Fen End Pit

So there I was feeling quite chuffed that I'd managed to get the wheels on the J17 chassis. There is a video which includes it running on youtube. Then I started work on the footplate, I got the buffer beam and valancing on quite nicely and then turned to the splashers. I felt quite good about the job I'd done until I put the footplate onto the chassis and realised that the kit had exactly the same issues as the previously built J20. Now I don't exactly know what size wheels and flanges the designer had in mind but I think they would have made even the most ardent Hornby Dublo 3-rail fanatic blush. The splashers are roughly 4mm larger in diameter than they should be. This, of course, means the hole in the footplate is much too wide as well. Printing out the GERS drawing and pasting the actual size of the splasher onto the kit really shows the problem. The front splasher/sandbox is equally bad, and probably even more of a pain to fix, I'm hoping that the smokebox sides still fit once the top of the sandbox is lowered to the right height. So I now have to remove the splashers, fill the gaps in the footplate, re-cut the splasher sides to the right size and re-bend the tops to the new profile. In summary - Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr David

A little package of wagon bodies was posted off last week and my friend Phil has put one together with its chassis and sent me a photograph. I think it rather looks the part. He just has another eight to do now, should keep him busy for a while.

I think either would be a decent machine and be a good first printer. I don't have experience of the Ender 3 v2 but have been happy with my Ender 5. I like how I have been able to make modifications to it to add automatic bed leveling with a BLtouch probe and change out the cooling fans to something a little quieter (not that the original were too bad). The amount of support and information online is excellent, folks like kersey fabrications and teaching tech on Youtube are particularly good. Have fun David

I'd recommend SLEC in Watton, Norfolk for laser ply. https://www.slecuk.com no connection, other than satisfied customer. David

For those who don't know what a J17 is, here is a picture. They were a James Holden designed locomotive built for the GER between 1900 and 1903, a sort of half-way house between the lighter J15 and heavier J20. As I hinted the J17 kit from PDK is also quite 'old school' by today's standards. The frames just had simple holes for the bearings, not even a half etched line as a nod that some people might spring or compensate their locomotives. Progress today has been quite swift, partly because I was working with such nice components and probably partly because I vaguely knew what I was doing with them! The High Level horn-blocks soldered in place easily, jigged into place by the coupling rods. I then added the spring carrier etches to the rear of the horn-blocks, using the 'space saver' design on the rear axle to give more clearance for the gearbox. Having fitted these I then widened the holes I'd drilled in the frames for the CSB (continuous springy beam) carriers. Following various recommendations these are made from Markits WD handrail knobs. Being parallel these can be fitted through from the outside of the frames and spaced from the frame so that the spring wire is the right distance from the frames to match the horn-block spring carriers. I fed a length of spring steel wire through them while soldering them to fit. The result was that the horn-blocks look to ride at an appropriate height and seem to be at the same level and 'sprung' the same amount - thanks due to the famous CLAG spreadsheet tool. One of the extra bits which had been etched was the springs, these solder to the bottom of the bearings and ride up and down with them. The result is that the wheels can easily be removed from the chassis simply by pulling out the sprung wire 'beam) Now I think I'll spend a few days procrastinating before I attempt to do anything with the wheels. David

Having put the J20 together and painted it I spotted that I'd missed a couple of important bits off. The first were the front guard irons which were easily soldered onto the front of the chassis. The others were, it appears, completely missing from the kit, these were the two large lockers in the cab, one of which has the reverser mounted on it. The kit appears to not have parts for these at all and they are not mentioned in the instructions. Photographs of cab interiors are notoriously hard to come by but the instructions for the 7mm scale Connoisseur kit had a good picture of how they expected their kit to be put together. Based on this, and the drawing from the Great Eastern Railway society collection I modeled up the two lockers in CAD and printed them out on the Photon. This was much easier than trying to fabricate them from brass. I thought the little reverser wheel came out pretty well. Once in place the cab looks much better. I need to pick out the dials and gauges and there is a crew on order from Eileen's. I've also made a start on the J17. So far the frames have altered to allow High Level hornblocks to be fitted, holes have been drilled for CSB mounts and the original slots for frame spaces have been filled. The frames have been assembled using some very ancient Perseverance frame spaces. I've also assembled the coupling rods from an etch produced by a friend which has lots of bits which will help with this loco and put together a High Level gearbox to make it go. Next step is to use the coupling rods as a jig to fit the hornblocks. Wish me luck. David

I have been making some more coal wagons for a friend's Irish project. The first attempt were slightly too narrow because some idiot (me) got the dimension wrong on the 3D model. Having fixed that we now have a models of 3 different types of wagon and the beginnings of a coal train. The wagon chassis department is apparently working at peak capacity assembling etched underframes. The 3 wagons are subtly different, one design has two doors in the middle while the other two have a pair of doors on each side. I can fit three wagons on the bed of my Anycubic Photon as the wagons are just less than the width of the bed. I have found that printing them at a 20 degree angle, and adding a tiny hole in the floor seems to give the best results. A close up of the end of the latest batch shows the diagonal layers, but they should be very easy to hide with a touch of paint. I think the tiny 'pressure relief hole' in the floor is helping to avoid layer issues cause by the suction effect of the wagon body on the print bed. You can (hopefully) see the differences in the body work when the three models are put together. Top is the four door variant with one type of door strapping (the top being a T shape on its side). Middle is the four door variant with the other form of door strapping (the top of the strapping being an L shape). Bottom is the two door variant. I'm looking forward to seeing what they look like with a chassis underneath. David

