3 foot 6 models review

Back in November last year 3 foot 6 models was created to break the Shapeways monopoly on 3D printing of NZ120 models. I've managed to hold off doing any shopping for quite a while now. However in May the English Electric Dm/D EMU set came onto the list. Now off and on for years I've looked at these models on Shapeways but the price has keep my credit card in my wallet. With the cost dropping to $80 for a 2 car set (or $100 for the 3 car set) I clicked on the button. While waiting for my turn in the print cue, the devilishly cunning Mr Holden listed the Ew on a list of test prints. Hoping to bump it to the top I offered to take to first test print. Click. I'm still wondering why I'm doing this as Paekakariki isn't moving off the back wall of the garage any time soon. Anyhoo...

Tonight the box was waiting for me. 

Maths is not his strong suit....

First impressions are good. The general dimensions are about right. The corners could be a bit more rounded, but thats more a function of the CAD programs limits. A little bit of work with a file and sandpaper with reference to photos of the real thing solves this.

The one comment is that (I think, looking at photos) the roof ventilators are the wrong shape, and should be square (in the early 1970's anyway).  Theres also a couple of very small spots on one model that need filling and a couple of gaps in the cowcatchers that will need filling. I'm also a bit stumped on how to glaze the windows (oh and if anyone has pictures of the area round the pantograph I'd be keen)

So, a solid 4 out of 5 and I'm planning to buy a second 3 car set at some point.

Second up is the Ew. Its a test print and the details on the sides seem a bit soft and could stand out a bit more. However looking at the CAD picture on Shapeways its in the CAD file. Again the dimensions seem to be about right. A 3 out of 5 at the moment but I've sent comments back to Lewis and the production models should be of a higher standard.

The printing lines in the photo don't show up at all in real life.

 Lewis was also able to send me a couple of pictures taken during the process.

Fresh off the press

Taking a spin on the UV curing turntable.

Finally, the bogies. These are simply detailed, with plenty of space to add the extra fiddly bits if you want. There are brake shoes added as well which fit 7mm wheels. The axle centers are 19mm, so 1mm short of the 20mm/8' of the real thing. The bogies are also printed just a wee bit wide so the Parkside-Dundas wheelsets are on the verge of dropping out of the pinpoints. If I cut a slice out of the ends and re-glue them together it should work out OK.

So overall I'm quite happy with these models. The D/Dm set particularly provide a good starting point for the more experienced modeler to go to town, but a also a "good enough" model for a keen beginner.

Ew time

Well, about time I got back to this. I have been looking at this sorry pile of bits for a while now, but trying to sort out just how I was going to put it all together was a bit of a struggle.

When I last thought about this, the plan was to use the 2 end frames as the gear towers, and attach them to some sort of frame. Just what sort was evading my brain cell as it wandered round its vast prison.

A couple of nights ago while burning my fingers (well, making track, but they tend to go hand in hand) I suddenly thought that I could build a frame out of plasticard. So, a few measurements and out with the knife.
I cut the plastic to size, then made a cutout for the bogie to fit through, with the plan of attaching the gear tower to the plastic somehow.


I had to trim down the bogie sideframes to get everything to fit, and then cut out a bit more to clear the pickups . Still, it wasn't doing it for me.

Then , I remembered that back in the dark ages when I had been looking at drive systems all the drawings had been with an overhead frame. Duhhhh said my brain cell.
This seemed like a far easier set up. First up I checked to see if I could solder onto the split frame. With Phosphoric acid as the flux the answer is yes, but man does the frame metal get hot fast, and stay hot for a while. A quick search of the bits box revealed that I didn't have any brass bar, so I soldered 2 bits of 1.5mm square brass together and then cut them to length. I then set them up in a couple of clamps in the correct orientation, and then applied heat. To my pleasant surprise it all worked. Putting everything back together I got something looking like this.


How will it all hold together? Well, I'll just ask Mr Woods nicely for some bits of thick PCB board (A long 15mm wide strip will do nicely please; the check is in the mail), and use this as the spacers between the 2 brass bars. All the pivots will be on this, and the motor will sit on the center bogie, as I had originally planned. This project now looks more promising, and will definitely go back onto the front burner (or into the pile of projects that can be looked at).

