BG John

That would be boring .

I know, but I'd need to approach this a step at a time. A flexible membrane covered in coal may be practical, with cams revolving to gradually reshape the load. It may even turn out to be easier than slowly dropping the whole load. I need to do a lot of playing around with suitable devices to see what's possible. One day!

Buy a house with an established wood. I've got one, but haven't yet built any models from it!

That's a good point, but what about using machine tools to make parts? For example, turning boiler fittings or wheels (if you want to make your own, or adapt ready made ones). Does manually operating a lathe fall under scratchbuilding, or do you have to cut, file and sand, say, a chimney using hand tools? I think even the most dedicated scratchbuilder would be tempted to use a lathe! If hand operated machine tools are allowed, surely it's only a small step to using ones with a microcontroller and stepper motors attached. What if you wrote the G-code to control it, then deleted the file after making one part? Or used the manual controls on the controller software? Turning handles on a machine is little different to sitting in a comfy chair and pressing buttons to do the same thing along a wire, and if computers were around when machines were first invented, they may never have had knobs and levers fitted! I definitely take the point about designing parts that can be produced many times being like producing your own kit, but you can also stick a number of sheets of material together and cut out multiple parts by hand! I think describing it all as modelling is much easier, but how does someone with the skill to do anything more than enter their card details into an online shop, get recognised for their abilities? Having been diagnosed with not having a particular inherited neurological difference, although I have characteristics of it, I've thought a lot about the need for labels, and how frustrating it is not being able to use a clear label to describe myself at appropriate times. I see the same thing in this situation, where describing yourself as a "modeller" to many people would make them think of you as someone who buys Hornby trains, without any appreciation that you're actually a highly skilled and creative person.

Does it work with styrene? I'm wondering about joining PLA and plasticard, and also laminating thin plasticard overlays to PLA.

Before I consider pre-ordering, I need to know if it will be practical to convert it to EM. If it can't be done, or is complicated or expensive, the railmotor is no use to me. I'm currently spending money on things that help me develop the skills to scratchbuild stuff. Maybe by the time it appears, I'll be able to build one myself for a fraction of the price, and I can make something different to what everyone else has!

I think this is a problem that needs solving at the layout design stage. Design it with facilities for vans, and make sure the unloading platforms are at the back of the layout, so no one sees that no loading/unloading actually happens. For open wagons, shunt them into hidden areas, where you can add or remove the load, or swap otherwise identical loaded and unloaded wagons. Loads could be swapped by hand, or by clever moving devices. I've thought of trying automated loads (in O gauge where there's more space). A coal load, for example, could very slowly sink in the wagon, at a speed where viewers don't notice it, and when it reaches the bottom of the wagon, the interior of the sides drop down to cover the coal with a floor. All controlled by an Arduino and some servos or stepper motors. Back in the fiddle yard, the load quickly springs back into place ready for the next trip. It could be triggered at both ends by magnets, infrared sensors, RFID tags, radio, or numerous other ways. Some people have working hoppers that load or unload wagons with loose loads. Or you could add some curtains to the layout, that you close to represent time passing. While they're closed you can manually swap loads, or loaded and empty wagons, around. Asking the question once you've built the layout, probably condemns you to having to use your imagination to pretend something has happened .

This is one of the reasons given for the advice to buy a Portrait rather than a Cameo. The longer bed on the Cameo means that the drive rods flex a bit in the middle, which is less of a problem on the shorter Portrait. Can this be what's happening here, with the Portrait rods flexing a bit, so the cutter is lifting off the work in the middle. At the ends it's more rigidly held, so will cut deeper.

It does simplify things!

There's a difference though. The first is creating your own design, and sourcing materials and/or components to make it. The second is taking someone else's design, and making alterations to it. Both have their place, and need a builder with creative skills, but I think they need separate definitions. What are the "sourced items". Are they natural materials dug up from your garden, manufactured materials such as plastic sheet, or motors, gearboxes, wheels, cast axleboxes, etched chassis etc.? Somewhere along that line there must be a point where "sourced items" are no longer items for scratchbuilders. How far is it acceptable to go beyond that before it stops being scratchbuiling? Surely that's what scratchbuilding ideally is, starting from scratch, or starting with nothing. If you buy any ready made parts, you're not doing that. I think taking it as far as digging up minerals from the ground, and processing them into materials to build your model from is rather impractical though, but there should be an intent to start from basic materials as much as possible. In the world we live in, and with the skills and access to resources that modellers have, I think starting from scratch realistically means starting from sheets and sections of basic materials, like metal, wood, plastic, or paper. There are items that are beyond all but the most skilled with unlimited time, like motors, gears and wheels, but there has to be a limit on how many ready made components are used, before you're no longer scratchbuilding. So perhaps the intent behind scratchbuilding should be to use the minimum number of manufactured components possible. By possible, I mean that the first choice should be to make it, and to buy as a last resort, rather than starting off a scratchbuild by buying all the ready made parts you can find! I'd call that "RTR bashing". I have a plan for converting a OO Hornby 2721 pannier into a broad gauge saddle tank in P4. It will need a lot of work that could be described as scratchbuilding if it was part of a different project, and bashing parts from kits, but the starting point is a RTR model. To me, it's not scratchbuilding, even though you could argue that what's left of the RTR model is a "sourced Item". Ideally, no. But if you're comparing fitting wire handrails to a RTR loco, with building a complete loco from wood cut from a tree in your garden, I think you need some fairly well defined definitions to differentiate the time and skills involved. Just to throw another spanner in the works, is there a difference between designing and making parts for "scratchbuilt" models by hand, or using machines? They both require quite a high level of skill. I'm currently designing the first scratchbuilt loco that I will ever have been able to finish (or even get properly started on). I hope!!!!!! The 3D CAD drawing will be used for 3D printing from plastic filament, cutting or milling plastic sheet, and maybe laser printing the painting and lining onto paper that will be cut out with my Silhouette Portrait. I think starting from sheets or reels of plastic, sheets of paper, and laser printer toner, is pretty near to using basic materials! The physical work will involve assembling a kit! It's a static model, so I won't have to compromise by using a bought motor!

