Progress Report 86

 Well, another year nearly over - and what a strange year it has been!

Quite a lot has happened this year on the railway - the most significant being the arrival of a 3D printer and the knock-on effects that has had on my model making. My printer arrived at about the same time as the Covid pandemic. I am pleased to say that not everything that came out of China this year has been bad news - for me certainly!

Since my last progress report, the most significant progress has been the production of a range of new goods rolling stock - all 3D printed. Having spent ages working on the swivelling six-wheel chassis for the Southwold Railway coach, I decided to make a good wagon to accompany it. And after making one goods wagon, why not make a second, and a third and so on. It's now my intention to draw and make every style of wagon and coach which ran on the Southwold Railway. As a long-time enthusiast of the Southwold (I am the 25th member of what was originally the Southwold Railway Society and is now the Southwold Railway Trust), I have followed and am following the the history and development of the railway with great interest. It seems fitting that, having constructed two Southwold locos, I should now construct rolling stock to accompany them.

All my drawings for the 3D printer were produced using TinkerCAD. I cannot praise this marvellous online drawing tool highly enough. Having tried alternatives, I eventually stumbled across TinkerCAD almost by accident. I took to it immediately. It is straightforward to use and has a very shallow, almost intuitive, learning curve. If you have a 3D printer and fancy making your own designs for it, I suggest you give it a try - see How I drew an open wagon in 3D with TinkerCAD.

Southwold Railway Coach

I've made some progress with the coach since my last progress report. I have now painted it and made some improvements to the 6-wheel chassis to help it negotiate the tight curves and the undulations on my railway.

It now handles most of the problematic track on my railway, but there are still some occasional derailments at two locations. I'm trying to decide whether to work further on the chassis or to try ironing out the hump and the dip in my track.

Southwold 4-plank open wagon

This was the second Southwold wagon I tackled after building the short wheelbase van (see How I drew, printed and assembled a Southold van). I made some changes to the chassis for this wagon which I hope are improvements on the van's chassis.

The

I decided to use this wagon as the basis for a blog post on developing drawing skills with TinkerCAD - see How I drew a wagon using TinkerCAD.

 

Southwold 3-plank open wagon

 This seemed the natural successor to the 4-plank wagon - and besides, I've always been fascinated by the curved ends of this type of wagon.

The chassis is almost identical to the 4-plank wagon, which made the drawing of this wagon a relatively straightforward affair.

Southwold two-plank open wagon

Of course, after the 3-plank wagon, it seemed only natural to draw and construct a 2-plank wagon. This will make a really useful addition to the stock on the Peckforton Light Railway as I've not previously had any two-plank wagons.

 

Flat wagon

I actually drew this before the open wagons, but didn't get around to printing it out. Before printing, I tweaked the design slightly. Now I've constructed it, I realise it's not quite accurate when compared with photos in various books on the Southwold. 

I will probably change the design before printing out my next version to more accurately reflect the design I've seen in the photos.

 

Long wheelbase van

Although I started drawing this van well before making any of the other wagons, I wasn't entirely happy with it. So, once I'd made the other wagons, I returned to the drawings of this wagon and made a series of amendments which resulted in the the wagon which is here presented.

 

 

I am presently working on drawings for the 6-wheel open wagons and then will explore the other variations on the basic wagon stock.

 

I might then tackle the later enclosed versions of the balcony coaches although, I must admit, I am not a fan of their design.

 

 

 Permanent Way

Well, considering the weather, there hasn't been a great deal of opportunity for running trains. Over the past week, we had snow which was initially very slushy and wet. This was followed by a hard frost which turned it into something resembling concrete. As a consequence, there has not really been much opportunity to run trains, apart from a couple of test trains to try out the various combinations of 6-wheel Cleminson chassis for the Southwold coach (see above).

A happy New Year to anyone who might take the trouble to read this update. Let us hope that 2021 is less stressful and more relaxing than 2020 - which I think will go down in history as one of out less than successful years - on all sorts of levels.....!!!

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How I assembled a 3D printed Southwold Railway LWB van

 

I acquired my first 3D printer in March (about the time Covid first struck) and since then have been busily printing out various objects which I downloaded from the internet. It didn't take long before I found the need to draw my own objects for printing. After some abortive attempts in trying to get to grips with SketchUp and FreeCAD, I found my way to the TinkerCAD website and since then have never looked back. 

I find TinkerCAD suits my way of thinking and I have found it to be a lot more intuitive than the other 3D drawing packages. It probably doesn't have as many tools and may lack the sophistication of some of its rivals, but I have found it does the job I want it to do and I now feel quite confident with drawing most things (see How I drew an open wagon with TinkerCAD).

