Diema

Ever since attending last year's Welshpool Gala and spending an inordinate amount staring at it in the loop, I have been wondering how to make a model of Diema. At the time I took a good number of photographs just in case I should ever find myself in a position to model it.

In the last Llanfair Journal there was a picture of their works train headed by Diema. The train itself consists of two modified Bowaters Pulp wagons, two RNAD box vans and a Zillertal coach (to be replaced once the Mess Coach has been rebuilt). As it happens I already had my own design for the Bowaters Pulp wagons printed. There are also two RNAD vans in the stash and I have 4 Zillertal coaches so I just need the engine. This is an ideal train for my new roundy roundy (I really must decide on a name) layout.

The biggest problem is a drawing of the engine - it doesn't exist. I asked the team at Welshpool and they don't have a copy either. They did say I could go and measure it but it's a 5 hour drive each way for me. By chance, a good friend, Steve Mann, said he was going for a day trip to Welshpool and foolishly agreed to take some key measurements which would allow me to extrapolate the rest from photos. He excelled himself and now I have most of what I need.

The power unit chosen is from Narrow Japan and came within a week of ordering it. It's a very dinky unit and they do a range of wheelbases and wheel diameters so I expect I will be back for more. I calculated the wheelbase from the centres of the bearings on the photos and the wheel diameter is a best calculation based on the rail height to the centre of the bearings. After that I chose the closest match.

Over the past few days I have designed the body in CAD and have done some basic sizing prints just to get the fundamental dimensions right.

I find myself missing two dimensions:

1. top of rail to top of footplate
2. top of rail to bottom of chassis side frame

so those are guesswork for now. It was inevitable that perspective on photos is making some of the calculations harder. The body is sitting a little low but that will be fixed in the next print. For now I will work on what looks right and measure them at the Gala later this year when I am again taking Melin Dolrhyd.

Lastly, here is the basic loco posed next to The Earl to give a sense of size. It is not a tiny diesel!

Return to Welshpool

That was an excellent weekend at the Welshpool & Llanfair Gala. The trains were good, the models were good and the company was excellent. Melin Dolrhyd provoked much discussion about the state of the mill now and how it looks a bit of a mess compared to the idyllic scene I have created. Martin Rich did an excellent job of looking after us and provisionally I have an invite to return next year.

There were some excellent other narrow gauge layouts there as well. the layout that interested me most was Martyn Harrison's "Castle Caereinion". What caught my attention the most was the hand built track using Code 40 rail from the 2mm Association. It seriously makes me think about replacing the track on Melin Dolrhyd. After all I only have a 4' 3" stretch of plain track to change...

The other item that caught me thinking about what else I need to do is that my model of Joan is undetailed and looks very poor compared to Martyn's version. I know I did mine quickly as spare stock for the layout but it is time to revisit it.

The layout on the other side of me was Peter Cullen's "Welford Coppice" - a small quarry layout that includes both OO and OO9. Very well modelled.

Mark Holland's "Spirit of Welshpool" was also in attendance supported by the Sussex Downs 009 Group. Having walked through Welshpool on Saturday morning on my way to breakfast I can attest that he has captured the essence of the railway.

Blair Hobson's "Ostrovia" was also there. This is an HOe layout which runs stock from different countries over the day.

To round off the 009 Society presence, we had Julien Webb and Steve Mann from the West Midlands Narrow Gauge Group flying the flag, modelling, talking and encouraging people to join.

There were layouts in other scales but I didn't photograph them all. Dave Gauntlet of "Banwy Models" had a small display case showing his various 3D prints whcih look superb. I already have 2 bolster wagons from him partially finished.

Outside the shed the trains were running and there were busses, classic cars and various steam vehicles. Below is a taste of some of the items of transport that were around over the Gala Weekend including "Premier" from the Sittingbourne and Kemsley Light Railway which I finally managed to see at 5pm on the Sunday!

Butterley Pulp Wagons

There are a couple of ideas running at the moment for the next layout. I'm pretty sure what will get done next so more on that when I finally make a decision. For now, it is back to the plan to produce a layout based on the Bowaters Paper Mill system.

In real life, they had hundreds of what were known as pulp wagons. These were large flat wagons with vertical ends. Two forms existed, the earlier wooden version and the later steel variant. If you want to see examples then some are preserved on the Sittingbourne and Kemsley Light Railway. There is a good Flickr group here to see their photos.

There are two kits on the market for the steel wagon ut availability is mixed and I do want quite a few. It made sense to try my hand at printing them. I've struggled with flat surfaces not being flat with the printer and it took me many attempts to make this work but eventually, I found an orientation that worked. The base and the ends are printed separately. In the picture below you can see the parts glued together and sprayed in primer. The stays between the vertical panels are 0.3mm dia brass wire.