The cutoff disk goes round and round...

Finally after a couple of aborted attempts I've got the various shafting sorted for the Ew. This involved a trip to another modeler as I was not going to risk the Spanish buzz saw anywhere near a cutting disk after its previous exploits (maybe I could start using it as a hammer?). I had pre-sealed the motor casing with selotape to stop it collection anything on the magnets. The shafting was set up in a vice to hold it steady. I then set the Dremel TM on a high speed screech. 'Right, before cutting, make sure that I'm not directly in line with the cut. starting to cut, sparks flying, Hmmmm ear is getting pinged by hot burning bits, maybe I'll shift over a little more'. Man does cutting steel generate some heat. I also discovered that you can use the cutoff disks as a sort-of file to remove small bits off the ends.
And the final result?


A small step further on in the process.
Unfortunately I managed to snap one of the male joints on my universals so I'll have to buy another packet of them, keeping Mr Knight in coffee for another day...

Back on track

Well, the bits from Steve turned up today, and it was time to see if having the right bits improved things

'tick'

Well, that looks a lot better. It all fits in, and wiggles in the right places. And to confirm a long suspected belief, Atlas and kato bits do seem to be interchangable. The Atlas worm gears and bearings fit right in to the Kato chassis slots.
(Oh, and to the inevitable question; no, its still to long).

Ok, now the icky bit. The squemish can again look away as we set the fretsaw on 'mutilate'. Weeeeeee...


The next issues to be addressed will be building the subframe, and getting the drive shafts cut to the right length. Hopefully this will be done somewhere where there is not a homicidal spanish minidrill involved.

In retrospect, an Atlas slow speed motor with flywheels might have been a better choice in this application, but the Mashima can motor should have far more grunt

A package on the doorstep

Oh good its finally arrived. A quick check and everything seems to be there. good. the frames out first and hold the bogies up to them. Hmm, doesn't quite seem to fit. Thats odd, maybe its a newer model. The replacement gear tower has the wrong wheelbase. Maybe they have screwed up the order? Never mind, I'll just order the right bits. Onto the Atlas website. Find the exploded diagram. hmm, the top of the bogies doesn't seem right. Back to the loco list. Maybe I was after RSD-4 bits. No, they don't look right either. hang on, from the bowels of my memory I recall it was an RSC-2 or something. Hmm. not on the loco list anywhere. I wonder....

"tap tap tap"
Hmm, its made by Kato.....

Bugger.
And there don't have the spares that I want....

Bugger.
Maybe its back to plan A then. At least I've got all the worm drives.

(This brought to you by Mr Cockup, demonstrating that no matter how many letters you assemble behind your name, you can still completely bollox things up)

Doh!

I spent a bit of time at the workbench Friday morning, building a gear tower for my Ew project. I had the worm drive left over from the first attempt at this project (the bogies of which wound up under the twinset railcar) along with the associated bearing blocks. My plan was to build a brass box to sit on top of the bogie holding the worm drive in the correct orientation and also provide a mounting point for the top of the bogie to the frame. the first job was to add guides to a piece of sheet brass that would hold the worm drive in place horizontally). This was a couple of bits of brass square tube soldered into the correct place on the brass sheet.


I then cut the brass sheet in 1/2 (as there needs to be 2 sides) and found that the locating bars were too deep for the sides of the tower to sit on the bogie as i had intended. No matter I thought, I'll just file them down.

Well, it was sort of working, but I suddenly realised something else. I had been aware that I would have to cut some parts away from the brass strip in order to clear some parts of the bogie mounting that I couldn't remove (something about holding the drive train on or some such rubbish). This suddenly become a lot of work,and my brain desperately tried to find a simpler way around this so it could go back to a nap. The solution was very simple. Why not use the designed mountings which would set up the worm drives correctly (remember that I orginally purchased the bogies from Atlas as spares).