My most recent drawings have been to produce the parts needed to construct a Southwold Railway long wheelbase open wagon. I have been steadily drawing the goods and passenger rolling stock which ran on the Southwold - this model is the seventh I have now produced.

Ultimately, my aim is to draw and construct all the railway's variations of stock. I'm currently working on a drawing of one of the Cleminson 6-wheel open wagons.

Once I had drawn all the parts in TinkerCAD, exported them as .STL files, sliced them in Cura and printed them out, I could start assembly.

I usually start by constructing the chassis.

One of the spacers was glued to one of the solebars. As you can see, I use the grid on a cutting mat to make sure everything is square. Note also, the lug on the spacer is facing outwards.

Because my layout represents a thee foot narrow narrow gauge railway, my track gauge is 45mm and hence the spacers are 60mm in length which is appropriate for the Bachmann/Lilliput 32mm diameter metal wheelsets I use. I have also produced 44mm long spacers if anyone wants run the model on 32mm track.

The second spacer was then glued inside the other end of the solebar.

The second solebar was then glued to the other ends of the two spacers

 Incidentally, I use thick superglue and an activator spray for assembling my models printed in PLA. If I printed them using ABS filament, I would use acetone.

 

 

The chassis was now more or less complete.

 Glue was smeared on to the rear of one of the end pieces, behind the headstock, and the activator spray was squirted on to one of the spacers on the chassis.

 The end was then joined to the headstock on the chassis and pressure applied for a few seconds.

This process was repeated for the other end piece.

One of the side pieces was now glued to the ends.

..... and the other side was similarly attached.

 

 

 

 At this point I inserted the wheels into their axle holes. Before the floor and centre spacer are attached, the solebars are quite flexible and easily allow the wheelsets to be inserted.

 

 

 

 The floor was now glued into place. I used 2mm plasticard, but a floor piece is included in the 'kit' if you prefer to have everything 3D printed.

 

 

 

 The brake shoe and hanger was then glued to the floor; positioned so the hanger was behind the pivot for the brake lever and the shoe was aligned with the relevant wheel.

 

Another spacer piece was now glued across the centre of the chassis.

A roof support was then glued across the centre of the wagon - on reflection I should probably have used two supports as the roof slats are quite flimsy.

The roof slats were then tidied-up .......

..... and one of the edge pieces (with the shorter lugs) was glued to one edge of the roof.

The other edge-slat was glued to the opposite side of the roof, followed by a normal slat.

The rest of the roof slats were now glued into place, alternating from one side to the other so that the final gap is roughly in the middle of the roof.

Like me, you might find that the final slat needs to be trimmed to fit into the remaining space. A sharp craft knife is sufficient to pare it down to size.

To finish off the roof, I use 0.5mm thick plasticard, cut to overlap the sides and ends of the roof.

I usually glue the roof covering in stages. I start with applying glue to about a third of the roof on one side and then glue one side of the covering to it, making sure it is square.

I then apply glue to the next third, and finally to the last third.

The wagon was then inverted and the excess roof covering trimmed off with a sharp knife blade.

Finally, I added my own design of centre buffers to match the height of those on my other wagons.

The wagon will eventually be given a couple of coats of Halford's grey primer and the solebars and metalwork picked out with black acrylic paint.

 

If you are interested in downloading and printing out my kit, then it is available on the Garden Railway Forum under 3D printing.

 

How I drew and 3D printed a Southwold Railway van

The majority of the goods rolling stock on my railway has been bashed from LGB or HLW wagons and chassis to make them look more UK-based. As a consequence, most of my wagons are only vaguely representative of stock which would have run on an English three foot narrow gauge railway.

 

Since buying a (very) cheap 3D printer (under £80 new on eBay), ...

 

  ... I have been steadily developing my skills at drawing my own designs using TinkerCAD (see How I drew and 3D printed some window frames) which covers most of the basic techniques used in TinkerCAD. After having replicated the open wagons (see How I drew and 3D printed my own design of open wagon - pending) which I had constructed from my own resin castings (see How I made my third batch of open wagons) and a luggage van similar to those on the County Donegal Railway (see How I designed and 3D printed a luggage van), I decided to try something more challenging and, more importantly, based on a real prototype.

Drawings of the rolling stock on the Southwold Railway are reproduced in most of the books about the railway. I used those in The Southwold Railway 1879-1929 by David Lee, Alan Taylor and Rob Shorland-Ball, which I photocopied and enlarged. Using a couple of the known measurements on the drawing, I was able to convert all the dimensions into 15mm/1ft scale (1:20.3).

The first job was to draw the solebars for the chassis. The main beam was just an elongated cuboid.

