Atso

Good afternoon Tony, I was born some thirteen years too late to witness steam on the rail network and so that cannot be the reason for my interest in steam locomotives. My own interest was kindled by my parents when they gave me a battery powered train set as a christmas present when I was very young. I promptly wore it out in a matter of days and so a second set was purchased. My love of the LNER came in the late 1980's when I was lucky enough to cab Flying Scotsman as Didcot just after it had returned from Australia. I thought you may be interested in the (slow) progress being made with the J6's. A couple of very cruel closeup pictures which are several times actual size; you can just see the print lines when blown up like this. A few highlights have been picked out to better see the detail. These will be toned down once I've numbered the locos.

Good morning Tony, Please do assume that my preference would be for your B17. However, I've not got the space for a 4mm scale layout and I doubt the B17 would run well on N gauge track! For me what differentiates your B17 from the Hornby one is the character and sense of presence it has; how much of the later is because I got to handle it and well remember the weight of the thing, I don't know! While fitting handrails on Sunday and yesterday I had a DVD about the A4s on in the background. One thing that was mentioned was that there are differences between the preserved examples which represent the changing practices at the erecting shops over the course of the A4's production run. I think this would nicely sum up your B17; it's individual and will have it's own unique quirks. The Hornby ones on the other hand will be (cosmetically at least) as close to perfect as the factory can make them and somewhat sterile as a result. Yes these can be customised but things like the conduit runs will all be in the same place - part of the appeal of N gauge for me is I can leave them off entirely! Don't get me wrong, I'm happy to run my rtr LNER condition A3s, A4s, B17s and J39s alongside anything I make, it saves me time and they're pretty good models but several of them will be customised (Dapol only produces two names for 1930s LNER A3s and I've got four of these models!). My two older Farish V2s on the other hand will be facing some major upgrades sometime in the future to improve their performance and looks. (Edited to comply with Tony's request above!)

It was great seeing the full Grantham layout up and running on Saturday. Nice to see Graeme and Graham again as well as meeting Mr Wealleans for the first time. The layout is very impressive and the shear amount of stock you guys have available is mind boggling. I did enjoy seeing Graeme's K2s on show as well as the many other locomotives! * Edited to comply with Graham's earlier post.

Tony and Jonathan, I was great to meet and chat with you both on Saturday and thank you for your kind words regarding my N gauge efforts. Tony, having seen some of your locos, the B17 and H16 in particular, I think that given the choice between a Hornby B17 and yours, I know which one I would want (and it doesn't come in a red box!). I'm still coming to terms with the weight of your models as well as the shock and horror when you just plonked them into my hands - I hate to think how much each of those would be worth when your time is factored in! Jonathan, thanks for taking the time to explain some of your coach building methods; I'll be seeing what can be adapted for N gauge in the future! The J6 has progressed since Saturday, in fact it's not multiplied! Handrails have been fitted and the locos have been progressing through the paint shop today. However, I must own up to a mistake on one, I'd fitted the handrails and given the model a coat of etch primer when I noticed that it was missing the handrail knobs immediately in front of the dome on the boiler. I've corrected this on the second J6 but cannot bring myself to try and take the boiler handrails off the first - it'll remain in this state for the foreseeable future. I've now got two more J6's being printed but these will be in BR condition with a shortened chimney, different washout plugs and the piston rod cover removed. These will eventually be making their way onto other layouts... I've attached a photo of my progress and must apologies for the poor quality on my phone camera in artificial light. I'll try and get some better photos during the daytime tomorrow. The coin is a ten pence piece to give an idea of the size of these locomotives. Having looked at the picture, I think that the loco in the foreground needs another coat of matt black before I varnish it ready for transfers. Edited to include a better picture below...

And there was me thinking you'd finally gotten around to making a chassis for a K3! Lovely work Tim, I look forward to seeing it running over the weekend! Just out of question, what gear ratio have you gone for?

Happy birthday, Tony!

