rovex

Another doodle is this design for a cast iron clock to grace any park or Victorian high street (particularly it seems here in Birmingham). Its about 100mm high and is intended to be fitted with the scale link clock faces (although no doubt paper ones would just as well. Some scale link fretwork would also not go a miss but isn't essential regards Dean

Ok first few ideas. These show some designs for ionic and doric columns that I have drawn up. The ionic column has been done in both plain and fluted. The designs are 100mm tall but can be scaled up or down as needed. Alright classical columns may not be in great demand but you tell me who else does them? because sketch up shows every line - this one does not "photo" well but here's a close up of the capital showing the fluting and without flutes And doric. - I managed to get some of the lines to hide for this "shot" Dean

Hi all Having had some success with designing items for my layout and having these printed by Shapeways, Andy Y has agreed that I can publicise a little business venture I am considering. As some of you may know Shapeways allows people to sell their designs through their website, and indeed several fellow RMwebbers are doing this already. I have decided to try and create a selection of scratchbuilding aids for structure modellers. I have long been disappointed at the range of items available, for example church or gothic windows. I know of only one white metal version available and that is distinctly uninspiring. The laser cut versions I have seen advertised have been much better but distinctly flat. Also so many of the whitemetal items provided by one particular supplier are architecturally very dubious! I am currently considering the following: gothic accessories such as: 1 windows of varying sizes, suitable for churches etc. 2 doorways along the same lines 3 gothic style bay windows and oriels, 4 spires for the tops of buttresses. 5 balustrades Georgian and Victorian 6 door cases of varying designs 7 window surrounds 8 balustrades and pediments 9 columns (ionic, doric etc) - corinthian is currently beyond my abilities. I intend to spend some time over the Christmas period drawing up some designs, which I shall be posting on here along with the printed results. I don't expect to be able to give up the day job. If anyone has any ideas for other things they have been searching for and unable to find or which would be of general use, please feel free to post away. regards Dean

I've got the design of the facade finished and so thought I would share a few more pictures with you. Its succesfully loaded up to Shapeways - though that doesn't mean much until you try to print it. As the cost of likely to be 125 Euros I'm gonna wait until their next sale. I'll share the results with you In the meantime for those interested here is a link to one of the few images of the original regards Rovex

That thought had occurred to me. I know you can get laser cut windows from certain suppliers but to me they look distinctly flat, whereas with laser printing you can get more of a feeling of depth

Thanks Mikkel This was one days work - Its amazing how quickly you can knock something up. I haven't priced it up on Shapeways yet - it might be cost prohibitive. My inclination is to try printing it. It feels like cheating in a way, but when you consider the time saving. The rest of the building and the arcade behind would be plasticard. I'm also considering drawing up some gothic windows, bays etc for city centre style buildings, the rest being plasticard. As well as the time saving there is also the issue of being able to produce lots of idential items which if made the old fashioned way would look anything but identical. Dean

It being too cold to be in the shed, I have spent the day playing with Sketchup. Opposite the entrance to Snow Hill id the Great Western Arcade. It was built over the tunnel carrying the tracks from Moor Street to Snow Hill. Originally it had a very impressive facade but this fell victim to enemy action and was burnt out. Rather than restore it after the war it was demolished and for a long time the arcade was somewhat truncated. A modern building now occupies the site but the original arcade exists behind this building - albeit with a more simplified roof. I have decided that I would like to have the original building and so began my search for photographs etc. Surprisingly I've only found a very small handful of photographs. This is progress to date. Still some more to do and the original carved stonework will have to be reproduced in Milliput, my Sketchup skills aren't up to it.

Would that be why on some of my drawings, some surfaces are different colours even so in the same plane. It doesn't seem to affect the "printability", tho. How would you reverse the direction?

Perhaps its brand new King class locomotive

I've used Sketchup for my things, mainly becuase it was free and once I got used to it fairly easy to use. Something which I haven't found with my (admittedly limited) use of a few other systems - only problem I am aware of is that it does have a minimum radius (about 1mm - i think) which can cause problems with small items.

