justin1985

https://github.com/Photonsters/anycubic-photon-docs/blob/master/temp/slice_angles-van_kesteren.jpg Edit - there is a really good summary of how to set up your design for printing on the Photon here: https://github.com/Photonsters/anycubic-photon-docs/blob/master/FAQ.md#model-setup--settings The linked document on designing supports seems to originate with another random manufacturer, but contains lots of good advice: https://github.com/Photonsters/anycubic-photon-docs/blob/master/Resources/AddingSupportsForSLA3DPrinters-v1.pdf Justin

On the specific idea you had to draw in 3D then print plans, @monkeysarefun has given a great solution - with the real advantage that Sketchup has lots of libraries of things to help with drawing buildings. Another tool that does just what you've described is Fusion360. This probably a little bit more technical than Sketchup, but definitely the same kind of thing, and it is free for home/hobby users. It is more intended for designing products and objects, rather than buildings though, so no ready made windows etc. Fusion's trump card though, which I only just discovered myself, is that once you've created a 3D object (by the usual combining basic boxes and cylinders, or extruding sketches etc.) you can right click on it, choose "Create Drawing", and instantly, as if by magic, you can get a full scale drawing of as many faces and projections as you choose, just like you asked for! This example is actually a bogie for a tiny T Gauge coach that I've been working on, but it shows how the drawing is generated automatically from the 3D object. I've chosen to add some dimensions and a cross section to this one, but those aren't necessary. You can export as a PDF, and I've opened those in Inkscape to then add textures etc to bits I'm doing to print. Something like this would be super useful for buildings with a complex roof shapes - I always found it a right nightmare to work out angles for dormers and intersecting roof lines. With this, you could just create one roof shape by extruding a triangle, then create a dormer by extruding a smaller triangle that intersects with it - then just use the "Drawing" function to create diagrams of the resulting flat faces!

Its hard to judge the size of your model from these pictures, but I only ever use "light" supports for the smallest of objects - even a T Gauge coach I'm working on now I use "medium" supports for, otherwise I get distortion. The key is to place supports strategically though - always on the "bottom" edge of any shape etc, and never on a face of a model that will be visible on the final thing, if you can avoid it at all - the auto supports rarely work well. Also key is making sure the "Lift" from the bottom is quite big - I've found anything less than 7 or 8mm and you're likely to get distortion on the bottom edge of most objects - the price is obviously extra time taken to print all those layers of supports! There is a diagram doing the rounds online of the optimum angles to use at different layer heights on the Photon. I always use 0.02mm layer height on the Photon, and I remember the angle for that is 22.49deg. The idea is to ensure each "pixel" ("voxel" in 3D, I think) is a cube - if you use an angle that is more or less than optimum for the resolution and layer height, you'll get jaggedness where layers don't match up neatly to the design. As Adam says, a screenshot from Chitubox would help judge what might help most.

Thanks Scott! Were the 16 surviving green examples in August 1970 all from the 25 that had full yellow ends though? Or did some survive until 1970 with small yellow panels? Not a big deal when I'm bending history to get one on the layout at all, but I am curious J

Its a shame you've given up on 2mm Martin, but this new project does look stunning! I'm a real fan of that early National Express Scotrail livery too - and those 156s look beautifully resprayed. The LED strip looks really interesting too - they seem to move on really quickly - I bought an RGBWW strip a year or two ago and was really impressed, but RGB+CCT looks even better. The controller looks handy - I had been experimenting with Arduinos to control the colour via PWM as controllers seemed quite poor value, but that side of things has probably moved on quite a bit too? I was briefly a member of MERG, but felt a bit out of my depth - I don't remember seeing the EzyBus system though - could you talk us through what you're doing with it here? Is it just linking the input and output pins of a pair of Arduinos over a bus wire? How does that relate to the relay board? Cheers Justin

