Etched Pixels

Eventually I think. Still scratching my head a bit over the brake ends as they have a rather more complicated shape.

https://www.shapeways.com/model/486085/wismarwagen-der-mpsb-in-nf-1-160.html?materialId=61&li=ostatus

2mmSA code 40. Nickel silver in this case but needs to be steel for the layout as T uses magnetic wheels.

I didn't think P4 would work - its  6'x4' layout so the curves are too sharp ;-)

Bubble looks good - don't forget the exhaust pipes ;-)

Talking of 1:1 railcars did anything happen about making the ppm in N gauge available in the end ?

I believe some of the BHE castings/mouldings and etches were originally from Fleetline and MTK. Ray should be able to tell you what will fit as a result.

They are indeed designed to match the bogies but if you are careful you should be able to file down the mount slightly, taking care your flanges still clear the coach floor.

I look forward to the day I can put the rainstrips on the roof in the 3D print - but right now the rainstrips are right on the limit of the material and combined with polishing get a bit unpredictable to say the least so for now they have to be added by hand.

I've had some success with four wheel wagons in T by printing the bearings and chassis into the body then using the wheels from the bogies. You can also drill down the centre of the wheels and add axle ends. I did an NN15 four wheel coach this way, and it uses fine wire for the axles running in N gauge hand rail knob bearings

122 looks a little deformed - is that to fit the chassis ?

(and N scale yellow decal lines make excellent T scale stripes...)

Alan

Knew I'd seen a mad toad with lots of windows.

http://glostransporthistory.visit-gloucestershire.co.uk/images/RR_NWM_MSC%20Toad%20GRCW.jpg

Cholsey & Wallingford have one with an open balcony and windows down the sides.

I've got one of the Worsley 21 kits here waiting building. I've put it off for a while for various reasons but one of them was that the roof was going to need major surgery (it seems that nobody can get plans of the 21/29 roof right, even magazines have published broken plans next to a photo that definitively shows the plan is wrong)

Lovely stuff and a brilliant use for bits of Gresleys. I may have to try that with the one I'm currently butchering to test some sleeper sides on.

For the toad - perhaps an observation toad with windows for the general manager to use 8)

In my experience with FUD you can go down to 0.5mm + detail happily providing you've got a bracing of some kind (eg an interior bar of 1x1mm or so here and there or a curve or angle) - its like adding framing to the real thing.

On the painting side looking at the way it came out when you cleaned off the old paint I'm curious if there is a way to get that lovely wood look from the cleaning back out of it painted and given a wash somehow ?

They don't directly overlay without filler btw because they are the right size so you need to fill around the edges a bit.

The cabs were indeed not steel so didn't rust but flaked instead. One end of one loco if I remember rightly ended up with a steel cab when it needed replacing. The nickel silver does at least make that bit easy as well as the window frames as they can be scored not painted silver.

I had the same experience with the cab roof etches being the wrong size and cut mine of scrap 5thou brass.

Alan

If you are building those old bogies it's a good idea once they are the right shape to solder the insides of the folds between the top/sides, otherwise it seems they sometimes crack along the join over time.

Looks like the kit was perhaps missing the bag of white metal bits - vents, axle box castings, underframe gubbins or it may be sold old it didn't have them

Makes sense re the half axles. On the heat subject I was meaning with respect to soldering not running.

I've stuck to about 0.4mm (0.3mm on the edges) with the various Gresley buffers I did.

You could also print the centres with half axles on them or half axles with a 1.6mm outer and 0.8mm central hole for a metal rod to hold it together.

Pressing them just needs a block with a hole in it for the stub to dangle in.

Heat is lilkely to be a problem - FUD goes a bit soft about 70-80C and in boiling water you can reshape it permanently. Good for drilling and tweaking, bad for wheels.

FUD btw isn't entirely like white metal - it doesn't deform so easily so will resist a lot of small stresses far better and stay the same shape. On higher stresses it just shatters.

It's certainly far better for buffers than white metal for example.

Alan

Lisa - I've no idea how to. I had enough trouble making it work on vimeo at all.

It's entirely down to the play available in N scale. The 3 axles just sit in bearing cups. No Cleminson chassis or middle axle sliding in tube needed for the job. This works in general for N scale up to about 26ft wheelbase vehicles and I have various six wheelers made from sawn up Peco chassis that work this way. Below 9" the middle wheel needs to be free to move (eg the Dapol Stove-R has the middle axle sliding in a central bearing)

Alan

Two weeks I hope.

Likewise I use evostick impact.

Brass on plastic is notoriously problematic with superglue and rigid glues. The differential expansion gradually cracks the rigid and brittle glues and the sides come off.

Only crisis I've had with evostick is that it will lift the print off the screen printed ultima sides/interiors as well as off otherwise waterproof laserprinting such as Scalescenes sheets.

I generally tack the roofs down with a couple of spots of glue. Enough to hold them on but enough I can take them apart. In the Hawksworth case you may also need to think about the filler pipes if you want to keep the roof removable on some coaches

Mine I did in faded rail blue.

Alan

I think I'd describe Gimp as 'easy to use but hard to learn'

Any drawing program which allows you to set a scale or will show you the mm sizes of what you are drawing can be used. Gimp just happens to be my preferred tool for the job.

Alan

Zm track and wheels (4.5mm) are available which are better for welsh two footers but the supplies are a bit limited and tricky to get hold of.

In some ways narrow gauge lines here and there (plus a few standard gauge spots) fossilized older loading gauges from the early days that were lost elsewhere. Even up to the 1870s there were lots of horse drawn wagons and small wagons being handled to a fundamentally smaller loading gauge than the 'usual' standard gauge. This is why quite a few early locos have four buffers front and back, the lower closer two are for handling old style horse wagons, chaldrons and the like, the higher wider two represent what we think of as "normal" today.

Be warned though .. it starts with a little four wheel coach or a peco tank, and then you end up scratchbuilding a few other bits, and then you start to wonder if you could model an L&B line or similar and then you find yourself covered in old oil under a Corris railway coach fixing bogies.

The diesel is a fairly typical industrial sort of loading gauge. The GVT is quite small, the Ffestiniog is positively pokey and the VoR is enormous (its pretty much standard gauge except for the track width)

Put together they really can look funny. Seeing Ffestiniong gauge locos on the WHR next to one of the Beyer Garratts really looks like someone bought the wrong scale.

That's a very nice bit of artwork sir, what did you use to create it, as its given me a few ideas for 009 waggons. Its also very nice of you to provide the template for free, when I'm sure there is a money spinning range on your hands!

If I were wearing one, I'd tip my hat to you. I'll have to go and put one on!

J

It was drawn using the GIMP. It's basically a set of boxes and lines. For non black strapping it would take a bit of extra work as you'd need to use shadows for the strapping (which might look nicer anyway) and perhaps shade differences to get rivets.

The only tricky bit was the writing. I did that by creating a bright green rectangle (so I could see the bits) then typing out two versions of the text one in white and one black. The white one was then cut out and the green marked transparent so I just had the letters, then pasted on top of the black but slightly offset. The two together were then cut out, the green again marked transparent, and pasted on the wagon.