Thank you very much for your kind words Tony and Richard. As garethashenden says, much use was made of solder paste for this model (is this cheating?) and the combination of nickle silver along with my poor photography probably hides most of the solder! Construction wasn't without problems, if you look closely at the bottom corner closest to the camera, you can see one to the straps is missing. This wasn't fixed very well to the model and my effort to correct this resulting in it pinging off into oblivion! I'm enjoying working with metal and solder and have another two cattle wagons to build, these are of GER and LNER design. The LNER version is very much of the same design as the GNR one but the GER wagon is a moulded plastic body to be fixed to an etched chassis. My latest revision of my 3D printed J6 is going well and I'll need to start thinking about an etched chassis for this soon... Part of the appeal of N gauge to me is that their isn't a huge range of rtr that fits in with my modelling period but just enough to save some work from time to time. One area that isn't well represented in my modelling is the massive variety of coaching stock in use in the 1930s as nearly everything I own are either Dapol or Minitrix coaches. I think some GNR stock will be required to balance things out a bit and I'll probably start with some Gresley 61'ers using the Dapol coaches as a starting point (much as per your own conversions using the Hornby donors). Your Isinglass van looks wonderful, as do your locomotives poster earlier, and I look forward to seeing it painted.

Thanks for the description, Will.

Hi Tony, I hope you don't mind me hijacking your thread again but I wanted to share my latest soldering adventure. This is the 2mm Association's GNR cattle truck etched kit which was received yesterday. I spent an enjoyable couple of hours building the body yesterday (roof not attached yet) and a couple more this morning have seen the chassis built to a basic state. Soldering is something I'd never got the hang of but, thanks to those on this (and other) forums as well as your tutorial videos, I've managed to get to the point where (most of) the bits I want to solder actually remain attached to other bits! Thank you for inspiring me to have a go...

Despite being a N gauge modeller, I finally joined the 2mm Scale Association and have just received my first order of bits and pieces from the shop. I've spent a happy few hours putting this together... I doubt I'll win any prizes for my dodgy soldering but I'm quite happy with it. Ok, I'm going to continue being a heathen and fit N gauge wheels but it is a 2mm scale kit!

Hi Will that Gresley is brilliant. What have you done for the teak graining? The side picture bears an uncanny resemblance to the old Cav'n'dish sides - now under the Ultima/Etched Pixels brand as per your post.

Great choice of prototype Jason! I created a 3D printed GNR clerestory vent van in N gauge a year of so ago (I must get around to altering the CAD to produce the Fish van version!). It's currently unfinished as I'm awaiting a 9'6 chassis kit from the 2mm association. Looking forward to seeing your progress.

It does hurt like hell but it also did the job well enough and saved me having to spend a long evening sitting in A&E when I last had a misfortune with a scalpel. However, I'd like to point out that (a) I have no idea of the chemical makeup of superglue, (b) I was somewhat younger than I am now and © probably got very lucky not to poison myself and therefore would not recommend that somebody else try this.

Hi Tony, Great to hear about your student's growing confidence to tackle things like valve gear. With regards to metal printing; there are reports of people printing items such as coupling rods for locomotives as well as the possibility of the technology progress to allow metal to be printed with integral moving parts. At present this is beyond my own trust in the process (due to the apparent large inaccuracy factor that metal parts seem to have) and I personally believe that, at present at least, scavenged (from rtr), etched or scratchbuilt items are very much the only viable methods available. However, I do believe that 3D prints could be used as investment casting masters for items such as piston rods and cranks to be used alongside etched parts. With regard to artisan skills, 3D printing is already capable of printing in full colour. However, the materials capable of this that I've discovered are rather coarse and, in my opinion at least, unsuitable for our needs. This is not to say this will always be the case but personally I think I'd keep hand painting my own models. While 3D printing allows me to achieve a much more detailed model than I could build either from a (n gauge) kit or scratchbuild (after many many years of trying), I gain great satisfaction bringing the model to life, so to speak, during the various finishing and painting stages.

