Atso

My own contribution is (having gotten the first one working properly) another couple of C1 Atlantics. These will become 3286 (front) and 4436, both of which were regular visitors to Hadley Wood. While still in the raw resin, I hope that enough can been seen to show the detail differences between the two locomotives.

Very nice work as always Tom. Good to see somebody else modelling clutter on the table tops!

I've built the GER and GCR Macs. I used wheels from N Brass and carefully reamed them out to accept 2mm Association adaptor axles. I needed to do a little work with the Dremel to get enough clearance for the GCR Mac but otherwise things worked out fine.

'Minoru' is looking great Tony, another great loco for Little Bytham's stud. I've been working on a few bits and pieces. First up is the CAD for a ex-GNR Class A tender for my J6. It's just about ready to print but I'm just double checking some of the details. I've started building another K3, No. 91. The chassis is a hacked about Farish B1 bit fitted with 3MT and B1 valve gear parts. My very old Sam Fay project got restarted today. Finally, another C1 Atlantic is underway. This one will be 3286 as featured in 'The Big Four in Colour' and differs in details from my previous 4452.

Hi Tom, Nice to see you posting again. Hopefully there is a new Youtube video in the works? All the best Steve

My latest CAD is of an ex-GNR R23 Class A tender. I'm not convinced that I've got the curve on the coal plate right yet so I'll be consulting my copies of Yeadon's further before sending this to the printer.

A return to the bench for this locomotive. A originally built here, it struggled to haul five coaches - despite being full of lead. Some redesigning of the rear frame spacer which holds the 'Cartazzi' wheelset and the tender to remove the pickups and modification to the relevant wheelsets to make them into split axle pickups as well as a new design of drawbar to provide stability seems to have made a difference. Much better and now capable of lifting the longest train that Hadley Wood will be able to accomodate. Now I just need to touch up the paintwork (from all the handling over the last year or two), add the final details and weather it!

Thanks Andrew, You're dead right, there is a lot more to successful haulage than just stuffing the loco full of lead - as I almost found out to my cost with this locomotive. Originally, I just tried to get the COG over the driving wheels but this didn't work at all. I then added more weight and ended up with a very nose heavy loco. Unfortunately, the lead was too well glued and too inaccessible to get it back out of the smoke box! Originally I designed the loco to make use of a sprung front bogie, but no matter how much I tried, I couldn't stop this lifting the front driving wheels (which, being off a Dapol Britannia, have traction tires fitted - I'll hang my head in shame now) and so fitted a Farish free swinging bogie instead. This now resulted in the loco pitching forward and lifting the rear drivers slightly so I put a screw back in the fixing hole for the old bogie and adjusted this to prevent the loco pitching forward while still allowing the bogie to track the rails. The tender is also full of lead (as it provides six of the ten wheel pickup) so I ended up designing a new drawbar to more securely fix the loco and tender together. All of this seems to have done the trick and rescued this loco from potentially a major disaster. The main loco chassis came from a Dapol Hall (as did the coupling rods, cons rods and cross heads) but I fitted an 8mm coreless motor in the tender rather than the 'Super Creep' motor that Dapol likes. The Dapol motor would not have fitted inside the GNR tender anyway and the coreless motor is much smoother and much much quieter. Hopefully, Hadley Wood will end up with six of these locomotives and the experienced gained, over a protracted period of time, with this one should mean that the other five will be even better!

Going back a little to locomotive haulage, I've been tinkering again with my N gauge C1 Atlantic. As it was last left it would just about pull five coaches which was pretty useless for my ambitions for Hadley Wood. Some redesigning of the 'Cartazzi' wheels and tender to convert them to split frame pickup (reducing drag) and a new drawbar to stop the considerable slop between the loco and tender (where the motor is mounted) has improved things considerably. Interestingly, this was achieved without adding any extra weight. I'm now looking forward to finally being able to put the finishing touches to this loco and not worry about it again! Please excuse the temporary floor layout. I'm presently separated from my layout and usual workbench so this is the best I'll be able to manage for a while yet.

Within reason, yes. However there are some consumable parts that need to be replaced periodically which do affect the quality as they wear out.

Hi Craig, There are one or two minor areas where it shows (the flash washed them out!) but nothing major. Just a case of getting the print orientation, exposure times, layer thicknesses, supports and anti-aliasing levels right I guess.

Thanks Manna, I hope that your keyboard has dried out OK!

Interesting to read other's experiences printing at various orientations. I've found that a 10-20 degree angle on the Y and Z axis with a print layer of 0.02mm (8 sec exposure using Anycubic Grey) gives me the best results. Like Tom, Justin and others, I like to add a skirt to the model and attach as many of the supports to this as possible as I find that this helps mitigate the suction effect.

My D2 has now been printed. The Siraya Blu is much more dimensionally accurate than the grey resin and was also easy to tap an M2 thread so that I could screw the keeper plate to the chassis. The pin holding the bogie was tapped to M1.6 and again, the Blu resin has withstood the abuse nicely.

May I please also break from the 2-8-0 theme to present another D2 now under construction.

Well around building more track and turnouts and messing around with the cylinder unit, I've also designed and printed an ex-GNR D2. The body is in Anycubic's grey resin, while the chassis bits are printed in Siraya Blu and is seen below having been roughly removed from its supports. I've added a hand wound spring to the bogie which, as the model presently has no additional weight, is pushing the body up a little. I've got a small clearance issue over the front driving wheel but I feel confident that this will disappear once I've cleaned up all the supported faces properly.

Hi Gary, I've not heard any good comments about the S. Go for the standard Photon instead.

Thanks Tom, I can't wait to get it printed either. The chassis is a bit of an experiment in more ways than one - I'm testing an idea on how to make it a 'split frame' system without the 'split'. More details on how I'm going to try and do this as and when I can test the idea.

Hello Al, I source mine from N Brass. They're turned brass but I know some 2mm modellers prefer the etched ones from the Association. N Brass's webpage is here: https://www.nbrasslocos.co.uk/nhome.html

The current progress on my N gauge D2 CAD to compare to Graham's excellent build. Hopefully the 0.5mm shortening of the coupled wheelbase isn't noticeable - it was that or stretching the body...

My next printing project will be this D2. The loco is unpowered and will eventually be paired with a GN tender containing the drive. The driving wheels are from a Farish A1 while the bogie wheels are the largest ones from the same source. The chassis, keep plate and bogie will be 3D printing in Siraya Blu and fitted with bearings. Some experience shows that Siraya Blu is much stronger than any other resin I've used and will withstand being tapped.

No such thing here. The more the merrier!

Interesting to see Tony's and Graham's lovely D2 builds. I've been working on one of these myself as one of my 'lockdown projects'. This one is going to be 3049, fitted with J6 chimney and dome. The body design work is just about done from a cosmetic perspective. However, working out how I'm going to power an N gauge model still requires some more consideration. I've had to juggle the coupled wheelbase at the rear by 0.5mm to allow everything to fit without resorting to stretching the body which I think won't be noticeable on the final model.

Welcome to the 'dark side', nice to see you on here.

Hi Gary, I find that the secret is to keep the wall thickness to at least 0.7mm and use chamfers to make things appear thinner at the edges. Even then you'll probably find it necessary to make some minor compromises to some dimensions, but nothing that will be noticable on the finished model. Hopefully you can see what I mean on the steps of the J6 CAD below. How the physical model looks. Hope this helps.