Blefuscu

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!

I have an offcut of 2mm steel next to that image which I'll be cutting up for reinforceing the trailer chassis, but I also have some 1mm steel shot (it was sold on ebay for weighting teddy bears!) that i use as a metal filler for adhesive or resin and pour into gaps, or into nose cones a la Liquid Metal. Iron fillings would work as a resin filler too I guess. It's just a question of making room for the weight without cutting away too much chassis. Have you found adding the weight above the drive train makes it top heavy? Another option that came up in conversation today at Ally Pally, was having the design 3D printed in sintered steel once I am happy with it. I can't imagine what that's going to cost... but I like really the theory!

This is a slight issue... It isn't nearly the weight of the die-cast chassis. However... the top half of the metal chassis should still fit. I'm hoping that's enough weight, or ill need to get creative. It will only be pulling the two other units.....

I'm working on the powered DM unit now... this is the first attempt, and has suffered some crude adjustments! Now the bogie is sitting comfortably, I'll reflect these changes on the design and print a real one.

The plier wrench was actually fine for pressing/flattening - but I would have had to have down a another 0.1mm I think to compensate for the flattening. I don't think I could justify the rolling mill for the amount of work I'm carrying out (or the space I have).... that handrail jig looks very useful though. Small enough that I might just smuggle it in without any justifying too. Need new pliers too... my 'fine' point pliers are old enough to have accrued some sentimental value now, but are really no longer up to fine work.

I started squeezing with a big knipex plier wrench, but for this job, they did seem to come up a bit wide - so I ultimately went with filing flat. Thanks everyone for the advice!

I think I'd be more comfortable with 0.3, but I'm not sure I could realise a low enough gear ratio... which led me thinking about a 3d printed gearbox. I agree, Tenshodo look to be 0.3 and I think the Halling gearsets are too. I did look at Romford and Ultrascale but as you say, i found supply a bit patchy. I have an assortment of 0.3 gears on a wishlist so I should probably just order them. I think I've stemmed the flood of aliexpress marketing emails, and am almost ready to try again. Another avenue, (particularly if ii end up designing a gearbox), is to have the parts cut at jlcpcb who used to do my 3d printing and pcb's. They are also based in China, but are a nice company to deal with. However, they ship with FedEx which is significantly more expensive than speedpak!