Geordie Exile

11 minutes ago, Caley Jim said:

Nice work, Richard.  That's basically a set of bending bars you've made there!

 

Jim

You mean I needn't bother putting a stamp on that letter to the Patents Office, then?

Well that went up with fewer swearies than I expected. And only three bits fell off.

The distortion is mostly the fault of the phone camera, it's squarer than it looks.  Honest.  I've just tack-soldered it for the moment.  Now to add the two layers of corner columns, painstakingly folded using my (as-yet-unpatented) clamp-n-bend-n-pray tool.

After that, infill the bits between the windows with brick-embossed plasticard, glaze it, floor and roof it, add the opening windows, and paint it.

I'm horrible aware I'm bouncing from project to project!  Since Christmas, I've knocked up a shunting plank (no, I don't have a working loco to go on it yet!), built a Fencehouses P4 hopper, and started the artwork for my first wagon etch.  I've also created an etch which I hope will turn into the tall windowed building at the back of this photo:

Well, the etch arrived from PPD a couple of days ago.  I've built the concrete pillars/horizontals as a series of laminates, two or three layers deep:

(It turns out that a spare nasal swab from a lateral flow test is a pretty good solder paint brush).  The pieces to the left are the corner columns - indented for the first laminate to fit onto the lintels, and then solid for the outer laminate.  I've given the building a pretty good scrub with an electric toothbrush, but it still needs a good brush with the awful glass fibre weapon of torture.

And then the folding begins.

On 11/01/2021 at 22:42, 2mm Andy said:

Nice work on the P4 hopper. You might want to check with Bob about the end stanchions - the kits I bought (not long after they became available) had cast whitemetal end stanchions (it may be that Bob has run out of these and can't get any cast at the moment). The stanchions do also project below the bottom of the wagon headstock - I think this was so that they could be mixed with the older style chaldron wagons used in the collieries when these wagons were first introduced.

 

The wagon below is one of the three of these that I've built so far (there are another 7 in my gloat box, along with a selection of 21t steel hoppers too). The strapping is fiddly, and I usually find at least one bit pings off when I try to remove the etch surround! One other tip - the axleboxes seemed to stick out a long way if you stack-up all the etched layers, so I omitted a few on the wagon below (you can just make out that the wagon on the right has the full number as on the etch (and not assembled very neatly either - I shall have to revisit that one). I probably ought to shape the monkey tails better too (and add the missing clutch shaft on the brake gear).

 

Andy

 

Bob's sent me some etched stanchions: you laminate 6 together per stanchion (times 4 per wagon, times 14 wagons...) 

7 minutes ago, Graham R said:

If you really can’t fold the ledges, at least you now have consistent rebates to take pieces of microstrip, tedious though adding them might be.

Our posts crossed, but as you can see from my reply above that's my Plan B. Great minds!

9 hours ago, Michael Edge said:

I did say most etch designers use far too many tags..... - and they are often unnecessarily thick as well.

How thick were your fold lines? I have been making them quite a bit wider recently, especially where they will be difficult to fold because they are too close to a hole. Your last option works but doesn't need nearly as wide a gap as you might think. Sometimes (etching varies quite a bit) it won't etch right through but it's easy to slice it with a knife to allow it to fold.

I thought I'd been quite canny with a minimum amount of tabs, but having seen how (relatively) solid the sheet was I could definitely have used fewer. I kept them all at 0.5mm width, although two etched through so I'm going to check my artwork to see if those were narrower.  Fold lines are 0.2mm, and again I think that might have been too narrow.

7 hours ago, Caley Jim said:

I always make long fold lines with gaps in them.  As michael says, they don't need to be the full width of the fold line.  When making the folds it helps to run a knife along the line a couple of times to help it to bend.  Can you grip the window frame in bending bars or a vice and then use a steel rule to bend over the small ledge?

