Rabs

I can recommend Tippex for small gaps like that.  Flows well and is easy to scrape the excess off, unlike many putty fillers.

What do you think of seafoam/seamoss for tree armatures?  I've always thought that they looked very effective and appear to be easier to make than twisted wire.  Not done any tree making myself yet though, so I'm not in a position to say for sure.

Hi Tom,

It was very nice chatting with you on Saturday.  Hope we meet again soon.

Robert

Just saw this. Glad you're happy with it.  A van like this with sheet metal sides is probably about the hardest thing to print because any warping or stepping is immediately obvious - if anything I think that the beetle came out better.

When I said similar to injection moulded plastics I was thinking HIPS and I only meant in terms of stiffness.  In fracture toughness the resin is far worse than any thermoplastic, I'm still trying to make up my mind if it is good enough or not.

Have you painted it yet?  How did it come out?

Fantastic work as ever, Julia, and you've put me to shame by finishing it in a tenth of the time that it's taken me to get a coat of primer onto my van model!

 

Andy

I haven't even got that far - and I've had the bits longer than either of you!

Ah, that's what those wheels are for!

You're welcome.  I'm not going to have time to build mine for a while as I'm tracklaying at the moment, so I'll look forward to seeing how yours goes.

Hi Julia, good timing for me to see this post - I've just finished cleaning off the rest of the parts for the Foden - they look good.  Even the tyre tread and the tiny holes in the wheel hubs have come out.  I can see the stubs for the rear wheels, but how did you intend to attach the front wheels? I can see holes for an axle so I assume you were planning to use some brass or styrene rod. I hope you aren't expecting them to rotate though!  I'll have a go at painting and assembling one at the weekend.  Do you have any pictures for me to reference paint colours from?

I've printed two copies of it, so I can try to send one set of parts to you.  Not sure how well they will survive royal mail but worth a go. PM me your address if you would like me to send them.  Also, can you send me an STL of the traction engine wheel?  I'm keen to see if I can print one.

Looks great - I'm hoping to follow in your footsteps soon.

Off the top of my head (i.e. I have no idea if it would work) - you could paint the inside face of the wheel with conductive silver paint to provide an electrical connection from rim to axle. One of these may do the trick:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_nkw=conductive+spray+paint

http://uk.farnell.com/jsp/displayProduct.jsp?sku=725614&CMP=KNC-GUK-FUK-GEN-LISTINGS&gross_price=true

http://www.maplin.co.uk/electrically-conductive-silver-paint-36275

Wear may be an issue though if the wheel rubs on the frame.

Ah, yes that would be a simpler way of doing it, thanks.

Yes, that's very true. In a situation where you're performing anything more than basic shunting I can see that would be extremely helpful. In my case I will be putting most of my rolling stock into fixed rakes, with a few DG couplings at selected points in the train to allow operations - so hopefully I can get away with counting cars as the train passes over to identify the correct coupling. That does rely on not missing counts though, which I've heard is an issue with reed switch type detection. Hopefully the Hall effect switches will be more resilient because of the higher sensitivity and faster response.

Have you found any RFID tags that comfortably fit under an N/2mm gauge wagon? I had a look, but all the 13.56MHz ones are too big as far as I can tell. The 125kHz ferrite rod types would fit, but are much more expensive - and I don't think that my budget would stretch yet to ~£2 per vehicle, is there a cheaper RFID option?