CWJ

Step 2 is the trickiest part of the whole process in my experience - transferring the pattern to the brass sheet. In my earlier attempts I found that a laminator wasn't very effective, so I used a domestic iron instead. However, that was when I was still trying to use OHP transparencies rather than label paper. According to the internet, laminators operate at around 100 to 150 degrees C, whereas laser printers melt the toner onto the paper at up to 400 degrees ...BUT apparently slower printers can use lower temperatures. I thought I'd try the laminator with label paper, as it just seems a much more consistent and controlled technique compared with a bloke waggling an iron around. Here's my starting point. A mirror image of each side of the etched fret, printed on label paper. This one contains the door vestibule floor and partitions, a destination blind panel and a couple of handbrake wheels. As this is a practice run, I'm using one of the rejects from my stressful undercover printing experience which has a smudged bit at the top. This is folded in half so that the crosshairs align. Holding it up to a window made this fairly easy, as the paper's pretty thin. Here's my victim: a sheet of 10 thou brass, which is just over 0.25mm. I rubbed it down with the finest wet and dry paper I had, 1200 grit, used wet. ...and into the laminator it goes. Fingers crossed everyone... [RIP Eileen's Emporium] Remembering my unsuccessful attempts 11 years ago, I ran it through the laminator twice this time. The result, almost inevitably, wasn't great: The worst areas seem to be where the paper has wrinkled and lifted away from the brass. On the plus side, where the toner has transferred to the brass it has done so neatly, without melting into a distorted shape as happened with my ironed efforts in the past. Attempt No.2, this time, and it's another rejected print-out just for testing purposes: This time I used masking tape to hold things together a bit more securely. I didn't think sellotape and a laminator would be a healthy combination. I also ran it through the laminator 3 times to ensure all the toner is softened. The result: I was pretty happy with this. Still lots of little flecks, and that vertical line on the bottom-left which was where the edge of the labels was situated on the backing paper, causing a tiny crease. Remember the 'ghosting' effect is caused by me messing up the print, not by this stage going wrong. To be continued...

* Overhead Projector. If you don't know what this means, ask your Dad!

OK, here's Step 1. Here's an example of the artwork, which I draw at a scale of 2:1 to make the fine details easier. This happens to be a cab floor and bulkhead wall for a Blackpool Tram. I follow what seems to be a common convention of red for areas etched on the front of the brass and blue is etched on the back. White is etched all the way through. In this example, the red panels are etched on the front as they'll be visible through the windscreen. The door isn't supposed to open, its sides are only etched through so that the outline of the door can be seen from both sides. The etched line isn't as wide as it should be for a through hole, so it might not etch all the way through anyway. The centre panel will be covered by a tip-up seat so I've etched it on the back instead, where it may be visible down the aisle of the passenger saloon. I'm using Powerpoint because it has less of the annoying automatic formatting etc. of Word. Although this may be a basic drawing tool, there are still elements of CAD, such as being able to align shapes, accurately adjust their dimensions or scale them up and down. Next here's the same drawing converted into a front and back pair of 'masks' which could be used as photo-tools for the more common photo-etching process, or in my case for toner transfer direct to the brass. I added a 100mm long box to ensure it's printed to scale, and crosshairs for aligning the two masks on each side of the brass. You can see how fine some of the parts are, in particular the window frames for the windscreen (centre). I found some sticky labels which came on an A4 sheet of waxed paper. The labels were removed, which seems a bit wasteful but Iv'e had them for years and they were never going to get used. From experience, it's easier to get the toner to transfer from waxed paper than from OHP* transparencies, which is another option. Next came a trip to an undisclosed location to use a laser printer. It doesn't half get you some funny looks in the office when you keep toddling back and forth to the printer, adjusting the settings until the print comes out at the right scale, on the right side of the sheet, and without the thin, floppy paper getting jammed in the mechanism. After a few false starts I eventually found this worked better when my paper came from the main tray underneath, rather than the special one at the side which, on this printer, caused the paper to take an S-shaped path which was frought with navigational difficulties. Eventually I had what I wanted. Not quite as many copies as I'd ideally like for trial and error at the next stage, but I decided to make a strategic exit before a work colleague asked me why I was furtively fluttering sheets of strange patterns around on my desk. The LH sheet is detailing parts for my tram, the RH one is some experimental tram bogie frames and a test etch to experiment with different shapes and dimensions. Cheers, Will