 

Jim

The body of the building is too large to fit in a vice, so I've tried holding it flat with a steel rule while attempting a bend. Not bad, but not great. I hadn't thought of weakening the fold with a knife, so I'll give that a go, although I've accepted the possibility of adding (a lot of) microstrip ledges once everything else is done.

Thanks, both, for the benefit of your experience. 

Richard 

Well, my etch came back from PPD. First three lessons:

- use the bare minimum amount of tabs. Every one of them needs cutting, twice, and filing, twice.

- my window ledges (the horizontal red lines on the body of the main building above) ain't never gonna fold without bending the narrow window frames they're attached to (see pic). 

- next time, use the trick of fully etching (invisible) folds, with a couple of tabs, to make the folds much easier.

4 minutes ago, 2mm Andy said:

 

What you've done so far looks really good but I must admit that I think you're brave to choose a hopper wagon for your first wagon etch design project. I've done a few etch designs for wagons (or bits of wagons) over the past few years and have slowly got the hang of it (mostly by making different mistakes on each project!). My current project is a NER P5/P17 mineral wagon (one of these which has vertical sides/ends but with a wooden hopper inside), and there are bits of it making my brain hurt!

 

Andy

"Brave": you spelled "Foolhardy" wrong   The geometry of the internal sides is doing my head in, as evidenced by the various paper versions currently littering my desk.  But, this is the wagon I want, and I'm not on a deadline, so I'll keep plugging away.  And as I think "what else can I put on a test etch" candidates for etching keep popping up (window frames, doors, obviously, fencing too, winding wheels to replace the 3D printed ones I was so pleased with a year ago...)

2 hours ago, Nick Mitchell said:

I had the pleasure of firing one of the Backworth RSH saddletanks similar to the one in your photo - No. 47 - when it visited Embsay 5 or 6 years ago.

 

P.S.  Here she is when she had a proper job, shoogling wagons around at 'my' pit!

Photo credit: Sassaby/Flickr

24 minutes ago, Nick Mitchell said:

 

Maybe your next etch design could be for one of these?

Walk before I run! As @Kylestrome's demonstrated, I've barely got to grips with straight lines.  Curves are for the grown-ups 

22 hours ago, Ben A said:

Hello Geordie,

 

That looks great.  I am not familiar with these wagons; are the ones you're doing the same as the three wagons to the immediate left of the locomotive?  If so, and comparing your drawing, should the undercut at the lower edge of the sides be slightly steeper and taller, and tapering into the top edge of the solebar, rather than occluding it?

 

cheers

 

Ben A.

Just re-read your post, Ben, and realised I misunderstood it.  The two lowest planks on the sides will fold 30 degrees (ish) and sit on top of the solebar. 

R

6 hours ago, bill-lobb said:

 

I'm really enjoying this thread. It makes me all nostalgic for my days at junior school racing the trains that ran along the Fawdon Waggonway beside the playing field. You are probably already  aware of it, but if not there is a decent photograph of one of the Charles Roberts hoppers and some dimensions in Bill Hudson's Private Owner Wagons V 4, Plate 87.

 

Bill

Cheers, Bill. I'm not familiar with the book, and those dimensions would have been useful to confirm what I've got.  I suspect the I've seen the photograph already, one way or another!

4 hours ago, Ben A said:

Hello Geordie,

 

That looks great.  I am not familiar with these wagons; are the ones you're doing the same as the three wagons to the immediate left of the locomotive?  If so, and comparing your drawing, should the undercut at the lower edge of the sides be slightly steeper and taller, and tapering into the top edge of the solebar, rather than occluding it?

 

cheers

 

Ben A.

Hey, Ben.  If you're referring to the bit I think you are, that's the strapping which I've already considered in terms of the fold required. (It'll be etched as a side/end strap with a top-to-bottom fold.  This before & after shows what my thoughts are:

But it also shows I've got the width wrong on the bottom portion!

My plan is to print the 'finished' artwork onto plastic card at 4mm scale to try a test fit before I commit to nickel-silver (and incur those costs!)

