The Blog is 10

Just to show you all I'm not dead yet (thanks modern medicinal chemistry).

So the Blog is 10. I even managed to miss this. I see I've managed to make 2 posts in the last 12 months, with this being the second.in that time ive don very little NZ120 modeling, or even model railway modeling. I have slotted in a fair bit of wargaming trrain making (and gaming) along with the obligatory gardening and indoor renovations. I'm now getting to the end of these....I think.

One thing I do have to report is somewhat of a surprise.
Ocasionally I'll have a look on Trademe to see what is for sale. A few months back I came across a bit of a surprise listsing, and was surpised to purchase the model reasonably cheaply without a bidding war, though I suspect that no one else knew what they were looking at, or wanted it (probably number 2).

The first NZ120 loco I ever built. A Farish J94/08 chassis provided the basis. The plastic top wasn't heavy enough so it was also my first (and so far only) ecursion into brass scratchbuilding. The funnel and air pump were turned with a file (the only one I owned) on a hand drill. The brass was all soldered together which was an exercise in juggling new hot bits of metal into position while keeping the older bits in the right positions. It did work in the end. The way I've built it means that the top will not some off, and I think/know it's impossible to adapt to DCC.
So, its a remined of how far (or short) that my modeling skills have come since 1990, and nice to have it back in the collection

Model review.

A while ago I picked up a 3D printed railway house from Trademe. These are available in a variety of scales. Mine was printed in white strong and flexible, which I think is a nylon based plastic, and cost $35. The Shapeways shop shows a variety of other buildings available.
So, what do we get for our money?

A nice touch are the internal walls (even with a fireplace in the front room) attached to the foundation. the windows are separate pieces  and could be replaced by Trackside widows. The front porch is also a nice touch and would be hard to replicate otherwise.

Goes together square.

Theres also the back door.

So, opinion time. With the standard proviso that the standard 3D printing clean up is required, I like it. Its a sizable time saver especially if you require several identical buildings which was typical of the railway settlements seem at every sizable station. The negative is that the standard corrugated iron roof is not modeled, though I think it would have come out very poorly in the WSF plastic. I was going to try to give it a number out of 5, but failed. To my mind a better question is "would I buy another one at the same price". The answer is yes.

Sunday evening.

After a bit off woodwork I've made a start on the shipboard derricks. These are just a 6mm main mast, with 4mm booms pinned to the mast with short bits of bras rod.

Its looking a bit more boaty.
Now to answer the question in the last posts comments.
I'm not planning to have is visible from the backside as I have a plan to put the point throws in the guts of the ship and run the wire through to under the wharf.

Now, if I could just find a local supplier of 3-4 bags of Pecos track pins (they are useful for so many more things than pinning track).

Saturday morning.

The ships slow assembly process continues, but I've now got one of the sides on. Rather than use the bits in the kit, I opted for a single large sheet, which seems to have worked OK.

Its starting to look quite impressive. I would have hated to have done it in S scale....

And a view from a bit lower down.....

Man your knives

I've picked up the other 3 sheets of printing for my steamship.

No idea why it continues to load this way

I wish that the guy who drew this was a bit tighter with his placement of bits as theres a lot of wasted space which, while not important at A4, does grate a bit at A1.

so, just as a running cost for the model, so far I have $15 (or so) for the basic download, 3 80g sheets at $4.50, 2 160g sheets at $5.50 and $7 for the heavy card (glue and knife not taken into account) which give $36.50 which I think is quite cheap for a model of this size. I dread to think what it would be worth in plastic (assuming that there is a market for them).

Saturday morning

Before I head of into the great outside for my 1:1 projects, here's a progress report on the ships.
Plonking the wharf down on the work bench gives a sense of scale to the whole thing

I had worried that the new ship might be a bit big, but its actually spot on as far as things thrown together can be.
And looking along the wharf

Right, off to get the other 3 A1 sheets printed.

Wrists of steel

The first job with the kit was to glue it to some 1/16 card stock, as it was printed on the cheapest paper I could get. I took the opportunity to cut some of the pieces out and make more optimal use of the space on the card sheet. Again my other boat for scale.

 Then comes the physically hard bit. All the pieces have to be cut out accurately which was a couple of hours work made hard work by the thickness of the card. I also had to take into account that while I didn't want a full display model, I didn't want a ship at full load either. After a bit of thinking about how much I could cut out of the lower frames of the ship, I came up with a height which would allow part of the propeller out of the water.

I then put it together to check that everything fit OK.

The bends will vanish as more parts are glued together. In think picture I've added a 30cm ruler to give a better idea of just how big this model will be.