I find this a fascinating viewpoint but would agree that your comparison is essentially correct with one question. In what way is the machine considered to be de-skilling? The part for printing has to researched, it's three dimensional relationship with regard to any other parts has to be understood and the file needs to be created to print from. The CAD work can vary in time depending on the complexity of the part for example, my J6 probably took around 30 hours to design, not including revisions to correct errors - quite a bit of head scratching was required to figure out why a couple of the features wouldn't form properly. With regard to the design of the N1 (not my work but would love one in n gauge) the design work required to produce it would likely be a similar programme to that used to create an etched kit. In terms of the skills required to finish it, that, as with any other modelling medium, would be entirely up to the builder and the standard they are happy with. As is frequently mentioned all the printing results in build lines, isn't the ability to remove them without destroying detail you wish to keep a skill? The 'stratification' on 3D prints is something I frequently hear or read about as a negative point and a reason to steer clear of 3d printing without investigating the various options further - as I said earlier all 3D prints require work to get the best out of them; as do traditional kit forms. However those same people will happily repair castings, have to recut or replace etched parts or in some cases almost completely scratch build a new loco around the handful of usable parts in the kit. Worse (and I speak from experience here) many modellers will happily encourage you to have a go at modelling but then belittle your 3D printed efforts as unskilled or the easy/cheats way out. It actually put me off modelling of any form for quite awhile.

That's the 3D print I was referring to in my earlier post and you've made a lovely job of it. For me this represents where we are with an affordable 3D printing bureau at the moment. Obviously there is some finishing work to be done to get the best out of the print but isn't that true of a more traditional kit as well? t-b-g you raise an interesting point, personally I'd refer to my models as designed from scratch. However, I (with my father) built our current 3D printer from a kit so how does that factor into what to call the finished product? I've just taken a modified version of the J6 off the printer this morning (working out some bugs in the design to get the best print); that took almost seven hours to create. In theory I could print these two at a time but it would take me quite a while to make 1000 this way (and what would I charge for such a model?). A larger commercial machine does have a larger build area so could accommodate more models but it would probably still take around 5-7 to print an N gauge J6. For mass production (30+) I would still advocate fettling a print for use as a master for resin/white metal/investment casting as the production run would probably be quicker. With regard to which category to enter a 3D print into a competition, I would suggest that if the modeller researched and designed the model themselves as a one off it should be considered a scratchbuild as it would be unique and the modeller required quite a bit of skill and time to create the CAD model. If it was a print available for general purchase then it should be considered a kit build (or a scratch aid depending how detailed the CAD was).

Hi Tony, Thank you for your kind words. The N2, C12 and J50 were all printed using Shapeways' FUD material while the K3 was printed by iMaterialise in their Prime Grey. The J6 was printed on my B9 v1 which is the earlier version of the machine that Modelu uses to print their 2, 4 and 7mm scale figures. The B9 grows the models out of a resin bath which gives some lovely results but doesn't allow the same freedom of design as FUD does - the system used to support the model while being grown and the orientation of the print both play a big part in this. I print my models at a resolution of 50 microns which gives me a build area of c. 51mm by 38mm, however the height of the model can be much greater than this. I'm unsure how the B9 would handle a 4mm scale model as there would be a few variables to take into account at a larger size - however Shapeways do not seem to have any problems. Regarding price, in N gauge most of the bodies picture would cost c. £20 - £30 from Shapeways. However, this printing service charges by volume and therefore 4mm scale models work out somewhat model expensive. A great 4mm scale model is AJModels N1 body to fit the Hornby N2 chassis. This is currently priced at £78.12 plus P+P and can be found here http://www.shapeways.com/product/Y2JVRMASQ/ajmodels-p01-ivatt-n1-saturated-boiler-br-era?optionId=43342428 (no connection other than a great admirer of the work that went into that). Slightly off topic but I believe that OO Work used/uses 3D prints to produce some of their masters. I would suggest that unless you are willing to pay £400+ for a true top end print then some degree of finish work is required. Personally, I use a piece of old rubber (pencil eraser) wrapped in 1500 grit wet and dry - you can go down to 800 grit but coarser than this would probably cause deep scratches in the model. Also the prints are somewhat more brittle than a resin equivalent - the N2 has now has a chipped buffer and the K3 missing a safety valve (although to be fair these are 0.4mm and 0.75mm thick respectively). In future, I will use turned n gauge fittings from the likes of Markits or NBrass for strength (mix medium kit?!) although chimneys and domes seem fine and my printed versions are finer than available (that I've found) turnings and castings in this scale. To give an indication of the work required please see the picture below of my Shapeways J50 before I fettled it - it looks like a lot of work but this took about 30 minutes to smooth out (most certainly easier than Barry Ten's work having to repair those 2-4-0 castings) and the model is only c. 60mm long! I would suggest that this kind of print is no more difficult than building a kit, just a different set of skills required. One piece of advice I would give is not to use filler primer as it obscures details and makes it harder to see where you do and do not want to sand. I only use regular Halfords grey and red primer on my models. After smoothing and painting: Incidentally, the J50 is the only locomotive that isn't sitting on top of a hacked proprietary chassis. However, I cannot take credit for this as it was built by Hans Starman of Holland in exchange for my designing and fettling a master for a Thompson L1. Finally, with regard to a Gresley coach, below is a picture of the master I had printed (Shapeways again) and fettled for a resin kit a few years ago. Apologies for the lengthy post.

