Rob's 3D Drawing workbench

Rob Pulham

Western Thunderer
Further to my post above my last foray into 3D CAD for now is an NER no2 Axlebox

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I also discovered the render tool which makes the pictures look so much better.
 

Rob Pulham

Western Thunderer
A friend in Oz (@Kerry Viney) is building an NER Class J from a set of Medley Models/NER Days etches. They came etches only so I offered to draw up some boiler fittings for it.

I started with a dome and within 24 hours Kerry had it printed and sat on his boiler. Below is the first iteration of the dome which is fine but I wasn't keen on the transition between the dome and flare. So after drawing the chimney and safety valve bonnet I re drew it.

J Class Dome - 4ft 3in boiler.PNG

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It's a real shame that we can't just print them in shiny brass at home.

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Rob Pulham

Western Thunderer
Rob

I am amazed at what you can do with 3d printing. Incredible!

Ian

Thanks Ian,

The rendering facility does make them look rather pretty.

Fellow member Tom Burnham kindly pointed out that I had made an error on the safety valve bonnet. The top of it should be oval not round, something that I wondered but didn't know how to do and couldn't find definitive proof so I went with the easier option.

Tom kindly provided me with the info that I needed to get it right so here it is.

Safety Valve Bonnet 1.png Safety Valve Bonnet 2.png

Safety Valve Bonnet 3.png Safety Valve Bonnet 4.png

Safety Valve Bonnet 5.png Safety Valve Bonnet.png

I was so pleased with how it turned out that I got a bit carried away with the render function...
 

Rob Pulham

Western Thunderer
Did anyone spot the not so deliberate mistake?

Tom gently pointed out that I had the orientation of the top out. It should run in line with the boiler DOH!

Safety Valve Bonnet MarkII.png

Safety Valve Bonnet MarkII - 4.png

Safety Valve Bonnet MarkII - 3.png

As ever with these things fixing the mistake taught me a few things which has improved this version over yesterday's effort so it wasn't a total bust.
 

Rob Pulham

Western Thunderer
Buoyed up by finally getting the safety valve bonnet correct I moved swiftly on to the chimney.
Although Tom informs me that the Class J didn't have a brass capped chimney the drawing that I worked to had it marked on so I couldn't resist depicting it in the renders

NER Class J Chimney MKII CSK Rivets.png

NER Class J Chimney MKII CSK Rivets 2.png

NER Class J Chimney MKII CSK Rivets 1.png
 

Rob Pulham

Western Thunderer
Although kind friends with printers have printed these in resin for me I really wanted to see what they would look like in brass so I asked Mike Hopkins if he would add some to his next batch going to the casters.

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Should they be of any interest to anyone, Mike had some extras cast and they are £10 per set plus £4 P&P
 

mickoo

Western Thunderer
Although kind friends with printers have printed these in resin for me I really wanted to see what they would look like in brass so I asked Mike Hopkins if he would add some to his next batch going to the casters.

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Should they be of any interest to anyone, Mike had some extras cast and they are £10 per set plus £4 P&P
They look just the ticket :thumbs:
 

Rob Pulham

Western Thunderer
fter my recent adventures with horse drawn vehicles I thought that I would have a go at drawing up a spoked wheel the lack of availability of suitable wheels has been what has held me back in the past from doing more with horse drawn vehicles which were so much a part of the railway scene in my chosen modelling era. Indeed my paternal grandfather was still delivering milk from his farm via horse and cart in the late 1950's

3ft 1in Cart GNR wheel 1.png 3ft 1in Cart GNR wheel 2.png 3ft 1in Cart GNR wheel.PNG

The basic wheel and spokes took only a short time to draw up but it then took around an hour and a half to work out how to get the camber on the spokes. I deleted the ring of spokes multiple times before I got there.
 

paratom

Western Thunderer
Rendered images always look better than the printed part so for example when you look Shapeways you can be easily fooled into thinking that your printed part will be as smooth as the image. I can get get an almost near injection moulded finish on my printer if I print at 10 microns but still requires a lot of wet and dry sanding if I am printing loco boilers. If you have a lot of money the Invisiontec printers will produce an injection moulded finish and in my opinion the best printers on the market. The orientation of the part on the print platform also has an influence on how smooth your print will be but I tend to ignore the 45% angle rule and print my items horizontally or vertically strait on the plate with no supports if I can get away with it.
 

