m of the real World. You can find out more about T-Trak here: http://www.t-trak.org/ As it's winter and I lack workshop space I need to be able to build the modules inside the house with simple tools using a strong, light material. Using foamcore board seemed like a solution. Tho only thing is I've built experimental formboard modules/layouts in the past using the kind of foamcore that can be found in the average hobby or art store but I've never been completely satisfied with the results. They tended to warp when damp/wet and the material never seemed as strong as advocates of the method made out. Then I got my hands on some Gatorboard... Gator Board is a heavy-duty foam board. The surface of Gator Board is made from wood pulp mixed with a fibreglass plastic and is advertised as being much tougher than regular foam board. The foam used between the surfaces also seemed to be denser than regular foam board. Now I've put a module together using it I can confirm that Gator Board is definitely much tougher than regular foam board! In the past I've cut foam board cleanly with a couple of passes of a scalpel but a scalpel barely scratched the surface of Gator Board. Using a mount board cutter was a complete failure and I ended up using a Stanley knife. Here's the basic dimensions of a T-Trak single module: The module should be 70mm high. The Gator Board I'm using is 10mm thick so sides are 60mm high and the deck adds 10mm to this to arrive at 70mm high. The modules are 308mm wide and 355mm deep. Front and back faces are fixed inside the side faces so are actually cut 288mm wide. So to create the module I needed: Two side faces 355mm x 60mm. Two front/back faces 288mm x 60mm. One deck (or top surface) 355mm x 308mm. I measured and marked my cuts from the factory cut side of the Gator Board using another small piece to keep my ruler right on the edge of the board. It's hard to visualise so here is a picture: I tried to always keep a factory edge where the small piece of board meets the cutting mat and where the piece being marked meets the small guide piece. I cut the pieces using multiple passes of a Stanley knife (with a fresh blade) using the long ruler that came with my Jakar mountboard cutting kit to guide the blade. As the board is tough even with the rulers rubber backing I needed to apply quite a bit of pressure to keep the ruler in place and the blade cutting straight. Now I may have been trying to force the knife to cut too quickly (probably) but I struggled to end up with a square cuts. Thankfully, this is where the toughness of the Gator Board helped. I was actually able to gently sand any not-quite-square cut edges with sandpaper! To keep my sanding efforts square I wrapped the sandpaper around another piece of Gator Board and tried to keep this flat as possible. It actually worked very well. It was only when putting this posts together that I remembered the facing contains glass fibres so sanding without a mask really isn't a good idea. Don't do what I did, wear a mask if you sand the board. I glued the pieces together with PVA glue (the bottle no longer has a label but I think it's some kind of Tacky glue as it's quite thick). I started by attaching one of the long side-pieces to the top deck, then an end, then the second side-piece and finally the second end-piece. Once the glue started to setup, I flipped the module over and put it under some weight to finish drying. It's not easy getting everything into position correctly and keeping it there. Trying to do it all in one go did lead to some swearing. There has to be an easier way of doing this and I'll have a think about this before I do this again. While gluing everything together it also became clear that one of my cuts wasn't quite as good as it should have been and there was a small gap where one of the end pieces touched a side piece. I had to inject a little bit of superglue gel into the gap as it was too late to re-cut or shape the edge of the board. Those of you with eagle eyes will also have noticed a dink in the bottom corner of the module already. That's actually from cutting where the knife drops off the edge of the board but it shows that even though Gator Board is much tougher than foam board you still have to be careful. However the final construction feels very robust, much more so than regular foamboard and it's should be able to take quite a bit of weight despite being very light. That's about it. A quick, easy and relatively cheap way to create a T-Trak module. Now all I've got to do is decide what to build on it. Simon

Thanks to everyone that responded. Seems like it's best to try and source pure acetone. I was trying to keep my business local but may have to resort to Ebay if I can't turn any up locally. Simon

Hmmm, tried them already and they said they didn't/couldn't sell it. Bear in mind this is also the chemist that told me I needed a prescription to order a drug that I brought in Boots the next day. I really try to keep my business local but when things like this happen you do wonder why bother. Hadn't thought of that. I might just give that a go. Thanks.