Well a few years have passed and I find myself in need of etched parts again. It has been interesting to revisit this topic and catch up with Robin2's progress using his CNC cutter to create etching masks and the electrolytic method using salt. I've reinstated the missing photos in the preceding thread for the enlightenment of anyone wanting to avoid the many mistakes I made! As before, my mission is to etch some parts of mediocre quality but still better than what I could make by hand, using only household items. Spoiler alert: this is unlikely to give better results than the previous project described above. The difference is that I need some quite small and finely-detailed parts this time so I may ultimately find it necessary to have them professionally etched instead, which is what a more sensible person would have done in the first place but I quite like the satisfaction of making things for myself if possible. The plan of attack is roughly: Draw out etched frets using ordinary MS Office drawing tools that anyone can use (I will learn to use CAD one day, but I want to make these parts faster than it would take me to do so). Use the toner transfer method to mask the brass sheet (the details are too fine for Robin2's much more appealing vinyl cutter method, even if I had one). Either etch in the ferric chloride I already have (it's been sitting in the same plastic tub for 10 years, so I either need to use it or find some way to dispose of the stuff!) or try Robin2's salt water technique. Wish me luck... Cheers, Will

I'm another one. There's some really interesting content in the blogs, but I prefer the forum topics because they're organised into categories. I also find it a lot easier to scroll sequentially through a topic/thread than to open and close a series of blog entries, each of which might be quite short. Just my personal opinion. Blogs have their benefits, e.g. it's not possible for contributors to go off on a tangent for three full pages before getting back on topic! Cheers, Will

The last 'destructive' job on the interior, before I can start adding things to it, is the staircase. I wouldn't fancy my chances of squeezing through this gangway: And on the real tramcars the staircase does not encroach on the second window as shown below: So I marked up the staircase mouldings, which conveniently are separate from the floor, to thin them down in two dimensions. After some work with the saw and scalpel, part of the side wall has been removed. ...which means the centre gangway is now accessible, at least to passengers who haven't indulged in too many chips on the seafront. Tonight's content is a condensed record of about 2 weeks' work, so updates will be less frequent from now on. I'll carry on getting the messy, destructive tasks done first, so the bodyshell might be my next victim. Cheers, Will

Finally for tonight, something a bit more substantial than my earlier ramblings - I've started modifying the lower deck's interior moulding. First up, the floors above the bogies need to be raised by a couple of millimetres. I found this little rotary saw blade perfect for this job, it was very controllable and didn't melt the plastic like a cutting disc might. Half an hour later and after tidying up with a scalpel, I'm left with a holey floor and a pile of plastic crumbs. Lovely! The underside looks rough but it doesn't matter; styrene sheet will be glued to the bottom of the seats for mounting the bogies. I no longer needed the three screw bosses so these were removed next: The bosses nearest the cab fronts can be carefully snapped off with thin-nosed pliers, but I couldn't think of a way of grinding or filing the other three flatter ones away without damaging other parts, so they were crudely drilled out with the kind of bits you keep for DIY rather than modelling! I'll be covering the holes anyway. I needed to make room in the front 'wall' for the head and tail lights, but I didn't want to completely remove it as it gives strength to the interior. So I drilled 1mm holes 3mm above the base and then opened them out to 4mm, before cutting down from the top with the little circular saw. I've run out of megabytes for this post. To be continued...

One more slightly tedious job before we get to the interesting stuff. The paint job on the Corgi model is one of its strong points, and I don't want the hassle of a full re-paint if I can get away with just touching up the areas that I need to tweak. Somewhere on the internet it was recommended to use Humbrol No. 2 'Emerald' and No. 41 'Ivory' for Blackpool Transport green and cream. The cream looks a close enough match, but Corgi's green looked a bit more bronzey than the Humbrol, so I tried mixing it with small amounts of black, orange and/or yellow. The colours aren't reproduced very well in the photo, but to the naked eye the test patch nearest the doors looks pretty much identical. This was mixed with 5 parts No.2 (Emerald) and 2 parts No. 154 (yellow). The No.2 on its own is a much worse match to the naked eye than it is in the photo! I'll keep my little test card for future reference, but I'm now happy to go ahead and take a file to those window frames. Cheers, Will

Another couple of prep jobs which aren't very exciting but essential if I want my motor bogies to work smoothly... Firstly, the traction motors. These are absolutely tiny, measuring just 6mm diameter by 10mm long, and they came from Nigel Lawton (http://www.nigellawton009.com/6V6mmx10mmMicroMotors.html) whose website includes other drivetrain components for miniscule 00-9 locos. On test the motors had a noticeable whine at higher speeds and I was concerned this may be amplified by the (proposed) etched bogie frames and diecast bodyshell. I tried wrapping one in a layer of heat-shrink sleeving in the hope that this might act like a rubbery vibration damper between the motor and the bogie frame, and then conducted a highly scientific noise test. I took the sleeved motor and held it against a nearby metal radiator while under power to amplify the noise. I then did the same with the unsleeved motor. Anticlimax Alert: I couldn't tell any difference whatsoever, so given the difficult space constraints of the bogie, I won't bother with the heat-shrink. Next, I had to work out the vertical spacing between the worm drive shaft and the axle gear. These are spare parts for Tenshodo motor bogies, obtained from the Tramfabriek Ebay shop. I made it 3.75mm, which would be slightly closer together than shown in the photo. This level of precision is one reason why I need to etch the bogie frames rather than attempt to drill holes accurately. I then designed the bogie, each of which has one motor, a reduction belt stage and the final drive worm above to both axles. This drawing is really just to show the layout and how the drivetrain works, the frame / gearbox may end up looking different. Forgive the crude representation of the worms and gears, I wasn't trying to draw their teeth properly. At this stage I'm just trying to find out if it's feasible really, as this is much smaller than anything mechanical I've ever done before! The wheelbase is 19mm, the wheel diameter 9mm and the whole thing is just 10.8mm above rail level. I designed it with the ability to have a wheelbase of between 16 and 22mm to suit other Blackpool cars I may build in future. Now I've worked out the bogie design is technically possible, I've put its design to one side while I start tinkering with the body. Cheers, Will