This is definitely good enough for now so bogies need to be designed and then the whole design will probably need tweaking to make it robust and repeatable.

Corrugations

It's always dangerous to think. One morning this week I got to thinking about Bowaters and the buildings that were made with corrugated materials. The various sheds were probably corrugated iron and that led me to thinking about how to model it. I quickly knocked up a corrugated sheet in Fusion 360 and set it printing.

The outcome was much better than I expected for a first print. The dimensions are all wrong but it told me that I could print these vertically with a nominal thickness of 0.25mm.

I then had to work out what were realistic dimensions. Matt reminded me of a corrugated iron thread on ngrm and that led me to a picture of a platform store which appeared to be made of sheets of iron that were 7 feet long and 2 feet wide with 9 corrugations across the width. The person who took the picture had so helpfully placed a 6 ft rod against the structure. The rod was painted alternately red and white every foot. I really must make one of those - so helpful.

I suspect that manufactures will have had set widths but different lengths so I drew up an 8x2 sheet. I also made it slightly thinner at 0.2mm and also created a run of 10 sheets with a 1 corrugation overlap. The problem I foresaw was that the thickness of the resin would probably make the overlap too obvious. Putting the overlap in at the print stage allowed me to manage the depth at that point.

Again, not too bad. The corrugations are still visible as are the overlap lines. The thickness is an issue though. They are too flimsy. I also decided the overlap was insufficiently pronounced. It was also short. The length should have been nearer 80mm to represent 10 8x2 sheets

This is where parametric modelling comes into its own. The first attempt was a pair of parallel arcs followed by a rectangle which was then repeated in the opposite direction. When I did the second attempt I made sure that all dimensions were dependent on previous dimensions. This meant I simply changed the thickness of the material once and I changed the dimension of the rectangle once and it all changed shape automatically.

Much better, though I overcooked it in the UV chamber and it started turning brown. I can see the more pronounced overlap. 

When the time comes I should be able to print off various sections, should I want to. In the meantime I've improved my skills which is often what this hobby is all about.

Hotel Chocolat Saves The Day

I needed a break from paid work so took a week off. There wasn't a clear plan for the week except to spend time modelling and possibly going to a non-essential shop! I have a few projects on the go and really wanted to complete Triumph and make progress on the Pickering coaches.

What happened was I had some inspiration about how to do something on the 3D printer and, despite the recent problems with printing (not sticking, test file not printing, build plate shifting), I just decided to get stuck in and see where I got to.

What I ended up doing was going on journey printing windows. All the Bowaters engines had sliding windows and stable type doors. It's not clear why but there are two reasonable possibilities

1. the land is very flat and so the wind howls through
2. the paper business is very dusty so maybe there is a lot of paper dust flying around

Do a Google search for Triumph then you will see what I am talking about. These windows vary between 1, 4 and 6 panes and I've manage to find examples in green, black or plain wood (presumably paint worn away). The time in question for Triumph they were a green, 6 pane affair.

I did a crude measure of the gap on the engine where the window should go and came up with the following:

The dimensions are roughly 11mm by 9mm. The dimension of the edge probably works for a house window but those on Triumph are much slimmer. I adjusted the dimensions and came up with this variant that was worth painting just to see how it fared:

Getting better, though really I have gone too thin. The core dimension is 0.5mm and, after curing, there is enough strength for the item but I felt it needed refining and so I came up with this:

That looks right. It may not be dimensionally accurate but it looks the part and has the strength to withstand some handling. Time to add the glazing. I have been meaning to try Kristal Klear for a while so I broke it out, read the instructions and achieved this:

It really does dry clear and provide a glazed look. Put the unglazed and the glazed next to each other you see a brewing issue:

The glazing has made the window panes smaller and the frame larger. It's unclear if it is a trick of the light or a leeching of the paint but suddenly it doesn't look so fine. If you put it on the locomotive then it starts to grate for not being as fine as some of the other parts:

If that was the best I could achieve then I would live with it but I wanted to do better.

I had an idea from how doll's house windows are done, typically full sized front but recessed at the back with an insert that holds in the glazing. Doll's house windows are often 10cm in length, not 10mm so would it work?

First I had to find a suitable glazing. That non-essential shopping led us to Hotel Chocolate from which purchases had to be made and said purchases were wrapped in clear cellophane which, according to the micrometer, was 0.05mm thick. 

Back to the CAD package (Fusion 360, free for personal use). If I made the outside depth and edge 0.7mm and put a 0.4mm recess into the frame and produced an insert that was 0.3mm thick then it should just go together with a tad ofspace. Here's what it looks like on the screen.

Those parts are thin but, painted up, glazed with Hotel Chocolat Cellophane, held in with Kristal Klear you get this:

The printing layers are showing at this magnification but the bars have retained their thickness and aren't distorted.