You'd think, I used to buy acetone (and all kinds of 'dangerous' chemicals) off the shelf of the local hardware store when I lived in the States but not here in the UK

Hello all Shapeways recommends cleaning prints (high detail plastic) with acetone. I've asked around all the local DIY stores and supposedly no one can source pure acetone! Locally the purest I can find is nail-polish remover (99% acetone) with added Bitrex. Anyone have any experience using similar non-pure acetone? Wondered if the Bitrex or any other additives would leave a residue? Probably worrying too much but don't want to waste money ordering something specialist if it isn't necessary. Simon

Hello all I've been playing with the three tanktainer prints. The first one is fine, all the parts go together well and it produces a great looking model: These tiny little tabs slide into equally tiny slots on the back of the frame: The tank end caps drop into the tank as planned: However I did realise I might be able to shave a little off the print price by relocating these sprues: If there were entirely inside the frame then less support wax and printer space would be used during printing. So even though this model printed correctly I'm going to update the CAD files. The third tank, the tiny bromine tank went together perfectly: I did find an issue with tank number two though. The frame and tank should print as separate pieces, like this: However one side has fused during printing: So I went back and double checked the material specifications: 0.05mm gap between parts, yes, that's what I did. Then I read a little further and it says you must be above the minimum to prevent problems I've updated these CAD files now by increasing the gap between the parts to 0.1mm. It shouldn't make a difference to the model but it should prevent the parts fusing during printing. Living and learning...

Hi RP82 They'd be very expensive as a full print but I've designed some that can use lengths of brass or plastic tube of the correct diameter as the tank. As these take up less space in the printer and involve less material they are cheaper to print. I could try converting one of these kit versions to 4mm and see how much it costs to print. Leave it with me, I'll see how it comes out. Simon

Hello all I've received my prints back from Shapeways so I thought I'd post some photos of the actual models. Shown in the same order as my original post: I'm really pleased with the print of this tank. Not only did the main frame come out really well, the walkway supports visible along the top surface of the tank have come out crisp, clean and intact. The supports are actually only 0.3mm x 0.6mm which is technically below what Shapeways say they can print, so sometimes it does payoff to test the limits of these things. I've done nothing to these prints yet and some of them do need a little bit of cleanup as you can see the remains of the wax supports. A quick rub with a bit of sandpaper/file and they'll be ready for painting. Simon

Hello everyone I've had some time on my hands recently so I've been able to get on with a project I've wanted to tackle for sometime: producing some detailed models of ISO and European tanktainers in N scale (1:160). I've been planning with FreeCAD for a number of years so I could jump straight into producing the CAD files but my first print was still very much a learning experience. Here's what I did wrong I created the model as two parts (frame with tank as separate model) which meant it was very expensive to print. You'll find a thread on that on RMWeb. I put attachment tab slots in the wrong places, which made parts of the frame delicate and the frame cracked when trying to use the tabs/slots. I accidentally uploaded a version of the model with a solid tank. More unnecessary expense However it wasn't all negative, one of the things I was most worried about, the print quality of the tank/tube, wasn't an issue at all. The printed model came out with an almost layerless finish. The material wasn't fragile and the frame printed really well, even right at the limits of what Shapeway say is possible (some parts of the frame were only 0.6mm x 0.6mm) So I ploughed on. The first step was to redesign the first model incorporating the lessons learnt. Note the following pictures of the latest models are what they will look like when assembled, they actually go to the printers as two or more separate pieces (tank, tank end caps and frames) joined by sprues. The pieces are cut off the sprues and glued together to create what is shown in these pictures: Once, I'd done that I decided I really wanted to test the limit of what Shapeways could do so I choose a tanktainer with intricate frame detail: Then I found a really interesting prototype in the form of a bromine transportation tank: Finally I had a go at a European swaptank: You'll notice none of the models have walkways, ladders or very small details like ADR warning signs as I felt these would come out better as an etch rather than being printed. All these models are currently at the printers but I'll update when I get them back. Simon

Hello all I stumbled across this image of historic street running in downtown Victoria today: https://www.flickr.com/photos/chris_city/46036394001/in/feed. FYI: It's worth keeping an eye on Chris Medland's Flickr photostream if you are interested in industrial switching and west Canada railroading, he's put some cracking images up. Simon