Stewart, I know exactly what you mean - I'm not a fan of bright LEDs and in particular lights in the wrong place, such as cab lighting while driving or tail lights on the back of a loco while hauling a train! So if I was running this tram in daylight there would be no need for interior lights, however it will be on a display shelf in my home bar (AKA shed) which will mostly be used in the evenings with nice dim lighting. I've gathered one or two illuminated features including a full-size DMU destination blind and a tail lamp, so I'm hoping the illuminated tram won't look out of place in that context. Having said that, I'd like the lights to look prototypically dim, in fact that was one of the reasons for my test circuit. My photography doesn't show it very well, but I've chosen current limiting resistors which give the dimmest possible light when the tram's at full speed, while just remaining on at the lowest speed. I've also chosen tiny '0603' LEDs for the interior to give an impression of the bare lightbulbs used in the real thing, rather than just a couple of larger LEDs in the middle of the ceiling. I'll put the tramcar together and see how the lights look. If I can't get them to look convincing they can always be disconnected. Many thanks for the book recommendation, too. From the many photos I've seen online while preparing for this job, you could write a lengthy book just about Balloon modifications over the years! Cheers, Will

Before I start showing you exciting pictures of the model being hacked up, there were some less glamorous preparatory tasks to do first. I didn't want to drill holes for lights if I couldn't make them work, so I put together a test circuit. The first photo shows (L-R) a pair of Zener diodes to allow the lighting to see a few volts before the motors kick in, a filament bulb to represent the motor load, a white headlight LED, a red (extinguished) tail light LED, a bridge rectifier, an anti-clicker capacitor, a 3.3V voltage regulator and a tiny white interior light LED mounted on a bit of PCB so I can handle it. The second photo shows the same circuit with the voltage turned up so the 'motor' (bulb) comes on. And the third shows the voltage reversed so the headlamp goes off and the tail lamp comes on, although it's not very clear in between those resistors. The interior light is on at all times and remains a constant brightness. Cheers, Will

Hi All, Returning to RMWeb after a 10-year break, I find myself without the space for a layout but itching to do some modelling, so I've decided it would be nice to have a tram running along a high shelf on the wall of my shed / summerhouse / man-cave. I'd probably prefer a railway, given the choice, but a tram doesn't look as silly if it has to negotiate sharp, 90-degree curves at the corners of the room. The Corgi / Original Omnibus die-cast models seemed like a good starting point so I got my hands on a 'Balloon' in 1990s livery as I remember them from many happy visits to Blackpool. There will hopefully be three parts to this project: Modifying and detailing the Corgi body and interior to make the tram look less like a shiny diecast toy. I'm aiming for something that looks from a distance like a recent Hornby or Bachmann model of a 'Balloon', if such a thing were to exist. There have been so many permutations of window and body features on this fleet that I'm modelling whichever are easiest rather than trying to emulate a specific car on a specific date. Adding directional head and tail lights, and interior lights with some kind of constant-brightness and flicker-free functionality. This would be much easier if I already had DCC equipment, but I don't, so it'll be DC. Designing and building low-profile motor bogies using coreless micro motors. It doesn't look humanly possible for these to be squeezed under the floor, so the interior floor height will be artificially raised to the bottom of the seat cushions; I'm hoping this will leave the interior looking suitably empty from most angles. Cheers, Will