Here is the end result stuck onto the engine with a piece of blu-tak:

It's definitely a case of using the right material for the job. With much encouragement I have been working in brass and made the fire irons on the cab roof out of 5 thou brass and some nickel silver wire (every engine at Bowaters had fire irons on the cab roof).  The oil cans on the buffer beam were another 3D print (again, all engines at Bowaters had them, sometimes just 2, sometimes as many as 5). It took me probably 7 goes to get those right but they really have handles on them and now I have got it right I can print some more.

A green, a green, my kingdom for a green

Finding the right green has been quite a saga through lockdown, requiring several deliveries, none of which were right. Of course, right is a matter of perception but I knew the look I wanted to achieve. Early in the process, Simon de Souza had suggested Humbrol grass green but I had ignored him, as you do. When he suggested it again and did a paint swatch it was, of course the green that most closely matched what I was looking for. A burst of British summer meant I could do the spraying. I elected to paint the black with a brush rather than mask it up as the black blends round the end of the tanks anyway. It would be faster this way.

Another suggestion from Simon was to not use pure black but to use a dark grey. I decided to listen this time. Not having a dark grey I took the quarter full pot of black and added a couple of dollops of white and one dollop of reddish brown - precision mixing.

Then came the lining. Suffice to say I almost threw the engine at the wall. Matt Kean produces beautifully lined models and he would have done this one for me but I wanted to learn. I have several locos tucked away and they all need similar lining so it seemed a skill I should learn.

This is all I have managed so far, one side, both water tank fronts and one cylinder. Some of the lining has had 4 or 5 attempts. It just would not lay flat. I've experimented with red and blue Micro Sol and still not got the technique right but I will get there!

It looks a little toy like without the roof (did I say I bent the one I made...) and would be much better with the correct chassis but that will have to wait until I learn how to make my own chassis. So many skills to learn...

How riveting

With several projects on the go it is inevitable that they go slowly. Lockdown hasn't changed the time available during the week for modelling but at least there are good solid modeling times at the weekend.

Here is the work of a labour of love, adding rivets. I lost track of the number of hours spent doing this and there is still the other 3/4 of the engine to do.

It's a job that can be very rewarding when they go on well but when they don't... It is also so fiddly that I lost track of which spacing of rivets to use. The difference is so small that I went "space blind" at one point and definitely used the wrong ones. Also, having started the other side tank I now realise I have missed 3 rivets off this side. I think I may have just labelled myself!

Ultimately I am still pleased with the first attempt at using these decals. I am hopeful it will add depth to the model when finished. I'm guessing another week until all the rivets are on and by then the next attempt at finding the correct green will have been delivered by the postman bearing gifts.

Triumphant Progress

In my last post I showed work on Triumph, an 0-6-2 Bagnall tank that used to be part of the Bowaters mill complex in Kent.

The body had gone together okay but, being a whitemetal kit, it was not crisp at all and the side tanks just didn't want to be parallel with each other but we got there.

The next stage was to add some detailing. There were a few obvious items that needed adding:

• There are rods that run along eh top of the water tank on each side so these were made up from a scrap of brass with a nickel silver rod.
• The safety valve casting had a gap between it and the cab front so that was slimmed down and a piece of brass glued over to represent the lever.
• There is a rod that runs from the cab to the sandboxes. This was soldered up from a piece of square nickel silver. It should lie flat on the side of the sand domes but I decided to drill out the sand domes and push the rod into them otherwise there would be no strength in the part and be at high risk of being knocked off.
• There are pipes that run from each sand dome on each side which have a very visible joint in them.
• A whistle was made up from more brass and nickel silver.
• It also got a detailed cab from bits of plastic, nickel silver and even some wood.
• A replacement roof was also formed as the whitemetal one was just too thick.

The photo below shows the finished result though it is cruel from being blown up larger than in real life.

Adding this level of detailing was a new experience for me and practically everything had several attempts before I was happy enough. Generally I chose materials that were too big and needed replacing with something thinner or finer.

It was then cleaned and primed with some etch primer but it has not gone on well. The primer was an existing can that I had used before with mixed results. This time it came out worse, patchy and thick in places. It afforded me the chance to see some of the blemishes that needed fixing but ultimately it's going to be stripped and another can used.

