Mossys 3D Models

Mr Dundee seems very taken with my NER Autocar models, strange for a Highland Railway/LMS man, but I suspect its more to do with printing something on his new toy a M3 Max printer. He has come up with a number of print possibilities but seems to have finalised on roof as a single body, chassis another but printing the body is separate left and right bodies. If he’s up to printing the Chassis and Roof, I could do the 2 body prints.

I have been fiddling and experimenting with test prints, so to date.

The body test was 2 compartments, topped and tailed with the driver end and emergency stop end as in this:



Forgive the horribly coloured resin, part of a lucky dip purchase which I am trying to use up asap. The reason for choosing this configuration was so I could test that both an end seating and double seating print would slide in happily. There are guides cut into the body sides and extruded on to the sides of the seating to ensure a correct fit.





Next the bogie. I found an old bogie drawing (see posting 914 above) and reduced in from a wheel base of 8’ 6” to 8’ and did a test print, sadly I can’t find my stock of wheel sets so for now just a test of fitting the 2 sections together. Not completely happy with it, I need to figure out how to make a positive connection between the 2 halves. The 8 footboard supports the Paul was concerned about printed without problem although I beefed them up by .25mm, and manged to cut 2 off removing the support structures, once cured they feel ok.



A finally test is on the mono, it is partial tests of the body and chassis to test that if we use Paul’s prints the alignment holes to connect body and chassis together are in the right place but also to test the bogie/chassis mounting.

 

Paul.

My alternate print solution is to print the 2 halves of the chassis with the left and right compartment bodies respectively. The left Side has a tab extended from it that slots between the two chassis legs in the right side (see second screen grab). This would positively located the floors of the two bodies, leaving only the top of the sides to worry about.

Pros this positively locates the body/chassis components join between the left and right side.
Cons the chassis is black, the compartment body crimson lake makes printing mode difficult.

What do you think?

Mossy

 

Hi Andy,

What your suggesting would be possible, especially seeing as how the NER created multiple variants of the 52ft clerestory coach so they could be used elsewhere. The dgm 116 autocar was a conversion job from dgm 14 8 compartment 3rd's. They used 2 compartments to create a luggage / drivers compartment, then changed the next compartment to first class but without increasing its length to the more normal 7ft 1 1/2ins. So in realty this coach as 6 identical compartments a first and 5 thirds with a luggage/drivers compartment at one end. The model is in reality built from a hand full of bodies, a passenger compt, driver/luggage compt, 2 ends (they are different) 2 roof's and a chassis. I only needed 7 major bodies for this coach, compt's and corresponding roofs, ditto the drivers bit, two ends and a chassis. Why create multiple joins when you can get away with one, less chance of error etc. So I have a la Pauls 4 prints, two bodies, a roof and a chassis and my 3 prints, 2 body/chassis's and a roof.

Since models are normally viewed form a position above the horizontal eye line, better the roof is perfect rather than any other bits and to my thinking it's better to use the chassis to ensure the two body sections align rather than print it as a single body. I think having said it wasn't for printing, I am slowly thinking perhaps I should, hmmmmmm.

 

Paul I can do the two halves of the body on the X2 (when Anycubic send me a new light cluster) but would be grateful if you do the roof and chassis when they are finished. Actually 2 roofs please and 1 chassis. I am going to build 2 of these coaches, one using an integrated body/chassis, one with the 2 body halves and chassis separate. All of which is queued up behind the Class A loco which is also awaiting the light unit so theres no rush for the roofs/chassis.

 

Andy,

I didn't plan on printing, simply because of the roof problem. Pauls very kind offer of removing that kind of crystalised thing. I still think its a big jump but what the .... lets just go for it. As for two well I think the majority ran top and tailed to a BTP tank, although some ran as singles with a BTP, so two make more sense than one and it gives me the chance to discover if my body chassis method of joining the halves works better/worse or the same as Pauls, chassis separate method and would be instructive if any more coaching stock comes along. It also kind of commits me to building a BTP which will be fun as one article I read had this as it's opening sentence:



Basically find good photos of one of the class and build that one cos there are multiple flavours, 3 manufactures built the first batches, 12 by Neilson, 20 by Hawthorns and then 92 by Gateshead/Darlington works. All 3 were given a very free hand on fixtures and fittings, hence the comment above. The diversity mentioned above included cylinder sizes, wheel diameter, boiler pressures and many others bit.

 

First built in 1873, 124 produced in total. 23 converted to 0-6-0 (LNER J77) and 1 converted to a 2-2-4 (LNER X2), 46 BTP's survived into LNER days along with all the conversions. Withdrawl of the BTP's complete by 1929, so try figuring out the number of variations produced, definitely Heinz plus plus. If /when I get around to it it will probably be either a Gateshead or Darlo loco but it all depends on photos.

Chassis is I think done, Roof needs a final check over so I will email the STL's later this week.

 

Mr Spanner of Dundee

The NER also built 60 Class A'a between 1886-92 and 110 Class O's between 1894 and 1901, first with drawl of BTP's was in 1920, so from 1901 through to 1920 the NER had at least 294 passenger tank pretty modern engines to play with, a bit too many for a model layout!

 

Paul

Yes it's possible but imagine the bill for the slaters wheels, at a quick reckon £12,300 needed for the 129 locos. It makes your last big Slaters bill look like chicken feed and think about all the autocars/low arc carriages it would need. No thank you.

 

Having committed myself to printing and building a NER dgm 116 Autocar I have started printing all the smaller components, seating, gas cylinders, the Westinghouse bits and the queen posts / turn buckles etc. So far all the test prints have been done using standard resin (that hideous blue colour) and some bits in tough grey. All of parts for the build are being printed using Craftsman grey, what stands out is the vast improvement in the fine detail print that comes with Craftsman resin, sadly my photography skills aren't good enough to illustrate the difference, but all the parts will be printed using Craftsman. If any 3d printers on here haven't tried it I recommend getting a bottle and having a go.

This morning I emailed the chassis and roof .stls to Mr Dundee and also ordered a 500ml bottle of Craftsman of Ethief to be sent to him to cover his costs. Within a couple of hours I got an email from the supplier saying all their 500ml bottles had been damaged so they were sending a 1 lire bottle instead at no extra cost, less than an hour later a second email arrived, it's been sent here's the tracking number. Cracking customer service so a thank you to seller ideasprinting on Ebay.

 

Not quite as bad as I painted it Paul, from what I have discovered the NER converted 19 btp's to push pull with another 10 conversions by the LNER, so assuming 2 coached to each BTP, that's a fleet of 58 autocoaches plus say a couple of spares.