Etched Pixels

On 15/10/2023 at 13:53, wellseasoned said:

This is really heartening news.

I am a member of the 2mm Association which is a bonus.
Purely as an example, a number of people have previously expressed an interest in the Hawksworth sleeper etches. As far as I can make out they haven't been produced in a long while.

 

Just catching up on some of this. The Hawksworth sleeper is an awkward one. The parts are on a sheet that produces lots of other Hawksworth stuff that nobody wants and one side of the original has significant errors so there is a replacement side on another sheet of stuff that is unrelated. It's probably one of those that is easier to redraw with modern tools and just use the bogies and underframe parts.

The artwork (Etched Pixels, Ultima, some older stuff inherited by Ultima) is now with the 2mm SA long with some etch stock. Please give them time to get a handle on it, there is a lot of stuff and it isn't always arranged in an obvious fashion. The Gresley overlays for Minitrix are now with the 2mmSA and they are one case the artwork is laid out in a fairly logical manner, although there are a lot of sides on the sheet and not always in the proportion that would be best!

Well if you'd like it or know a heritage site or something that would it's too heavy to post but I'm in Swansea proper

This was repurposed as a lintel and would be of some considerable age. Looking at the profile and the weight (it's very dense) I'm wondering

a) is this old track of some form perhaps old mine rail as this is south wales

b) is it of any historical relevance or does it just got to the scrappie

Wanted to check so I don't accidentally bin something interesting

5 hours ago, Sithlord75 said:

The issue I’ve had with 3DP roofs is getting them thin enough at the ends and edge whilst having them thick enough to not banana.  I agree having the ventilators already there to delete as appropriate would be ideal.

Yep. It's much easier if you print the roof, ends (to attach overlays), floor and maybe other bits in one go. I had real trouble with this, and ended up printing the roof and body as one, or in some cases where it needs to be removable printing the roof above where it should be attached to the ends by a sprue (so nothing bananas). Thickness is definitely a problem unless you print it as one or file it.

5 hours ago, wellseasoned said:

3d printed roofs are interesting. With so many variations of ventilators on different diagrams, would it be prudent to print them with a full complement of ventilators? Excess to requirements are carved/sanded away as required.  Just a thought, although this may already happen?

Marking out, drilling and fixing ventilators in unison is probably the most tedious and time consuming aspect for me.

 

It's 3D print - just print different roofs for different products. All the 3D print Gresley I did have unique roofs for the models. They are holes because the tech wasn't at the time up to it so you still had to stuff the vents in by hand but the same holds. 3D print really does change the way you can think about product volume.

I'm working on a few plans, but there shouldn't be any need to panic. The hard stuff is actually the plastic mouldings (about which there are some conversations happening) because they require someone with a lot of skill and the right equipment to restore/manage.

The 3D print stuff is trivial I've already put some of it on github for people to download/use/modify and more will follow. The etches I have digital artwork for I will if need be able to put the artwork up in some format although it may require some recovery work. The ones that are not may require some custodian unless I can persuade PPD to let anyone order them 8).

The white metal bits are not going to be too hard - worst case is giving everyone on the planet non commercial rights to make their own copies or copies for their club members.

Wheels and most brass buffers and fittings are from third party providers anyway. There are some other bits where the rights belong to someone else and Ultima just got to use them (the old 2mm PC models bits for example, and the Commonwealth bogie) but not too many. Those I can't do much about.

I'd mostly agree with Chris about 3D printed coaches but we are starting to get to the point you can sensibly 3D print glazing the way the commercial plastic providers do to hide the thickness, it's also possible to mix 3D and etch (and 3D and vinyl and 3D and old Ultima printed sides it turns out too).

Some bits really do need to go away as well. If you've ever tried packing loose white metal ventilators or counting them you'd understand - the £4.50 a set is something like £4 of handling and 50p of ventilators. They belong 3d printed into the roof.

Alan

Should be back again now..

The acetate ones are old screen printing. For new stuff I cut them with a vinyl cutter on brown vinyl and stick that to clear plastic.

3D printing doesn't work well for it. I tried it early on for some 3D printed coach shells but the thicknesses are a pain so even for those I might print compartments and seat shapes but the corridor is a glue in strip using vinyl/clear plastic.

Alan

Alan, and I don't mind in the slightest. I did end up on newer stuff combining the roof ends and floor into one - if you don't do that then add a small bar along the length just under where the roof will go otherwise Shapeways sometimes prints slightly bowed coaches.

Alan

I use a mix of drawings (preferably old ones included so they were drawn by someone who actually saw the thing for real) and photographs. Enough book drawings are wrong (some hilariously bad where the photo next to the drawing shows its incorrect) that you want to check photographs and other evidence. Picking two drawings doesn't work - it just shows who copied which mistake from where! Even official drawings sometimes turn out to be as designed not as built. The Jenkinson/Campling book isn't bad - but there are errors I found.

For some of the books the various societies actually keep 'errata' and those can be a great source.

My favourite drawings disaster is the BR class 29 diesel. I don't think I've ever seen a drawing for it that passes the 'does it look like the photo' test.

I've never gone to 3D printing entire bogie coaches because of the print quality and the prices. What I had a fair bit of success doing was to 3D print a shell (floor, roof, ends and interior as one) and overlay it with etched parts. For one offs I still find it easier to scratch build the shell (sometimes using the old BHE plastic profile bits) and etch the sides.