I'm very temped to buy one for my Speyside themed distillery mini-layout - in the hope that it is a simple conversion to 2mm, although the photos on the Rails website do make the wheels look a little worryingly Dapol like. Hopefully they can be turned down relatively easily? I don't really know much about the prototypes though, apart from the fact they were so unreliable. I had a feeling that many were withdrawn before even being painted into BR blue. So would a heavily weathered green loco still be plausible for the very final years of operation? Basically I think the green livery looks better on them! There only seems to be one variant in green with full yellow ends, and no weathered version of that. Was that an uncommon livery variation in real life? Did most stay in green with small yellow panels until repainting into blue, or directly to scrapping? Or would a "last knockings" green loco definitely be a full yellow ends green? Cheers Justin

Hi Mark - that is certainly the most popular era - probably amongst 2mm Association members too, so there is no shortage of kits etc to work with. In terms of track, you'd want the 8'6" length sleepers - which were standard from the grouping era onwards. There is currently a choice of 8'6" and 9' (for the pre-grouping era) length in PCB sleepers, and the plastic Easitrac bases come in 8'6" and now also 9", as well as 8'6" concrete types etc. The complete turnout kits (1-403 onward) use plastic sleepers with holes to locate pegged chairs and solid milled crossings (noses and knuckles), which definitely makes them the easiest option, so I'd start there. The jigs for making crossings from normal rail are really helpful, but not foolproof - which is why, personally, for custom track work that doesn't suit an off the shelf kit, I prefer to use PCB soldered construction, because there is much more scope to nudge, adjust, and bodge before you break anything, if you don't get it 100% right. There is no reason not to mix and match PCB soldered track and plastic Easitrac - in fact I think virtually everyone uses the Easitrac for any significant length of plain track these days. The issue that this might create though is that the PCB on its own + rail is not quite as high as the plastic bases + rail. This is where the etched chainplates come in - the thickness of a single etched plate makes up the difference, and they make soldered track look virtually indistinguishable from plastic - but they are fiddly. The easier solution is just to put some thin card underneath the PCB sleepers (like leaving a template printed on card in place). Most importantly I'd suggest buying the TRACK book - it has loads of worked through examples of building track using the different systems, but also loads of more general tips and explanations that are helpful for anyone building their own track in ANY scale. I've been a member for something like 10 or 12 years now (I guess?) and there are still things I'm less confident about - like building steam locomotive chassis - but overall I'm sure I've made loads of progress. The most important thing is to embrace the fact that everything is a learning process, and things might not work first time - but if they don't, you'll probably have learned enough to do a lot better next time Talking of steam locos, a Jinty conversion is definitely one of the easier options, as 2mm steam locos go, but I'd suggest getting the quartering right is still a bit tricky (especially if you don't have access to the rather expensive quartering jig) and the etched coupling rods supplied with the conversion kit are very flimsy so easy to distort or break. If you're interested in the transition era, I'd definitely recommend buying a Farish (not Dapol) Bo-Bo diesel loco, like the cl.20, 24, or 25, and convert that first of all using the "drop -in" conversion wheels - that is much easier, and it will give you a more or less instant way of getting something running, and checking your track etc. Good luck! Justin

The best tip I've seen for keeping track clean (although probably not for tidying up really dirty track) is using a wine cork! Abrasive enough to the dirt (I guess by being a bit "grippy") but not at all to the rail surface. The side of a small block of softwood like cheap DIY store pine strip also does the trick on dirtier track. I've never noticed any problems from a Trix/Minitrix (also sold as Gaugemaster) wire wheel cleaning block - as JZ says loco wheels are usually a harder metal than the nickel silver of rails, so the soft brass is abraded more than the (nickel or chrome plated?) wheels. I wouldn't overdo it though.