Richard

Don't know if this counts as on my workbench, but it's what I've spent the last few evenings working on.  Fenwick Pit was part of the Backworth system, which added 200 bespoke wagons to its fleet from 1938, many of which survived until the pit was shut.  These 15t hoppers from Charles Roberts have an unmistakable end, with the lower planks not there - the only reason I've come up with is that it would allow the sloping interior sides to be banged to encourage discharging, but I'm open to other suggestions (saving wood therefore cost and weight?).  There's dozens of them in this photo:

(source: Flickr - Billy Embleton Collection)

I've been playing with this using QCAD - at the moment I'm barely thinking about which elements get half-etched, or joined together and hinged.  Rather I'm concentrating on producing 2D versions of pictures.  This is where I've got so far: 

(Source: My desktop!)

I'm up to 8 different layers so far.  I've got to the stage where I'm working on the internal sides, with slopes, which meet, and I'm doing my best to remember O-Level trig!  I'm standing on the shoulders of giants here, with advice from Bob Jones and the contributors to the etching thread, to whom: thank you.

Richard

Excellent use of 'spoddling' 

11 hours ago, 2mm Andy said:

Nice work on the P4 hopper. You might want to check with Bob about the end stanchions - the kits I bought (not long after they became available) had cast whitemetal end stanchions (it may be that Bob has run out of these and can't get any cast at the moment). The stanchions do also project below the bottom of the wagon headstock - I think this was so that they could be mixed with the older style chaldron wagons used in the collieries when these wagons were first introduced.

 

The wagon below is one of the three of these that I've built so far (there are another 7 in my gloat box, along with a selection of 21t steel hoppers too). The strapping is fiddly, and I usually find at least one bit pings off when I try to remove the etch surround! One other tip - the axleboxes seemed to stick out a long way if you stack-up all the etched layers, so I omitted a few on the wagon below (you can just make out that the wagon on the right has the full number as on the etch (and not assembled very neatly either - I shall have to revisit that one). I probably ought to shape the monkey tails better too (and add the missing clutch shaft on the brake gear).

 

Andy

 

That's such a neat job with the strapping, Andy!  And I did wonder about the axle boxes, as they seemed quite chunky.  I'll get in touch with Bob - the instructions do mention cast stanchions which weren't available at the time of writing, and those on your wagons look significantly less chunky than my cackhanded attempts (and frankly, I've got a sheet of these etches, and I don't fancy trying to file another 60 stanchions!)

Cheers, Richard.

End stanchions added. They don't come with the kit, so I've filed down some plasticard. They ought to be finer, and riveted, but my skills don't stretch that far. I'll file them flush(ish) top and bottom tomorrow assuming the glue holds.

If ever something  cried out for 3D printing, it's these. Their chunkiness, rivets and tapered form in three planes don't seem to lend themselves to etching. 

An A3 sheet of Bob Jones' wonderfully detailed NER P4 coal wagons arrived before Christmas, and I've spent the last couple of days tackling the first one.  I struggled with the strapping, both internal and external, as each side comes as a single overlay, which you solder on then remove the 'sprue' and tags. I may resort to superglue for the next one. The unpainted result is very shiny, as I got an ultrasonic bath for Christmas. 

29 minutes ago, Nick Mitchell said:

Could they be a PECO point motor shaft extender?

I'm going back decades, but seem to remember something with a PL-10 point motor - like this https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/143774500829

Ah, that's a possibility.  I 'inherited' some old n-gauge stuff ages ago that included a couple of point motors.  The packaging didn't look like Association bags.  Now I know what they are, thoughts turn to what they will become!  

Richard

I've barely been doing this long enough to acquire the makings of a gloat box, let alone forget what it is that I've bought to put in it. Or so I thought. I have two of these; a 30mm length of 1mm rod, with a 7mm length of copper (?) tube. Anyone any idea as to what they might be?

