Blefuscu

I've been very slow recently but finally made a start on the livery.

This is really interesting... I've been thinking along similar lines, as the recent work I've seen on the Bambu looks really good. I don't really enjoy mucking out resin vats either! And... this weekend my LCD screen failed on my anycubic M3 plus. I have since discovered it's considered a consumable item! With that in mind, testing prints on a FDM printer makes a lot of sense. I'm going to on ponder this for a while before I rush to replace my dead screen. If I invested in a FDM for testing, I could even potentially outsource the final prints.

I've uploaded the chassis files that I used to cults3d. They're a freebie if anyone wants to play around with them or just take a look. https://cults3d.com/en/3d-model/game/tt120-scale-chassis-files-for-class-313-emu

The full work, as it were, is massive. Still nothing on what it was in the 50's. I dont think there's any way I could do it all in my loft... I've been offered a garage by my brother. I'm not sure how serious he was! Don't know what's up with my messages, but it would explain why I've never received any. I'll have another look. Edit=> still no idea why you can't send me a message but I have discovered that I don't know how to send them either.

I have started whiteboxing some rough building shapes over the map, and added my 313 and 55 models for fun too. I've cut the size of the depot a bit, but it's still far too big for my loft. Hard choices ahead... for now I will work on the station and neighbouring garage as a minimum! The garage is basically still there, kind of. I believe that the Hornsey Historical society have a photo of it from the eighties.

Thanks - yeah, it was wonderful to finally see it going. Especially with the Deltic still up on blocks. It's given me a real boost

Thanks. I'm going for a 1980's blue and grey... I've got 3 sets of usable bodies so I'm intending to paint up a couple of non-runners too.

Ha ha, I think I'm good for another hour before I have to get food on the table!!

I got the DM running today. Not a very exciting video! You can skim forward to see it running at different speeds. It's been running for a couple of hours now on printed drive shafts... I was hoping to get the carriage chassis going too but somehow the latest version of my bogies have 0.5mm less clearance!? I don't know how I ****** that one up, but they are painted now so will whittle them down rather than reprint.

Hmm... it's at this point you begin to wonder if 2mm wouldn'thave been a better idea. The green lines are meters, I clearly need to nudge some buildings and maybe lose a couple of sidings. There's a tower block, Dylan Thomas House, off the top of this image that I want to bring in... maybe I can reduce the size of the steel yard - (which is still visible on Google Street View if you travel right to the end of Hampden Road!)

Well, they're quite a bit more than a landranger... £22 for the paper copies, £12 for digital, plus £18 royalties per map to the OS, so I'll have to sell a few models to cover them! I could try and access them through other archives, but I'm a sucker for a nice map. York is also a bit far for a day trip for me, I think I'd struggle to get that one wife approved 🤔

Sadly not... I've just spent all my money on maps, so it would be too dangerous 😂

I had an appointment at the Haringey archives last week and found some nice photos of the area... and a lovely 1:1250 map surveyed in 1981. It looks like the scottish national library have the neighbouring grids from 79 to 81. Now I think I'm going to blow this months budget on maps... I don't think I can reproduce any of this online, but here's a little bit of the 1981 map!

I remember seeing rows of them when I was working up at Anfield. Not that we don't have a few in North London, but the impact of seeing a whole road boarded up has stayed with me. I was just checking out the metalwork on that spitfire. That's incredible stuff... I don't think the T7000 would be a substitute for fine etched parts, I was going to use it mostly for holding the chassis parts/weights together.

Maybe, it smells like a contact glue - but it's black. Has a bit of flex to it.

It was partly inspired by the metal panels they bolt onto derelict buildings. I don't know if it has cured the windows. These are better than my earlier prints... but they were also a different resin. It looks like a black rubber cement, but smells like an impact adhesive. Might have to be careful bonding some plastics like styreen or hips. Also quite a long curing time. I used clips to hold everything together... ...but it can hold glass screens onto metal/plastic phoned so I think it would be good for a range of non-porous materials. £4 for two tubes on amazon!

I just wanted to add an image of what they look like now. Maybe its confirmation bias, but it seemed to me that they settled overnight and looked a lot better in the morning... I don't know if that really supports my theory of hygroscopic expansion. None of my methods are very scientific here, and problems often look better in the morning. Also of note, my ICE3 bogies now have pickups. I recently discovered T7000 adhesive, having recently had to replace the screen on my son's phone, and I think it's pretty amazing. It describes itself as "Gravity magic rubber"

Hmm... I don't think window webbing has helped at all. It might even have made it worse. The drivers window is completely straight, but the frame there is only 4mm long. The passenger windows are approx 12mm. I'm a bit puzzled because they looked OK in the printer, (Albiet covered in goo), but also the fact that they have bowed outwards suggests they expanded post printing??... ABS v2 is water based, and i gave them a good wash, but is it also hygroscopic? I did a quick search and the answer looks like it is... https://blog.honzamrazek.cz/2021/05/i-tested-how-much-moisture-sla-printers-resins-absorb-how-it-changes-them/ The improved cross braces seem to have been pretty successful though, so i'll keep these. I don't i'll rerun the window experiment though.

That's what I'm hoping... but id prefer to get myself to a better starting point. These ones are also pretty straightforward to fix. However, if I can work out a way to mitigate some of this warping now, it might help with the coaches later. The results looked pretty good out of the printer, but after washing some of the support meshes look pretty wavy! Once it's dried and I've cleaned it up a bit I'll post an image

This is mostly procrastination. I just wanted to put it on some rails... and it looks like I'll be able to make it round corners. I picked up some of the Hunt 009 close couplings from West Hill at Ally Pally. I think they'll do... they appear to have been 3D printed, so I might pick up some magnets on ebay and do my own next time. (The second trailer isn't higher, it's bowing in the middle. That will be fixed with a metal plate.)

Etched windows are probably sensible answer. Thanks for the recommendation. I know 4D... but I hadn't thought to look there. The 'new' windows are looking pretty good from what I can see so far... but the rest of it is still printing.

Yes, i think the wheelbase is very useful... I think we will need to wait a while for the drooling to subsist though! I expect I could have used them for the 313, as i don't think the HST bogie is far off the BX1. The halling 21mm bogie was also a candidate, and the ICE3 is also in the same ballpark... Though, with the ICE3 I also get a pantograph (it's not right, but it's useable). I'm fairly happy with version 3 of my ICE3 conversion chassis. Not sure how long the 3D printed drive shafts will last. I have been cutting lumps off the metal top plate... but I have given up getting it to fit, so weight might be even more of a problem. Otherwise I just need to position the couplings, change the bogie sides and fit the bogie pickups. I have also decided to reprint the body in ABS V2, and with a support mesh in the windows, to see if I can improve those wobbly window frames.

That might be worth looking at... although I expect the old tt bodies were a little wider? I'm printing chassis V2 now, for a test fit, and once it's running I'll have a look at where I can pile the weight on. Although the quote from JLCPCB for a SLM printing chassis on stainless steel is about £23!!!... that's hard to resist. I need to double check it's the right size, as protolabs' quote was x10 that, and the postage will be awful, but it's stainless steel!

Unfortunately the motor cavity occupies most of the under floor. I even had to add material around some of it where u could see daylight through the floor. I'm trying to keep to at least 2mm thickness, more where possible, for strength (and stability during curing ). That said, metal filled resin is structurally a better bet than the UV resin. I was going to finish cleaning the design up tonight, but I tripped on the way to a hospital appt and now I'm in a&e 😂 When it's finally ready, i will get a quote for sintered metal, if for nothing else than general amusement!

Ha ha, I wish I suffered from that problem!