Not accurate thankfully they are never on site anyway but all live with PPD.

Except for very old stuff (which I suspect never existed in digital form) I've also got digital copies of the artwork although I did have fun extracting them from very old Macintosh apps. There is old stuff that only exists/existed as stock (Bill Bedford parts, Commonwealth bogies, printed coach sides) and stuff it's not really practical to re-run for other reasons (from being old artwork mostly containing stuff I don't need to hand plastic moulding tools which are hard to get run nowdays).

Various things escaped in the move - I'm still looking for some PC models 2mm shrunk clerestory etches and the like. No doubt one decade they will emerge from somewhere.

Most stuff that is out of stock is out of stock because I've simply not had much time the past three years. I'm variously restoring an 1860s mansion where the surveyor said 'the only thing that works are the appliances' 8), having a somewhat busy work life (I work for a large chip manufacturer and ended up involved meltdown/spectre and other exciting things) and my new fiancee means I've also gone from childless and time rich to stepdad and no time at all 8)

The 3D print stuff is partly out of stock because the current Shapeways prices with the state of the pound are ludicrous. That said given Farish prices nowdays I might have to bite the bullet, order some stuff and put the prices up accordingly 8(

Alan

Although it should be pointed out that the 2mmSA isn't an option that's available to a large number of N gauge modellers...

They don't interrogate people for past 9mm gauge sins at the door and burn the heretics. In fact an awful lot of the stuff is very useful if you model in N.

Alan

One tip on the etched sides - if instead of just sticking them on you mark where they join the original body and file gently just inside the joins so it slopes from the metal thickness at the join to no filing over maybe 1cm or so then you can make overlay etches appear to be a seamless finish without the hassle of trying to take 3 thou off all of the side, because providing the join looks right nobody can see the slightly width change unless its a sharp transition.

Alan

The Etched Pixels ones vary. The easy to build stuff uses Peco chassis quite deliberately and N is sufficiently coarse scale wheels and trackwork that you don't need to do anything cleverer than glue two together for a six wheel chassis of desired length. There is also a six wheel Stove R chassis available from the N Gauge Society that some kits can use and it's a nice chassis that comes pre-assembled.

The fancier stuff uses etched chassis but that puts plenty of people off.

Alan

Only the main fan grille. I don't know anyone who does cantrail grilles so can't help there.

It seems to me that, as the 48DS is such a small prototype and it would not be expected to have much of a haulage capacity, there is plenty of room to fit a small motor and gear box and that it would be necessary in 7mm scale to drive only one axle.  At least, that is what I would do.

 

David

A real 48DS could move a reasonable load slowly on light gradients. My N gauge one struggles with more than about 4 wagons but I can live with that limitation to be honest.

According to the official documentation in the lowest gear on the flat you can pull 226 tons but only 80 tons on 1 in 75.

Alan

Maybe the Matthieson chassis ?

Bernard,

              Many years ago Colin Allbright of Bachmann acquired a fair bit of stuff from Peter Chatham when the latter sold up and retired. It included the lithograph printing equipment for producing the sides (Colin was producing his Ultima coach kits at the time), but whether the vacuum-forming tools were in the deal I don't know. I don't think any more PC Gresleys (or any others) were subsequently produced. A pity really, because the teak finish was especially effective at a few feet away, but in BR carmine/cream the effect was less so because of the lack of surface relief. I gave a rake of five PC teaks to Graham Nicholas for operation on Grantham and they fit in very well. The roofs look right, too. 

Colin AFAIK only acquired 2mm/N related parts including the masks for the 2mm sides, which I then inherited when I took over Ultima. It would also be difficult to replicate the sides exactly as you'd need to change both inks and carrier clear material because the inks and process used no longer meets health & safety regs, and the modern inks mostly will not print to acetate. It's really really easy now to get similar sides digitally printed, it's nigh on impossible to replicate the subtle depth differences used to make the doors look right on the non panelled coach kits. Fortunately a lot of the sides were printed at the time so except for GWR there is probably a lifetime of 2mm stock.

The 2mm Gresley sides were originally "Cav'n'dish" as I understand their history.

Other than a brief indirect check on the rights for some 2mm shrinks of Midland PC models etches that Colin had done I've had no dealings with Peter so I've no idea whether Peter kept the 4mm stuff or it went somewhere else.

Alan

(moving house so replies may be very slow)

My BHE 'Toby' has a Farish DMU bogie inside it. Works fine and if its pushed off centre a spot you can fit the floor etc of the front cabs.

Current state of the art is probably the Envision Tech machines (or was recently - it may well have been beaten 8))

If one side looked like shapeways it wasn't high end - at least in machine terms - what machine where they using ?

It's only a pricing question. The high end commercial machines are producing stuff you can't easily tell from injection moulding in smoothness. It's just at the moment they are too expensive for production runs. Tech problem is solved though, just a case of costs dropping.

Alan

I think you'll find thats standard Shapeways colour 3D printing (with a bit of polishing)

Do you have any images of them on a layout at normal viewing angles. I found the Mathieson ones looked brilliant against flat artificial backgrounds but showed up horribly with scenery ?