AJ427

Sadly I'm still waiting for my missing detail parts...

You might do better sending a PM to Sandra (LocomotionatShildon on here). I'm pretty sure she's not there everyday but she will respond and sort it. Mine came without detail parts but is being rectified.

Hi Tony, Very, very nice work on the N1. I think your weathering for all your locos is excellent, the A1 in particular subtly capturing that oily sheen of a working engine.

Looking very nice there Tony. You've really gone to town on the extra details. Did you do the coal rails with plastic rod?

Hi Tony, Glad that all is well with the print. The differences are simply related to the superheater element: the chimney on the saturated boiler engines sits near the back of the smokebox whereas on the superheated engines it is further forward to the front of the smokebox to accommodate the superheater element and snifter valves behind and also there are bolts below the snifters on either side of the smokebox (presumably access plates or to hold something in place inside). Finally there are cocks either side of the smokebox on the saturated examples but these are not present on the superheated locos. I have a handful of images of 69452 other than the Ardsley shed one. PM me if you want copies of any. Regards Andrew

Yes, it's slightly bitter-sweet for me but on the whole I'm still over the moon with the announcement and I think that Hornby will do a good job and I have pre-ordered two. Of course the knowledge gained both in research and 3d modelling will be put to good use in detailing mine up further if required. There's also the J50/2 that Hornby aren't doing that could be developed as a mod/conversion and also no evidence yet of how Hornby intend to do the under-footplate injector equipment as it doesn't appear on their 3d printed sample or the renders. Something else I noticed was that the wheels on the 3d printed sample have the wrong balance weights for the J50 - could these have come from an existing model and are being used as a stand in until the correct ones are tooled up?

Hi Tony, Always nice to know who's buying the models. Let me know how you get on or if you run into any problems and I'll be happy to help. I wouldn't feel too disheartened with Dave's J50 as you've got a real piece of modelling history there and something very special. I've just caught up on your Wakefield thread and it looks right at home. A J6 is very much on my to do list but I'm increasingly of the opinion (especially with the J50 announcement) that it won't be long before there's a RTR one in the offing. But if not, then there's the possibility that the forthcoming J50 chassis could be used as a basis. Thanks

Hi all, The A Class now has a full set of instructions to detail the print and modify the Wainwright C class donor chassis which can be found on my blogsite here.

Absolutely over the moon with this one. Fantastic. J50/3 (with GNR & LNER buffers) and J50/4 appear to be the variants offered.

Hi folks, Final tweaks have been made and the A Class is now available for sale on my Shapeways shop here. A full set of instructions should be up in the next few days on my website here.

I know, I don't know quite what came over me!

My A Class test print has now been cleaned up detailed, painted, crewed and tested and all is well. Here it is last weekend when we had a few minutes of sunshine. My tripod was elsewhere so these are hand-held (hence poor depth of field). Parts retained/reused from the Bachmann C class are the whistle, safety valve cover and valves, backhead, fall plate, guard irons and the weight that sits in the smokebox. The back face of the 'front' steps are a slot in part and the horizontal parts on all of the steps are fashioned from acetate (or clear plastic packaging) - it scores/bends readily and is more robust than the equivalent styrene. I wasn't happy with the shape of the smokebox on the print so I've redesigned it along with a couple of other parts. This prototype has a replacement spare from the Craftsman model. The chassis was stripped of all sanding and brake gear and a set of rigging was made up from brass wire with the brakes fixed to this and the rigging fixed to the chassis bottom. Where I struggled most with this one was the tender draw bar arrangement: The C Class draw bar cannot be reused as it's too short so one needs to be fashioned. Likewise the tender sub-frame to body fixing has to be quite far back to be hidden. My eventual solution was to fashion a small length of brass with a bolt that attached to the tender body fixing. The coal rails are optional (in so much as not all tenders had them) and to be honest I wish I hadn't bothered. I gave up on attempting to solder them and finally used microstrip. Finally the access for the DCC chip was a bit awkward so that has also been redesigned. When the model goes on sale (end of next week hopefully) I'll be putting up a full set of instructions on my blog site.