Thanks to everyone for their advice (as ever!).  I've ended up trying to recreate the entire building in 0.25mm n/s.  It's been a steep but rewarding learning curve.  The whole building is a single piece, square in plan so each wall is replicated and separated from its neighbour with a fold line.  I've added some right-angled triangles to assist in making the square actually square (and it's just occurred to me that I should have added half-etch lines for them to sit in - ah well).  The rest of the pieces are the concrete elements, which when laminated will be either a quarter or half millimeter proud of the surface.  I had considered doing these in plasticard which would have significantly reduced the cost, but the sharpness of the lines and the accuracy of the measurements clearly gives etching the edge. The holes under/above the window apertures will be infilled with brick-embossed plasticard.

I've emailed it to PPD for them to validate (or otherwise) and give me a quote.  I'm quite etchcited!

Richard

Is the upside-down photo a test to see if we're paying attention? 

Thank you all for the pointers.  I like @bécasse's idea of etching each aspect as a whole, or even the entire building as a oner - three half-etched score lines and it'll fold very neatly.  As @Caley Jim says, it'll prevent any problems with alignment. Plus significantly fewer tabs.  I think I'll take the process one step further and have the concrete columns and cross-members etched too.  Laminating them onto the window frame layer will be a much neater job than cutting lots of lengths of plasticard.  The brick infills will remain as plastic card.  Hmm, and as I type this, can I have these etched too?  Although I suspect they may be well below tolerance, I might have a bit play with that...

Morning all (and a happy new year to you).  I'm currently playing with recreating the tall building in the background of this photo.  Apart from the covered conveyors, I've now got 2mm versions of all of the other main buildings, so this is the last I plan to tackle for the colliery.

All four faces of the building are the same as the aspect we can see, so it makes sense to me to try my hand at CAD and etching as the whole edifice is windows with the occasional brick!  My thoughts are to more or less build it out of clear acetate as the structural bits, with windows, walls and columns laid on top.  Each window consists of a 4x5 grid of panes, with the central 2x3 panes opening, as we can see on the 2nd window down, 3rd from the left.  I'd like to model several of these open, to relieve the symmetry and monotony.

So: I've dipped my toe into CAD today, using QCAD which I've found nice & easy to use, and come up with this...

...which pretty much covers an A4 sheet.  It's a tessellation of three elements: the frames of the left- and right-hand windows, which don't open; the frames of the middle two columns, which do, and the frames of the opening sections.  In a closer zoom, these are they...

The dimensions are in millimetres, so the frames are 0.5mm wide.  There's a semicircular notch where the hinges are of 0.25mm radius (my intention is to overlay the smaller window onto the hole for where the windows are shut, and to fit the former through the latter pivoting on the notches where they're represented open.

After all of this very long preamble come my questions:

- should I contain every element within its own frame, or simply frame the entire etch and add tabs between every element?

- is there a 'normal' spacing between tabs?

- is there a 'normal' spacing between elements? 

- there's a whole lot of holes in the etch: might the etcher object to this amount of waste dissolving into their acid soup? (I've not picked a specific etcher, although PPD are front runners at the moment)

- as this is my first attempt, can the more experienced folk spot anything I've not considered (fragility??)

(I haven't quite figured the sequence/contents of each layer, but I'm happy to work that lot out)

Thanks everyone

Richard

4 minutes ago, nick_bastable said:

whats the weird looking track besides the cattle dock and its reason  I have a suspicion but would like the correct answer

 

Nick B 

I was hoping someone else would ask!  (I don't have the merest suspicion of a suspicion)

Well, looks like I've got my first track laid! It's glued straight onto the board, but the exchange sidings which I'm hoping it'll turn into show no cess, shoulders or ground features of any kind!

My plan is to make a mirror image of this board using PCB sleepers, to see if that construction method suits me. That'll give me two loops and a head shunt, which (almost) matches the original.  

I'll use the board to practise TOUs and wiring/isolating before making the decision about it actually forming a part of the layout.