Your locos are absolutely beautiful - such good weathering - and the sound is really adding to it I couldn't help but notice the loco and wagon are jumping up a bit as they go through the turnout in this video though - perhaps it might be worth checking for gauge tight-spots or ballast clogging a flange way or something? J

Interesting that they use the word "proposed" to describe the new announcements. Only going ahead with sufficient orders, perhaps? I still can't help but think the Dapol model doesn't match the standards of the Farish one. Dapol have more separate parts on their 66 - etched grilles, wire handrails, etc., but the moulded versions on the Farish model actually look better to my eye - in terms of the subtlety being closer to capturing the look of the real thing. (I'd actually say the Kato 1:160 66 is even finer in terms of moulded detail). Dapol also still seem to persist with that almost totally matt paint finish, rather than the more pleasing subtle satin finish that Farish/Bachmann always have. The RRP prices listed for the "proposed" 66s are actually pretty low by today's standards - perhaps a conscious attempt to make their model the "budget option"? EDIT - I wonder if anyone has ever tried to upgrade the Dapol 66 with finer etchings and handrails? Perhaps with a Shawplan "extreme etchings" type roof grille (in stainless steel?) and a much finer front handrail (jig to form the shape?) it could become the better model? Of course Dapol could choose to make these kinds of upgrades for new batches themselves, if they wanted to ...

Sounds very much like a scam. I did get a paper letter about a refund, which directed me to a "P800" section on gov.uk. https://www.gov.uk/tax-overpayments-and-underpayments

Here's some progress with BR Mk2 Intercity coach test piece - the side in the first picture has some raised relief under the laser decal (unfortunately the decal is a bit distorted at the left hand side because I touched it when still wet with Microsol). The other side has no relief. I kind of think the raised relief looks better, even if it's over scale. What do you think? I left it on the print supports to hold it! I'll improve the design of the underframe details, add buffers, which I'd forgotten, and then I think it will be ready to make some final models! This test model was sprayed white and the decal was laser printed on clear film, with black rectangles traced from the CAD of the model to represent the windows. In reality the windows are heavily tinted, so I think this works well. I did also print a set of decals with clear windows, and a separate white layer, to keep transparent windows, but I don't think it would add much - especially as the "black" resin I used is not as translucent as I thought. I might try that approach with clear resin if I end up modelling any prototypes that had non-tinted windows though (like Mk1s). It's certainly been fun experimenting with T Gauge

This sounds super interesting Don - I'd love to see how you get on with the throttle. I put together a DCC++ base station using the Ardunio Uno and original code, plus a RaspberryPi running a headless setup of JMRI to use WiFi throttles over the house Wifi, but that seems like a bit of an inefficient solution! So I recently got a Uno format ESP-32 board and another motor shield to use the forked ESP-32 DCC++ code by "Atani", to try and aim for a neater setup. It looks like the team who are now developing the DCC++ code base are also looking at a throttle solution: https://dcc-ex.com J

I've ended up buying quite a few things during that lockdown that are a bit of a distraction from my main modelling projects! I ended up giving in to curiosity and buying a T Gauge loco and circuit of track to have a play around with. One of the things I noticed was that T mechanisms run on 4.5V ... Which seemed ideal to power using a USB phone charger (5v), rather than buying one of the "official" battery/mains controllers. I got some of the dirt cheap PWM circuits from eBay, a DPDT switch, and stripped a USB cable. Result was pretty good, although the slightly larger circuit (with red knob) seemed to work much better at controlling the T Gauge mechanism at slower speeds - perhaps it has a different frequency for its PWM? The other thing I wanted to experiment with was 3D printing coaches and wagons. There is quite a good range of vinyl sides for generic clear plastic coach and multiple unit bodies out there, as well as a few Shapeways prints of bodies. But I wondered if I could do better using my Anycubic Photon UV resin printer, which seems to get more or less line-less prints since I fitted the Z axis upgrade. My first design is a Mk2E coach, to see if modelling the shape a little more realistically helps - I think the answer is yes! This is a test print where I did one side with some 0.1mm relief window frames, and the other side without. When I get the chance I'll laser print some full side waterslide decals and compare the results. Pretty pleased, considering the coach is only 4.5cm long! TGauge.com sell both plastic wheels and generic coach bogies with metal wheels, which are quite short wheelbase (which seems characteristic for Japan?). So I also tried printing a B4 bogie to suit the plastic wheels. This will need a bit of tweaking to the design to improve running tolerances as the wheel faces rub, but it seems like a promising start Justin

Sharpie works well too!