The brackets at each end of the main beam were a couple more cuboid with domed rivet heads strategically attached.

Once one bracket had been drawn it was duplicated and 'Mirrored'. The brackets were then moved to the ends of the solebar beam and grouped to make a single unit. I find grouping objects at regular intervals to be useful as it means the unit can be moved or even re-sized easily.

 The W-irons were a couple of cuboid grouped together, one being rotated (by around 22 degrees I seem to remember). Once one was drawn it was duplicated and then mirrored. The axle box was drawn from four shapes; a (blue) cuboid, a (green) trapezoid (on page 10 of the Shape Generators tab), a (orange) cylinder and a (red) cuboid with smoothed edges. A short 3.5mm diameter vertical hole was formed in the back of the axle box using a cylindrical 'hole' shape for the end of the 3mm axle.

The leaf springs were overlapping 'ring' shapes which were bisected (with an cuboid hole).

The brackets for the leaf spring were made from an elliptical cylinder with a couple of domed rivet heads attached.

Once all the components had been assembled, additional ironwork was drawn on the solebar beam. The solebar was then duplicated and a brake lever added to one of them. This was constructed from a long thin trapezoid, whittled away with various curved hole shapes. The brake shoe plus its actuating arm was drawn separately so it could be glued in place once the wheelsets had been added.

Two spacers were then drawn to ensure the distance between the solebars was accurate for the Lilliput/Bachmann metal wheelsets I'd be using (60mm long for 45mm gauge and 44mm long for similar 32mm gauge wheelsets).

I tackled the sides of the van next - as these are basically a series of oblong boxes joined together. A cuboid formed the side, to which a couple of beams were added, top and bottom.

The divisions between the planking were created by placing a series of thin cuboid 'holes' at regular intervals (using the Duplicate and Repeat tool) across the side and then grouping them with the side to make the indentations.

The vertical beams were then added, together with the sliding door.

The planking on the door was then inscribed as above, ......

 ..... after which, the vertical beams on the door were added.

Angled sections were created above the bottom horizontal beam using wedge shapes, ....

.... and the bevels in the upper beams were made by cutting holes with cuboids which had had their corners rounded.

Finally, the ironwork was added in the form of corner plates and runners for the sliding door, rivets and a triangular canopy over the doorway.

The end of the wagon was created in a similar way, except that the curved section for the roof was made by slicing off a chunk from a large circular disk, made from a flattened cylinder.

 

 The edges of the end were shaped to allow the sides to be slotted into them.

 

Once all the pieces had been drawn, they were exported from TinkerCAD as .STL files and then imported into Cura to be sliced. They were then loaded into the printer and printed out.

Some wedge-shaped corner pieces were also drawn and printed, together with some curved roof supports (created by copying then van end into a new design and slicing its top off ).

The ends and sides were then glued together using thick superglue from the ToolStation website. The roof supports were also glued across the middle of the wagon.

The corner pieces were then glued into a place to act as supports for the floor, which was cut from a piece of 2mm thick plasticard (I could have drawn and printed it, but feel that it's a waste of filament to print out a piece of plain plastic sheet).

One of the solebars was then glued in place, having carefully measured its position (30mm from the centre line of of the floor)

Lilliput 32mm diameter spoked metal wheelsets were slotted into the axleboxes and the other solebar glued into place.

One of the spacer pieces was then glued across the middle of the wagon.

The brake block and hanger assembly was then glued to the floor of the wagon so it aligned with the relevant wheel behind the end of the brake lever.

10mm wide planks cut from 2mm thick plasticard were then glued to the roof. NOTE: I started from the outside edges and worked my way to the middle, so that I could be sure the overlap at the edges was correct. The final plank was cut to the correct size to fill the gap.

A 0.5mm sheet of plasticard was then glued to the roof to give it a smooth finish. NOTE: I cut the sheet larger than was needed and glued it carefully into place by applying liquid poly cement, starting at one side and then gluing the sheet into place in stages. Once the solvent had set, the excess plastic was trimmed off.

3D printed centre buffers were added to the headstocks.

The wagon still needs to have a paint-job (Halfords grey primer as the livery with black acrylic for the solebars).

I addition, I will attach my wire versions of LGB style hook and loop couplings - and then the van will be ready to enter service.

I must admit, I really like the compact nature of this van. It's much smaller than the vans which already run on my railway but I anticipate making a few more of these and steadily replacing my existing stock.

As you can see from the photos, I have done very little smoothing, filling and sanding on the parts. Considering the cost of the printer, I don't think the finish is too bad. 

For those interested in short-cutting the process and making their own models, I have uploaded the all the parts to Thingiverse.

Happy printing

To be continued ........