Hi Everyone, I've just returned to RMWeb after a 10-year gap to start a family and tackle some DIY/garden projects, to discover this problem with images going missing. I'd be happy to recover a few photos from this project if anyone needs them, so feel free free to ask. The same applies to my Class 325 project (pre-3D printing so I had to improvise!) which has now been archived so you won't find it with the search function and I can't post a message like this on it, but I think you can find it via my profile. If anyone would like a few photos, please send me a PM and I'll ask nicely for the topic to be un-archived. @sub39h (if you still want an answer after 10 years!) I started with a pair of 153s because I liked the fine window/bogie detail, modern mechanism, lights etc. Others have achieved fantastic results by starting with the ex-Dapol 155 as you suggest, which apparently has a more accurate body shape and of course doesn't need the cab end surgery. I was blissfully unaware of what's wrong with Hornby's 153 when I started this project, and having finished it I have no intention of finding out! If you enjoyed this topic (while it still had photos) I'm hoping to have a couple of new projects to report on, although my interests are a bit more diverse now and my progress will be slower thanks to busy family life. At the risk of inciting rampant frothing (on RMWeb? surely not!), please shout if any of these would be of interest... 00-gauge Blackpool 'balloon' tram conversion/detailing, scratchbuilt underfloor motor bogies and lights (just started) 00-gauge Class 185 using bits of Bachmann 350 and many scratch-built parts (may start next Winter) N-scale Huddersfield trolleybus conversion from diecast RTR (surprise gift for my Dad's birthday in December, so I hope he doesn't read this) Correcting the paint colours on my TPE Class 68 and Mk5a set... do I dare take a paintbrush to those lovely models? 00-gauge L&YR Class 25 'Ironclad' 0-6-0, probably using the London Road Models kit (parts not even bought yet, maybe one for next Winter) The 45mm gauge rack railway I'm building to carry ale to the man-cave at the top of my steeply-sloping garden (just civil engineering so far, first track to be laid this summer) Cheers, Will

Fascinating to watch the layout plans developing (and the very impressive fiddle yard). A couple of thoughts on recent discussions: 1 - Do you have a means of automatically controlling the various double junctions so you can keep the trains running smoothly while preventing collisions, or will this be down to the dexterity of the operator? 2 - Could you use the grade seperation to your advantage and make one or more of the double junctions into flying junctions, eliminating the risk of head-on collisions and making pathing easier? I ask these questions as someone in awe of the scale and quality of your work, so I hope they don't come across as critical! Cheers, Will

Always a pleasure to catch up on developments here, Jeff. You're doing the right thing by removing the branch line viaduct, it makes the main line viaduct look all the more spectacular! Keep up the excellent work Cheers, Will

I hope you don't mind a cheeky suggestion, Jeff, if it isn't too late to whip out the jigsaw... Unless in very steep terrain, most viaducts have an embankment on the approach (cheaper than building a longer viaduct), as in my rather poor photo below. This would also enable your slopes either side of the structure to be more gradual. Hope this makes sense, if not please ask and I'll draw a sketch of what I mean! Cheers, Will

That last photo could be real - if it wasn't for the cleanliness of the 47! Cheers, Will

Dave, Thanks for your advice - that's very helpful. My motors were large DC machines with gearboxes and had no trouble shifting the traverser, the issue was stopping them! Or to be precise, stopping them in the right place. I had thought a good old-fashioned control system with a couple of relays and microswitches, coupled with mechanical locking devices operated by soleniods, would be easier than a digital control system - clearly stepper motors would be far easier as I could do away with so many moving parts. As for automation, I was going to just use a PIC chip, but having seen the price of the Arduino this is a tempting alternative. My traverser is next to a swinging baseboard section (for human access to the middle of the layout) so I could use the microprocessor to control train movements on both the traverser and the swingbridge. Hmmm... Cheers, Will

Thanks for the response regarding the roof, Charlie, that makes sense. I remember when Bachmann's Voyager came out it had a more glossy finish than other models and this made it look realistic - for a clean one, of course! Cheers, Will

Thanks for the reply, Brian. That flywheel is a monster! There's something about a working mechanism which is more satisfying than the equivalent electronic simulation. I'd like to have a go one day, next time I have a re-motoring project. Cheers, Will

Brilliant! Can't believe I've only just found this thread. I tried to do something similar with a very long traverser (about 3m) and although I got it running smoothly I never managed to motorise it successfully, let alone automate it. More info halfway down this thread, if anyone's interested: http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/14963-wills-garage-layout/ I'll follow this with interest Cheers, Will

I wish I had 'Pro Weathering' skills like his. I've never seen anybody model rusting timber as realistically as this before. Cheers, Will

Good project Mick, now all you need to do is build the cra... d'oh!

Whatever you do, don't buy electrical components from Maplin unless you have a particular reason to go to the shop in person and view the products before buying. Online retailers such as RS (http://uk.rs-online.com/web/) or Rapid Electronics (http://www.rapidonline.com/) will supply the same components for a fraction of the price, which is important if you're buying large numbers. I don't have any connection with either of these suppliers (there are others too) other than as a satisfied customer both for model railway and full-size railway projects. Cheers, Will PS. No disrespect to Maplin; they serve a useful purpose in having a high-street presence and knowledgeable staff, but their prices for components are high.