This same article really inspired me too! @Ben A has a lot to answer for Like many others I had a OO collection when I was a kid, and a bit of a layout set up in my grandma's spare room, but I definitely remember being fascinated by the tiny Graham Farish models, in their neat black and yellow boxes, at an exhibition my parents took me to when I guess I was around 10. That must have been about the same time as the Shredded Wheat promotion - which I got - but the coupling rods on the loco, and pin couplings on the coaches quickly snapped, and they are long since gone (which I regret!). I even have a vague memory of trying to make some extra coaches for it from cereal box when my parents wouldn't buy me any Farish at an exhibition once! The OO was almost all sold in the early days of eBay. The interest in railways never entirely left me though, and like Rob, I think I randomly bought an issue of Model Rail from Smiths, and found Ben Ando's article really inspirational. I definitely remember the article on improving the 37, and I seem to recall similar ones around the time by Ben on other Farish diesels, and perhaps on weathering containers? I certainly remember the small mainline with tunnel diorama they were all posed on, which I found really inspirational. That set me off, and while I was, I think, an MA student, I ventured into ModelZone on High Holborn and bought a Bach-Farish 08, and I can't even remember which wagons, some PECO track, and a Gaugemaster controller to build a little Inglenook type plank - which wasn't that successful. I remember a Bach-Farish 20 followed (small but not so likely to stall on points), and before long a Dapol 73, an oval of KATO Unitrack, and then I was hooked on the seemingly endless Hatton's and Signalbox of Rochester bargain buckets of Farish modern era wagons and coaches - I certainly remember buying a whole train of SuperBG bogie vans for about £10 each. I never did do a detailing project on a Farish diesel as per Ben's articles (although I did start on a Class 90, which is still half-finished in a drawer!) , but detailing Farish PGA wagons with TPM etched kits really got me into the DIY side of N gauge. I'd always been interested to model the railways of the area I grew up in East Anglia, and enthusiastically ordered a BH Enterprises kit for a GER "Claud Hamilton" when I learned that it existed and sought out an old Farish LMS 2P that it needed as a donor chassis, but it was the disappointment with both of those that pushed me into the dark side of 2mmFS! Justin

The Z scale GP38 and hopper wagon arrived today - I can officially count myself impressed! The AZL loco looks much better in person than in the "official" product photos, to me, at least. And the detailing on the Intermountain hopper is absolutely phenomenal! I fear I might be hooked ... J

Many thanks for all of the really helpful replies - I feel like I've already learned so much! That is a really helpful tip - I had been eyeing up some Micro-Trains 50' boxcars on UK eBay that are selling quite cheaply, but they all have roof walks. I guess this means no full height ladders - so an easy first glance check? It might be a "rule 1" train, but I'd like to keep it consistent. I'm kind of looking forward to going to town with some weathering too. North American boxcars seem to give a lot more potential for interesting weathering than most UK & European prototypes - perhaps less general overall grime, and more rust and grease effects? (perhaps from spending longer on relatively exposed routes, rather than densely packed multiple track railways etc?) J

Many thanks - these seem like a great start! Sorry, my mistake, its not black white zebra stripes, but red and white stripes - and a white and black "pac man" type logo at the non-cab end! Like this one: http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=1019358 So I guess the date of that photo gives me a bit of a clue - 1993. I found another (the particular loco AZL depicted) here http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPicture.aspx?id=2524194 dated 2011, and looking quite tatty, so I guess that gives me a date range for building up a train to run with it! Very helpful! So if am for a train circa mid-90s to early 00s, I might well be able to justify a few traditional boxcars. I'm guessing the longer length ones were longer lived? Cheers! J

