Hi All,
An Introduction From Me, Steven Hill
As an N gauge modeller, I have modelled for 30 or so years. I was born mid 70's so grew up in the transition period from Blue/Grey, born and raised a Mancunian living within walking distance of Reddish Depot. I also used to go on alot of Railriders tours to many places around the country, one of which was Derby. When I wasn't doing either of those then I'd either be at Crewe, Warrington or Piccadilly. So that introduces me to you all with my three main obsessions:
1. Woodhead
2. RTC
3. West Coast Main Line
A few years ago my Bestie introduced me to Sketchup and thus to 3d Printing, I watched what he was doing and learnt some of the basics, I then produced O.L.I.V.E. as it was a relatively easy shape to work with. I designed it to fit on a Tomix 11-103 chassis.
I was pretty happy with it but then over a few years I struggled to get any better using Sketchup, so opted instead for trying my hand at buying from Shapeways, building kits, scratchbuilding and repainting to suit my needs with various good and not so good outcomes. some of my favourites are my 76's, 506 and 150.
I was really lucky to pick up a Masterclass EM1 kit, she's on a dummy Dapol Hymek chassis, best I could do to start off with, but then came along Shapeways
All Shapeways purchases, Tommy is on a dummy chassis atm, EM2 on a Farish cl.31 chassis and the EM1's have Dapol Cl.26 chassis. Seeing these when I first got them and the 506 too, which has a Farish Railcar Chassis, made me really want to learn CAD again so I can produce my own, and who knows maybe a full rake one day. Am pretty chuffed with the 150 really does look good.
So my, now wife, bought me a Geetech Prusa i3 proB for one christmas, had loads of fun building it, but had more fun using it. Thus spurred me to have another look at doing CAD, what software though?... started to have a dabble with Fusion360, very powerful piece of software, struggled a little getting to grips with it at first but started to develop Gantry's for upcoming layout.
All of the elements I'd created allowing to build the various types of Gantry's I wanted for my layout. Unfortunately I was still struggling creating much more though. In stepped Carl White, (145) 3D Drawing for Model Railways, with his amazing video tutorials on YouTube. My wife had also bought me a new 3d Printer, Elegoo Mars Pro, very impressed with it.
Thanks for reading
Happy Modelling
Steven