'SD-9 mech to show what I mean'

10 minutes on the Atlas website, and I had all the bits I needed ordered and on the way. I'm now wondering why the hell I didn't think of this before. Its so sodding obvious. All I will have to do is cut the frames up and set up the new universal drives in the right locations.

Back on the work bench

At the weekend I had a sudden urge to butcher something, and so I grabbed the first thing that came to hand that required butchering; The Ew bogies. As I had done with the Twinset railcar bogies, these were cut back so that I could add the detail to them. Again, due to the general design its possible for one to remove almost all the plastic while the brass pickups hold the wheels together.
I'm currently in the early stages of working on the gear towers for the end bogies, which have so far involved soldering bits of brass together. I'll have to wait till later in the week to do the cutting and filing bits.

Ew project pt IV

After my rash purchases last weekend and subsequent diet of toast for the week, I started doing some work with them last night. I've now decided on mounting the motor centrally, and driving the 2 outer bogies.


The center bogie will hold the motor mount and also pickup power (one can never have enough pickups, which the S scale guys don't quite seen to understand yet). This is a check to see that the drive shaft offsets are not too extreme when running round a curve (I think about 600mm radius, the template just below it is 1750mm and its quite a bit tighter. There is also enough space to add some flywheels at each end of the motor.
(I spent 10 minutes hunting through boxes tonight for the 2nd worm drive I had purchased for the first iteration of this project. The penny finally dropped and I remembered that it was in the twinset railcar. Bugger)

Ruminating

Further to yesterdays post, heres some of the ideas I've been kicking around some ideas for powering the Ew, operating within the constraints I have using the Kato bogies. The main one is not being able to use a low chassis so I'm restricted to using an overhead frame similar to the one I used for the railcar.


The first plan involves having 2 separately powered bogies. This is reasonably fool proof and simple, but not overly elegant. I'm also wondering if i can hang enough weight in the right places to get the tractive effort up.

The second plan is a bit more mechanically involved but does drive on all axles. Again I would use 2 motors preferably, or one with a large flywheel in the second gap.

The third scheme was suggested by Lalover yesterday. the central motor drives the 2 outside bogies. I'm not overly keen about this one, possibly because of the long drive shafts which just scream vibration at me when I look at them. the universal joints will have to be very well made as well.
(sorry about the picture. I tried to draw it on a computer. I'm just far better with a pencil and some paper when it comes to sketching these things).

Saturday again

Looks like its going to be a quiet weekend modeling wise here at Chateau dandruff. the warmer weather seems to mean there is more stuff for me to do away from the bench.

So, thinking time this weekend will involve how to best motorise the Ew. I'm considering either all wheel drive (could be a tricky driveshaft set up beyond my my engineering skills) or just powering the 2 outer bogies and have 2 motors (which could limit the minimum radius it will run on, but will be far easier).

UPDATE: Having been round the shops in town, I spotted in the local book store a book comprising pictures taken by Whites Aviation in the 50's and 60's. these aerial shots are very handy modeling tools to see station building layouts, and how the railway relates to the rest of the landscape. From my fast flick through there seems to be some thought provoking shots for model design. Its $60 and I'm awfully tempted to buy a copy, even possibly more than getting a copy of Derek Cross' book from last year.

New project; Ew

Yes, its time to start a new project as the pile of 1/2 finished stuff is declining. (who am I trying to kid; its just getting bigger).
Today the bogies for my Ew turned up. these are the Kato RSC-2 bogies, which have 3 axles. However the wheelbase of the 2 outer wheelsets is 20mm, or 8', which is almost spot on for the EE bogies, and close enough for me


I made the modifications as shown here subbing in larger wheels and modifying the bogies to suit.


The only problem with removing the central axle is its part of the drivetrain. To solve this I used the pinpoint axle bearing cup that was still there. The split axles were gently hammered out of the wheelsets, and then replaced in the gear muff. A tiny bit of plasticard was inserted just to make sure that the metal didn't touch in the middle. I then reassembled the bogies which now look like this.


I will be filing the detail off the bogie sideframes and then adding something a bit more prototypical. I will then have to put some thought into how the chassis is actually going to work, how many motors I'm going to use and if all the bogies will be driven.