Hi Shaun, Looking good there. Here's a couple of images I have of the station master's house - though you'll probably have finished it by the time you see this Andrew

When I saw you were doing this in the P2 topic I had visions the nameplate would be halfway along the boiler! Good work - now you just need to get her 'out on the road in the direction of Perth'

Depends what material you will print in. I use Shapeways FUD and find 1mm wall thickness for these parts is quite adequate and allows easy handling for sanding down to smoothness.

Good guide this and a good start. Once you get this part mastered everything else on a steam loco is pretty easy. The one thing to remember from the first is to design to the limitations of the printing material/machine and not just draw the prototype. This is my rule no.1: will it print, will it be strong enough, is it the most cost effective way to represent that part. Thanks for reminding me of that post. For anyone using AutoCAD I discovered a much quicker and better way of creating the 'pringle'. I don't know Blender so don't know if it will help but I'll write it up here shortly: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/77750-drawing-a-loco-steam-dome-how-to-get-the-varing-flare/

The Bachmann C Class chassis has been suitably modified. As per Larry's conversion the only modification required to fit is to cut the front 3mm off in front of the guard irons and to file off the two protrusions either side of the gearbox. Voila! The body fits - more or less - a very small modification will be required to the design at the back. Here it is on the chassis. For the tender I'm erring towards the sub-frame as the the pin-point bearings holes proved a tight fit (it will be problematic to design the holes much bigger) and difficult to open out in a restricted space. The printed sub-frame is a little flimsy so will be modified. I have also created a fold up etched brass version of this and this is what I've used here. Through frame bearings have yet to be added so the tender is currently sitting too low. Finally here's the tender on the sub-frame showing the wiring loom and drop in top arrangement.

Thanks to additional info received with thanks for the tender the cads have been completed and the test model has just arrived from Shapeways. It's come out quite well but needs a good cleanup. The tender interior drops into place (to make it easier to fit weight, dcc, etc) and some other detail parts are sprued here: brake shoes, tender tool boxes (they seemed to be placed in a variety of locations or not at all) cab interior reverser wheel and steps. I've found that shrinkage can be an issue with FUD so I have two options for the tender wheels - holes for pinpoint bearings and a sub-frame for through-frame bearings. I'll see which works best. I've managed to snap off one of the tender brake blocks due to my own clumsiness. The next test will be to see if it all fits! Fingers crossed.

I think I was the same; ordered and paid on the Friday, dispatched on the Monday and turned up on the Tuesday.

Here's my P2 weathered and with all the detail bits added - it's never going around any curves. I've replaced the drawbar with a home-made one for closer coupling. This is a little diorama I've done for my dad for his 70th birthday (it was in August so it's rather belated now ) meant to depict a little bit of Haymarket shed. The only bit of photoshoppery is the smoky heat haze from the chimney and clearing some foreground clutter. There aren't that many pics of CotN in service but some show her much dirtier than this and she seems to have been treated just like any other loco. If I'd had more time I would have liked to have added the inner handrail to the deflector and replaced the poor nameplates with proper etched ones.

That ties in with my own rather cynical thought that they are sitting on a load of stock waiting for everyone to cancel so they can sell them on at RRP.

No further info I'm afraid other than they referred to it as the "next batch".

Hmnn. Mine, on pre-order with Hattons since July 2013, is apparently in the second batch which they expect "very shortly"... Disappointed as this was for Dad's 70th which was 2 months ago and still counting.

You should have done a Prince and changed it to - the modeller formerly known as Sandside.

Hi Stan, It's drawn to scale width (based on the plans I have which came from Railway Modeller and I'm not convinced are are definitely not 100% accurate) so in theory should be OK for P4 - the possible problem would be in the width of the splasher wall which needs to be a minimum of 0.6mm and ideally 1mm so this would reduce the overall clearance. That said it would be a minor job to ease out the position of the splashers to accommodate a P4 wheelset if required. There is a wheelbase compromise - 1mm out but I've drawn the splashers in the correct position anyway as it doesn't seem noticeable on Larry's conversion using the Craftsman body. Hi Corbs, It would be a bit more work but there's no reason it wouldn't work on the same chassis. EDIT: In fact the increased vertical space afforded by the Belpaire may also mean it would work with the 3F chassis which has a slightly too high motor position for the Class 27.