I find this topic fascinating and seem to remember a similar topic of discussion on here in the past. I am in awe of those who can scratch or build such exquisite models out of card, plastic and brass. I've recently decided to give Tony's have a go at it approach a try and soldered up a 2mm finescale chassis I had (part of the 2mm associations trial pack) and, although there were construction wobbles, I was quite impressed with the result. I then had a go at soldering up a Severn Models brass building kit. I'm really rather pleased with the results and owe this mainly to Tony's loco building tutorial video and the advice given both here and on other forums. Pictures of my progress below: I've also been hacking the n gauge Peco refrigerator van kit to represent various GNR and LNER prototypes - these are very much as Tony describes 'layout wagons'. I've been quite taken with 3D printing for well over ten years but it was the introduction of Shapeway's Frosted Ultra Detail that made this a viable route for me. Apologies as the pictures below have been shared before (maybe not within this thread) but I hope that these demonstrate that the method is viable with the correct machine - admittedly these have all had an element of clean up but not a huge amount. Also the models represent my standards at the time, now I would line out the buffer beams (where appropriate) as well as as add the numbers. I also purchased my own 3D printing machine a couple of years ago and found this has been a steep learning curve. I've had some very nice prints out of it as well as some disasters... Above is one of my initial test prints for a J6 (I really must get on and finish one!). Other than removing the support structure and roughly painting, the print is as it came off the machine. Yes there is evidence of stepping but it is very slight and would clean up nicely with 30 minutes work using some 1500 grit wet and dry. All the models shown above are n gauge. Personally I think that, using the right machine, 3D printing is another very useful process that is available to the modeller. However, I do believe that with every other process/method available that to get the best results it is best to use a process that best suits its strengths; for example after many attempts I've concluded that I cannot print a decent locomotive chassis. I would suggest that a good mixed medium kit of appropriate etches and castings would suggest that, for the more traditional methods at least, this is already accepted by most modellers.

Looking great Graham. However, my I ask why you've made the change from brick paper to embossed plastic on your newest buildings?

That is looking exceptionally good Tim! Please tell you that you ARE going to bring this beast to the St. Albans show.

That looks great Tim! Any chance of a pic or two of the body, pretty please?!?

Hi Ian, Those signal box plans are looking good. A quick question though; if you are going to etch the windows, why don't you etch the whole box? I built the Severn Models etched signal box kit earlier this year (no connection with the company, just a happy customer) and, having previous shied away from etched kits, found it a joy to build. Below is a picture of my completed kit with some added details, I'm sure you could do something similar with your CAD plans.

Not only that Gareth, but at least one of them was a running example. Very nice and was hauling five coaches when I saw it... However, it was eclipsed by the fully liveried valanced A4 that was trundling around a bit later!

I know, I know!!! Makes you wonder why Mr King bothers adapting all those commercial chassis when he can do things like this....

I'm sure that 1930's disciplinary measures were not pleasant... Anyway, those two locomotives are looking great already and I'm sure that they are already more than presentable enough for Grantham shed to be happy to roster them in the current condition.