Once the primer is replaced, the next stage of detailing can begin. The real engine has a significant number of rivets on the tanks and once you see them you realise the model is too flat. I've never tried them before but I've been given a sheet of Archers rivets so I built a mock side tank from plasticard, The rivets are very fragile and it was suggested I put them on after priming to limit them disappearing in paint. There was then a question of whether to put them on before the black and/or green. In the end I stuck with straight after primer, then sprayed the green, then brush coated the black as below

After that it was time to consider the lining. Again, something I had not done before but I wanted to try it. I picked up some Fox Transfers in the smallest thickness they had. As warned, they were tricky to keep straight and it probably is better to go for thicker ones and thin them with an overlaid black transfer. Nevertheless I was pleased with the finish. I discovered to my cost that I had no micro sol/set in stock and it shows with the various transfer edges still being visible and not being able to bend a transfer round the larger curve. The smaller curves were bought. I counted that there are 30 small curves on this engine alone so that sheet was worth purchasing.

The result is pleasing and with practice I ought to be able to avoid some of the mis-joins that you can see close up.

Not Going Out

The world has changed and not immediately for the better. Here in the UK we are two weeks into lockdown and are trusting that the measures in place will keep the number of deaths from Covid-19 under 20,000 which is what is described as a "good" figure. The immediate impact for me is working from home and I am one of the fortunate ones who can do that and carry on getting paid. Not everyone is so fortunate. There is more time and some of that time has been spent on reorganising the "office" so I can work from home all day. The computer has gone from the den where I used to occasionally work from home and, as a result, I now have a larger workbench for my modelling. I have had a serious reorganisation of the room and this is the result.

This means I can have more projects on the go at once. Usually I try to stick to just one project at a time but with multiple projects I get the chance to move to another one when I hit a roadblock on one and need to do some thinking. Also, I have the space so why not use it. Equally all exhibitions have been cancelled so now I have no deadlines and can afford to be a little less focused.

The first project is the model of Triumph mentioned in the last blog. The body is largely complete and I have been contemplating the detailing. Today I drilled out of the windows so I can put in open ones. I should have done that before building it! More on those in another blog.

It's clear that in the future there is going to be a layout based on Bowaters so I expect a Facebook page to appear soon. Bowaters itself is not easily modelable but I will find something from it to create a layout from. I look forward to building something more industrial. In the meantime the locos can run on Melin Dolrhyd provided they can get round the curves!

The second project is the 3mm 4F kit that I bought a while ago. I used to model in 3mm but could not make a working chassis. I am going to have another go and am determined to be successful this time. I invested in a Poppy's jig and have got as far as loosely assembling the parts in the jig.

I have a couple of options for motor and gearbox. I do have an N20 motor and gearbox combination produced by a member of the 3mm Society and I have a High Level Slimliner+ on order. When that arrives I will make a decision on which to use.

The third and final project is Southwold in 3.14mm to the foot. David Eveleigh designed this stock to run on 2mmFS track and it came out to this weird scale of 3.14mm to the foot which is close enough to 3mm and so there will be a layout in 3mm that contains standard gauge and narrow gauge and it will be Southwold based - you can't hide the shape of those wagons.

David's etches contains 16 four wheeled wagon chassis, 4 six wheeled wagon chassis, 2 coaches and 3 engines plus some odds and sods - a whole layout's worth at one go! As you can, see the etch above for one of the wagons is exquisite. It is also tiny!

That's it. Everything on the workbench currently and, yes, I am procrastinating over the Welshpool & Llanfair coaches!

The first cut is the deepest

The Kenavon show has been and gone. The layout ran very well though the Earl definitely prefers travelling anti-clockwise. A couple of couplings and lead weights came off when I was packing away and I also dropped a cattle wagon which broke into 4 parts but all were fixed in a 15 minute session on Sunday.

The one obvious problem was that I had previously made some card tunnels to prevent light getting in from the sides but they have warped slightly and because I made them too small the stock was always hitting them. There is absolutely no way the coaches are going through so new ones need making before the next show.

I also need some information for visitors to read. I was asked the same questions over and over again so have ordered some acrylic stands to go on top of the layout - the advantage of a layout with a top! The bookmarks I had ordered were a great success, I gave them out to all the children and some adults as well.

The next show is Nailsea at the end of March and that is likely to be a much tougher test of the layout as it will be its first 2 day show. I possibly have enough stock but I think one more engine would get the roster up to something that can accomodate one or two failures without having to repair on the fly. I also should finish the coaches but I sense some serious procrastiantion going on there...

I've had the kit of Triumph from the Bowaters Paper Mill complex, now preserved as the Sittingbourne and Kemsley Railway, in the stash for a while along with a spare Bachmann 2-6-2 N gauge loco. The kit is meant to go on a Minitrix 2-6-2 chassis but I used the Bachmann under Joan and it is a very good runner.

As always, there is some initial work to marry up chassis to footplate and some significant cuts had to be made to open up the footplate to accomodate the block of the motor. Hopefully it will be worth it.

I was not aware of the Bowaters Mill Complex until recently and it looks a fascinating prototype, not least because they also had the engine Monarch which went to the Welshpool and Llanfair where it performed equally badly and a kit is available...