Are you feeding it in far enough? I've managed to do the test cut on the backing sheet!

Were they saying when they will be in the shops?

I was planning to try ABS later anyway, so am just buying it a bit sooner than planned, so I have it available if needed. I'm certainly aiming to work in small steps, which is why I'm impressed with OpenSCAD (thanks for suggesting it Robin). It makes it easy to concentrate on small parts of a bigger drawing, draw them to whatever level I've got the ability to do, and go back to them later when I can do a better job. My efforts to do things in small steps sometimes get foiled by the non arrival of eBay purchases though, as happened today with a tool I'm waiting for to help with building the 3D printer, so it's as well to be prepared!

I had one of each. I haven't scanned any of the silver XR3 yet. It ended up rather shortened when it met another Escort coming the other way . Not my fault, as the other driver was overtaking on the brow of the hill! The black XR3i:

Oh. More boring modern image stuff then . My bank account will be happy .

I lost interest in motorsport a long time ago, but watching that brings back nostalgic memories of having a car that looked a little bit like it might be able to do that sort of thing. Even if the car and driver would have fallen apart, and found their trousers turning brown, respectively if it had been attempted! PS: Looking at that photo makes me wish I still had it, even more than I wish I still had one of my more practical XR3s .

Red wagons on Brian Arman's 7mm broad gauge "Canons Road". Next, something in unpainted brass. (Inspired by the loco hiding behind the signal box!)

I've ordered some ABS. I can try it once I've got the printer working, but if it I need more experience to get decent results it will be useful later. This is an interesting item on building locos in ABS, and similar to what I was thinking of doing, apart from using a variety of techniques rather than just 3D printing. http://www.madge00n3.co.uk/3DPrinting/3d01.htm

There are so many different experiences reported, often ones that totally contradict other people's experiences. I've been thinking that a way to approach getting a good finish is to treat 3D printing like casting, where parts are designed to be finished off by machining. But then I read stuff about problems with PLA melting. Is it any worse in this respect than styrene? I'm hoping to be able to CNC mill plasticard, so if I can do that, can I also mill PLA? I'm sure the only real answer to my questions is to try it and see what works, and doesn't, for me, but it doesn't help when there's so much conflicting information. I suppose the answer may be to move on to ABS sooner than I'd planning. Again there is conflicting information. Some people say it's difficult, while others seem to think it's easy.

I've read that acetone is no good for PLA, although it's the right stuff for ABS. No wonder I'm confused .

What diagram is it, and what's the earliest building date?

Thanks. I don't think I'd come across that one. I'll have a good look later.

Thanks Ray. I wasn't thinking of using bigger tools, but just having the option to use different sizes, especially as some of the early comments on this topic suggested that only being able to use ⅛" cutters was limiting. I've got a soft plastic chopping board that is well past the time when I should have replaced it in the kitchen! If I hadn't bought a replacement already, I could have engraved some pretty patterns in a piece of home grown sycamore. In fact, I could go into the chopping board manufacturing business with the number of trees I have! I think the first step will be to use a pen/pencil, until I'm brave/confident enough to know I won't be gouging lumps out of the wrong places! As we discussed in another topic, on 3D printed pen holders, now I've decided to have a 3D printer as well, I could adapt someone else's design to suit my machine, and the pens I have, and use it as a practice item for printing. Or I can put a pencil lead in the chuck, as you also suggested. Much easier than bodging up something to fit the ⅛" coupler. Cutting test circles and squares is a good idea. I'm currently going through the hassle of non/late delivery of a dial gauge bought on eBay, that I want to test the accuracy of the moving parts. It's definitely needed for the 3D printer, as the one I'm building is known to have problems with a wonky z-axis, but I don't know how accurate the mill is. It's got anti-backlash thingies, but it's also cheap and Chinese . I haven't forgotten I need to learn to write G-code. It's on the to-do list, after getting my head round all the software I need.

It's nowhere near as slow as mine! I'm having to learn 3D CAD, and build a 3D printer, before I've got any more to show .

I've got as far as drawing a basic tyre! I'm trying to make everything parametric, so I can gradually build up modules I can use everywhere, rather than keep on having to rewrite code. Tyres are fairly straightforward to start with, doing it with spokes, crankpin positions etc. will take time. I want to print the wheels for the loco I'm designing at the moment, as it will be a static model, and it's a good opportunity to learn without having to make them work. At least I can stick four tyres in position in OpenSCAD, letting the loco float in mid air, get on with more straightforward stuff, and add the spokes later when I've got some sort of idea how to do it! When it comes to O gauge locos, wheels are eyewateringly expensive, and the printer could almost pay for itself if I could print the wheels for a couple of locos. That seems like a good incentive to try it! I'm only building small layouts, so my wheels won't get a lot of wear either. People do seem to make moving parts like gears though, so it must have some sort of reasonable life. If PLA turns out not to be good enough, my printer will handle half a dozen types of filament.