Thanks Weaselfish. There are some photos on this blog giving an impression as to how the Noth box was done http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/191/entry-6824-brackhampton-north-signal-box/ http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/191/entry-6857-brackhampton-north-signal-box-part-2/ http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/blog/191/entry-14235-brackhampton-north-sb-goes-all-colourful/ These are probably the best ones regards Dean

some great photos, very atmospheric. Thanks for sharing

the track has been sprayed red to simulate the rust. I'll be painting the sleepers a more normal colur once all the track is down.

impessive work

Those who have been following my long winded efforts to build my model railway may remember that I lifted all the trackwork following a failed experiment in securing both the cork underlay and the track using spray adhesive. The warm weather saw expansion which resulted in track lifting and the cork bubbling. As the track had not been pinned the adhesive didn't prove up to the job. So reluctantly the whole lot was lifted and I decided that I had to start again. Well the starting was delayed until recently when I received the last of the major pointwork items required. All pointwork has been made by Hayfield and he has been good enough to share some of his work on his own blog. This time around I have adopted a much more old fashioned method. Cork underlay has been glued down to the baseboard using PVA glue (and copious amounts of it. The cork underlay is 4mm thick and came in a huge roll bought of a certain internet auction site. It worked out quite cheap compared to buying the usual stuff sold specifically model railways. The layout, which had been designed using Templot (when you still had to pay for it), was printed out onto slightly heavier duty printer paper and then glued on top of the cork using wall paper paste. The track abnd pointwork was then laid on top of this. Each peice of track has had drop wires soldered to it and these will then be soldered to the bus wires which will be under the layout. My previous layout have always suffered from terrible running quality and I think in part this has been caused by reliance on fishplates for electrical connectivity. I hope that with each separate piece of track having its own supply this will to some extent be ameliorated. Almost all the track at the North end of the station has now been relaid, with just a couple of bay tracks and platform 1 (or is it 12) to be laid. Next will the South end (under the Great Western Hotel) which thanksfully is somewhat simpler. Then starts the process of dusting off my old DCC controller and starting to attach power and point motors (i'm trying to buy 10 each month just after payday). My thoughts are also turning to the storage facility. I've swung between a traversr ( decided not to) a traditional fan of sidings and a casette system. Currently I'm thinking a mixture of traditional fan and casette may be the answer. My thought is to have the fast lines run into a fan of sidings where the crack expresses can be kept. The slow lines would then run into a casette system where the suburban trains and freight trains could be kept. Well enough words here are some pictures. Here is the station looking towards Paddington. From left to right we be through line (platform 12 and 11), two bays (platforms 10 and 9), through line (platform 8 and 7), two avoiding lines (up and down), through line (platform 6 and 5), two bays (platforms 4 and 3) and finally through line (platform 2 and 1). Although the station has been compressed it is still possible to get two trains onto the through platforms and the scissor crossings in the middle allow trains on the central platforms to cross each other. The bays are large enough for five or six coach trains if necessary - so you can see why I am desperate for Hornby to bring out some non-corridor Western coaching stock. a view striaght across the station throat. and now looking towards Wolverhampton (which I think I shall rename Worford for the layout). Although you can't see it in the background by the large tub of PVA glue are the four running lines (slow lines on the inside of the curve - the fast lines on the outside). The pointwork is such that any train arriving on a slow line can access any of the platforms and all four bays. Any train arriving on the fast line can access the main through platforms and the bays at platform 10 and 11. In reverse trains heading out this way can all leave by the slow lines and trains from platform 10, 11 and 5 and 6 can leave by the fast line.

Its amazing just what Dr Beeching has to answer for You have my sympathies - been there and done that. Good luck with the next one

Has Hornby's promised announcement been delayed

Perhaps they ran out of inane "King" references, or at least couldn't think up enough to last till Saturday

If this is how Hornby are going to announce new products in future can we have some suggestions as to photos for other new releases - A duck's bum for a new Mallard A thrown banana for an updated GWR railcar.

might be a bit much to hope that their next CAD teaser isd a cab side with a numberplate reading "6000"

Again that looks like the front end of a King class, from what I can see from a quick online search of available photos - course it might well look like the front end of a lot of other things too - I'm no expert.

Surprisingly the bogie currenbtly attached to my Hornby King looks rather moe substantial than the real thing :-)