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 constructed one of my 3D printed Southwold Railway wagons

Since acquiring a 3D printer (see How I assembled my Anet A8 clone printer) and the skills to draw my own models (see How I drew a Southwold Railway wagon with TinkerCAD), I have been steadily drawing and assembling Southwold Railway wagons and coaches. I have made the .STL files for these models available on the Garden Railway Forum website for anyone who might be interested.

For my own sake, I have tried to make the assembly of the parts for the wagons fairly straightforward, but have decided to show, step-by-step, how I go about their construction to avoid any confusion.

Once all the parts have been downloaded, sliced and printed out, they will need some cleaning-up and the holes in the axle boxes might need to be opened up with a 3mm drill bit.

 I then start with the chassis. 

Firstly, I glued one of the spacers to the end of one solebar, in line with the headstock. I use the grid on a cutting mat to make sure the parts are square.

Then, a second spacer was glued to the opposite end of the solebar.

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

If you are using the 32mm spacers, at this point you need to glue the small conversion pieces behind the ends of the heastocks on the two wagon ends. 

One of the ends was then glued to the headstock on the chassis.

I then glued the other end to the other headstock on the chassis.

One of the sides was then glued between the ends, ....

...... followed by the other side.

NOTE: When using parts printed with PLA, I use thick superglue and an activator spray to speed up the setting time of the glue (a few seconds rather than a minute or more).

I then either measure the size of the floor and cut it from 2mm thick plasticard or print out the floor piece .......

..... and glue it into place.

Sometimes, I then glue another spacer across the middle or leave this until after I have fitted the wheelsets - it depends on how much the W-irons on the solebars flex.

The wheels are then fitted into their axle holes in the axle boxes.

The brake shoe and hanger was then glued to the floor so it was positioned just behind the pivot of the brake lever and in line with the adjacent wheel.

I then glued the buffers to the headstocks. I have a simple jig to ensure that they are mounted at the correct height to be in line with the buffers on the rest of my stock. You may have different mounting heights or wish to use chopper couplings.

Once the buffers were glued on the wagon was ready to roll.

Like me, you may need to add your own couplings. I have my own, what I like to think are less obtrusive version of LGB hook and loop couplings and so mount these on blocks glued beneath the wagon floor.

I am slowly drawing and printing all the styles of wagon and coaches which were found on the Southwold - including the 6-wheel coal wagons and coaches. I will eventually make these available on the Garden Railway Forum website (once I have perfected the 6-wheel pivoting chassis to my satisfaction).