So, eBay very sneakily slipped an Intermountain Z scale hopper in a very attractive CN livery into my "suggested" items list when I was browsing Märklin Z, and I couldn't resist! It reminded me of sitting in a rather boring conference session in an amazing conference room overlooking Vancouver harbour, and the Canadian Pacific switching yard, last year - watching the trains much more than the conference. So I found an American Z Line GP38 in Canadian Pacific CP-Rail livery to go with it ... But, apart from having watched that switching yard from the hotel window (lots of block trains of tankers and double-stack intermodal wagons) and watching some YouTube line side videos - I really don't know anything about North American railroads at all! I've just about picked up the fact that Canadians tend to call it a railway though! Are there any websites, YouTube channels, or maybe books, that anyone would recommend as a dummies guide to how North American railroads are operated and organised? I'm not really planning to build a layout, but it might be fun to put together a CP themed train to run on my German Z layout. A few specific questions: There doesn't seem to be an era or epoch system for North American railroads. Is there a rule of thumb to help find wagons that would have run together? The GP38 loco that I ordered is in "CP-Rail" livery with the white and black wasp stripes. That certainly doesn't seem to be the most recent livery (Canadian Pacific written out in full with a "chief" logo seems most common in recent videos?). But how old is the CP-Rail livery? Are traditional box cars pretty much dead now? Would they have still been common in the era of the CP-Rail livery? Which car liveries would be a good match? Do mixed trains (different types of freight and cars) still exist? Or did they still common in the era of the CP-Rail livery? How much through traffic is/was there between the different railroads? I guess you'd see plenty of CN cars on the CP, and some from neighbouring US railroads. But would you ever have seen, say, Penn Central, freight cars on the CP system? What about cabooses? Is it like British brake vans, in that they were mainly needed only when a train didn't have continuous braking, and therefore have died out? I remember the Canadian caboose that you can go inside at Mangapps Museum in Essex was really striking, and fun! So one of those would also be quite cool if its at least vaguely plausible?

I'd definitely strip it - the body will probably reveal quite a bit more detail with the factory paint removed! I think we spoke about Fairy Powerspray seemingly only being available at Sainsbury's these days - but with a metal body (perhaps remove the plastic clip in cab?) You should be safe using pretty much any paint stripper. Obviously clean well and dust with primer before the Tamiya J

Thanks Simon! The washes are AK Interactive enamels - mainly "Track Wash" (where track refers to tank tracks, rather than rail!). This seems to make a good general dark reddish dirt colour. I also used some "Dark Brown" from the same range. The pigment (or whatever the term is) seems that bit finer than with normal enamels. I usually put on a pretty liberal overall cost then when touch dry use a large flat brush slightly damp with bog standard B&Q white spirit to take most off, and follow up with a more targeted second coat along ironwork etc, also largely removed when touch dry. Justin

When I decided to put together a set of BR Blue era stock to operate my little distillery plank, I enthusiastically took advantage of the novelty (to me) of there being quite a lot of RTR for the BR era! I bought one of the Farish BR standard vans and converted it. But I never actually found it totally convincing. I'm not quite sure what it is about it - perhaps the plank details are too deep? So when I was putting in a shop 2 order, I bought a pair of association kits and etched chassis. Finished the first one last night - just painted with Halfords oxide, Tamiya grey that I happened to have in a spray can for the roof, and decals cobbled together from a random selection of Modelmaster, Railtec and NGS sheets all intended for other things. Weathering all with AK enamel washes. Farish on the left, Association on the right. I think the difference is subtle, but worthwhile! J

I always thought it was the "Gatwick Express". About 8 passengers per 8 car set most of the time (before lockdown) - or at least thats what it looked like as they thunder through the often dangerously overcrowded platforms at East Croydon.

Hi Jerry, Did you get a knack to getting these kits to go together neatly? I recently built another two and a devil of a time getting neat square joints on the corners. (And only then did I realise there are two different sides, with and without diagonal strapping, as well as three different ends - so ended up taking them apart again to swap sides!) Cheers J