Hi The layout is 4mm scale, P4 track. Not sure what a 'dunny' is, the buildings are all scratch built, mainly from laser cut MDF, based on my own drawings. Good luck with your 2mm version. David

Over the last couple of days I managed to get a coat of primer followed by a coat a Stratford's finest black. This was a heavy freight locomotive and getting towards the end of its life so I've got a fair bit of weathering to apply. On most of the prototype photographs it is almost impossible to see the BR insignia on the tender! I've noticed I also need to paint the bolt ends on the brake-gear. I'm very pleased with the way the different components came together. The footplate had lots of additional bits required to fill in the space left by the original splashers and the sandboxes were home made 3D printed replacements. Also on the 'still to do' list is the glazing, it looks from the pictures I have that the front side window was glazed but the rear one was not. As I've said before the J20 was a bit of a beast and it makes an interesting comparison with the B12 behind it. Given that the B12 is a 4-6-0 and the J20 an 0-6-0 it is quite amazing that the boilers are almost the same size! Next into the works in a J17, this one is a PDK kit but I'm getting a head start because one of my friends built one recently so we know our way around it. David

I know it is a bit difficult to arrange but using a laser cutter is a great way to mark out cork.

I made a couple of changes to the wagon. I decreased the length of the bolts a touch (.6mm down to .45mm) and increased the size of the gap between the planks (.2mm to .25mm). I also added a 1mm hole into the floor and to my eye this has reduced the severity of the diagonal striping on the ends. I've just removed the support and haven't sanded the base at all. David

I think we should call that 'Hatton's Law' David

Yes, it does. There is a fair bit of side-play on the centre axle. Not having to worry about outside cylinders or pesky walschaerts valve gear helps a great deal. David

This one really has been a long time coming! The Crownline kit has a 'checked' date on the box of 1997. I've had it 'in progress' for almost five years and most of the last two it has been in the naughty box threatening to be drop kicked out of the window. I'd left it socially isolating in south Cambridgeshire with one of my friends so long he was probably going to start charging rent. It looks like it I last mentioned it on this blog almost two years ago. The kit came back home in a socially distanced exchange and continued to taunt me in its box over Christmas. I finally managed to crack the pull rods for the sandboxes which had been the most recent stumbling block, moved on to the cab foot-steps and finally progressed onto the front buffer beams, coupling hook and lamp-irons. Net result was that I was finally able to reassemble the locomotive into almost finished condition. I've still got the locomotive brake pull rods to attend to but I'm very happy with the progress. It is fair to say this locomotive is a beast, probably the largest 0-6-0 locomotives at the time. Built to haul the G.E.R. coal trains down the joint line from Lincoln I expect mine to find service on the early morning 'empties to Whitemoor' freight. Hopefully it won't be another two years before I write more about this. David

So Phil asked 'Could your gadgetry print wagon bodies' and attached a photograph of a Cavan and Leitrim 3' gauge 4-plank coal wagon and a 2D drawing he'd made. Well I couldn't let that challenge go could I? Over the course of the festive season we have bounce various images and drawing back and forth as I hopefully got closer to the prototype. Photographs are somewhat elusive, I don't think many people who got to travel on the C&L bothered taking pictures of mundane old coal wagons. This one is an unusual prototype with a pair of hinged doors on each side - quite how the middle section of the side stayed up is a bit of a mystery, there is some metal bracing on the inside and outside but it all looks a bit sketchy to me. The wagons is about 60mm x 30mm in 4mm scale and I added some internal support to help prevent any warping of the sides. I took some advice from RMweb about print orientation and support and the first results came out pretty well. There is a slight diagonal line on one end which will disappear with a little sanding and paint. Once the support structure was removed the body sits square on the deck and I think should paint up quite nicely. I think I might slightly reduce the length of the bolts, I didn't know how they would come out and I might slightly increase the depth of the gap in the planks to make it more visible. The body is designed to fit onto an etched chassis which includes the solebars. There is a recess in the buffer beams on the inside to accept this. All in all a rather fun little project. Now, about this weird van with a tarpaulin roof..... David

I printed a pair of wagons last night, at 90 degrees to each other on the build plate. Both came out pretty well. I altered the internal bracing based on Bill's comments and the sides came out nice and square with no visible warping. The bracing cut away without too much issue. I printed at a 20 degree angle in one direction only. This seemed to work fine and only required a few supports on the downhill side. I didn't make a hole in the bottom of the floor but actually looking at the very slight diagonal line on the I wonder if I should. That line would have been where the suction off the bed would have been at its maximum. As it is it will disappear with the slightest sand and paint. I'll stick some more pictures on my blog. For the record the wagon is ~60mm x 30mm and the print time for the pair was 3hr 45mins. David

But most of that raft if printed with a layer exposure considerably larger than the actual print. David

Thanks for the advice. I think I will go back into CAD and add some supports at that stage rather than just in Chitubox. Chitubox is a heck of a lot better than the default Anycubic slicer for support but still does things like try to support every bolt on the outside of the wagon as soon as the angle gets too step. Prototype - Something obscure and Irish - Cavan and Leitrim 3' narrow gauge open wagon with a pair of doors in each side. David

Thanks for the responses. I'd planned on adding a couple of supports to keep the sides apart while curing, all the generated support is on the bottom of the wagon. The trouble is that there is a point in the print where all four sides are being printed at once (or 3 sides and a bit of the floor). This I think might result in the inside of the wagon forming a 'suction cup' against the FEP. I wondered if adding a small hole (currently drawn in the top right corner) might mitigate this. David

I'm going to try and print an open wagon on my Anycubic photon. I've orientated it at the 10 degrees in X and Y to give the best chance of printing. One question I have though is whether I should model a small hole in the base of the wagon, not to allow resin to escape but to prevent the wagon from acting like a suction cup as it prints. Is this necessary or am I being over cautious? David

There has been a bit of progress on my model of Clare in Suffolk over the last few weeks. The goods yard area around the cattle dock is coming on and I've planted the shunting signal which protects the exit from the yard (just in front on the J15) Looking the other way and the castle mount is coming on with the start of some walls on in. These have been molded in sculptamold and I've had a go at painting lots of 'dots' to represent the stonework which seems to be lots of bits of stone held together with lime mortar. I think this was mainly stones which could be picked off fields as there is no source of 'local stone' to quarry in the middle of Suffolk. Any decent blocks would have been robbed by the locals over the years since the castle was unoccupied. The goods shed now has windows and capping stones on the gables. I've tried to replicate the strange white-washed patch on the end which I have seen in the 1950's photographs. the yard crane is just resting in place, that is why it isn't quite central on its plinth. Aerial photographs show a line of eleven wagons in the siding beyond the goods shed. I can get ten wagons in which I think is an acceptable level of compression. The yard still needs ballasting. I've started on the ground-works down toward the river bank. The line here is curved much more steeply than the prototype and the bridge is shorted and on a curve. I'll make something similar to the original. I was surprised just how slim the centre pier is, one of my pictures allows you to count the bricks across the top and it was only 5 stretchers wide, so about 4'. As we don't exist in the movies where the protagonist can just say 'enhance that' when a blurry image appears I'd like your views on what this might be. Just along from the end of the cattle dock the aerial photo shows this. yes, that is as large as it goes. Guesses anyone?

Work on the lathe continued, I had several more pieces to model up and a couple of changes to some of the first attempts at detail parts. The final CAD drawing looks quite attractive. To those who think 3D printing is 'cheating' I think I should point out this was more of 'home kit production' as the lathe has almost 30 separate pieces. The parts almost filled the build plate on my Anycubic photon twice over and each print job took about 4 1/2 hours. I got the parts assembled and painted, still need a bit of weathering, but I'm quite happy with the results. I intend to make another couple of chucks and a variety of tools to go with the lathe. Meanwhile, I needed a cup of tea so put the kettle on the stove. Now I just need to make a flue for the stove so I can light it ! David

That does sound interesting, more information would be appreciated David

Those barrels look very nice, love the pumps. I've had to move my photon inside too, it's brass monkey weather out in the garage! David

I've started making a lathe for my model workshop. Boy does it have a lot of pieces! I've still got the gearing on the drive end to do and the bracket which holds the top set of pulley wheels. I'm not slavishly copying this photograph but trying to make something which looks lathe-like. The main bed of the lathe worked out to be too big to print on the Anycubic photon in a single piece so, as it was a relatively simple shape and could be sanded easily, I printed it on my Ender 5 FDM printer. This came out really well but I did have some issues with the tolerances between the FDM printed parts and the DLP printed detail bits. The first batch of detail parts just fitted onto the build platform and took about 4 1/2 hours yesterday evening. So far I have just cleaned up the parts and tried to fit them together, the white resin is useless at showing the detail in photographs (learnt lesson purchased grey next time). I think the results are looking ok. One of the levers on the cross-slide didn't get printed (my mistake) and the little handle on one of the levers is too thin and only just holding together. The tail-stock wheel is just secured with blu-tac for now. There are a couple of rods which need to be threaded along the bed, one threaded and one plane. I'm wondering if I can get a length of 1mm threaded rod from anywhere. If the 5p doesn't give a sense of scale here is the Bachmann 16mm driver next to the lathe. I'm quite pleased with how it is coming along, it is certainly the largest and most complex thing I've done so far. * line from Galaxy Quest !