Rob Pulham

Western Thunderer
I agree, rendered images look very bling especially in brass as I have chosen.

That said the castings while not as bright and shiny look pretty good too so I can't grumble. I certainly wouldn't have believed myself capable of creating such things and having them cast 12 months ago.
 

paratom

Western Thunderer
The castings look very nice and brass is always better than white metal in my opinion. I don’t know why it’s not used more often, probably down to the cost. Would be interested to see how the dome and chimney comes out. It would be nice to see the out of the box manufacturers use real brass on their domes instead of painted ones as painted brass never really looks as nice as the real thing or make them easily removable so they can be replaced with a turned one or cast one.
 

Rob Pulham

Western Thunderer
Those who read my ramblings may recall my mentioning and showing the build a DJH LNER A3 that I built a few years ago.

I was never really happy with the paint job and Warren Haywood offered o strip and repaint it for me.
I received it back from Warren and one of the casualties of the paint strip were the etched cinder guards from the cab side.
There used to be some really nice castings for Cinder Guards available from Hobby Horse but since Simon's retirement and the business not being sold they are no longer available.

So I decided to have a go at drawing some up. My initial design taken from an A3 GA had the hinges with the two ears either side but looking closely at cab side photos of Flying Scotsman and Green Arrow showed me that they were different on LNER locos at least so I added the two hinges at the bottom of the image.

I plan to get these cast by Mike Hopkins and Chris suggested that I also do some assembled so that I can see what works best in terms of castings - all told I need 7 or 8 sets for various loco kits that I have in my stash.
Screenshot 2021-10-18 141526.png
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I decided to do two options of the assembled item

Cinder Guard Assembled and Open.png
Option one is with the guard in it's open position at 90 degrees to the cab side
option two is with them folded back against the cab side. To achieve this I needed to make them handed. I got the idea for having them folded back from fellow member Ian Beattie, who mentioned that he always models them folded back to minimise damage and I thought it a good idea.
Cinder Guards Assembled and Folded in.png
I did screen shots for these as the renders were so bright you couldn't really see anything....

I will share photos of the castings when I get them back from Mike.
 

paratom

Western Thunderer
I’ve been trying to get to grips with Fusion 360 for about a year now, but having used TurboCAD for my 2D and 3D drawings for many years, I’m finding the learning curve extremely steep!

I’ve lost count of the number of Fusion tutorials I’ve watched via YouTube and am really impressed with the software’s capabilities and the ease with which people (who know what they’re doing!), design stuff. It looks so much easier and faster, than using TurboCAD and I really must keep practising, gain some basic competency, then apply this to my chosen projects*.

Ian MacCormac did an interesting tutorial on designing and printing a loco chimney a year or so ago, via the Gauge O Guild. This was fascinating to watch and I followed the various stages and achieved the required end result. More recently, Chris Walsh has done some tutorials (again, via the GoG), the most recent one, being the above mentioned Zoom meeting a couple of days ago. As I don’t do Zoom, I’ll watch this, when goes on general release in the next few days. (Both Ian and Chris were kind enough to answer some questions I’d sent them via PM, so huge thanks to them both).


*I do have something to show for my dabblings with Fusion so far though. For Christmas, I received an Elegoo Mars 2 Pro 3D printer and an Elegoo “Wash & Cure”. (Believe it or not, I only opened the boxes about 3 weeks ago!). Anyway, having set things up, I successfully printed the “Rook” test pieces that are pre-loaded onto the Elegoo’s flash drive….
View attachment 144946
(They were very firmly attached to the build plate and I couldn’t get them off with the supplied scraper, hence damage to the right hand one - I had to resort to whacking them with a piece of 2” x 1” timber in the end!). :))

Impressed that a), the quality was really good and b), I’d managed to get my printer working 1st time, I remembered that I’d used Fusion, to draw a water scoop deflector dome, for the tender on my MOK Ivatt 2-6-0. The lost-wax casting supplied with the kit was OK, but the pictures in the instructions, showed a flare at the base of the dome, which was absent from the casting, so I thought I’d see if I could do it as a 3D print. This was (for me), a fairly simple excercise in Fusion and this is how it turned out….
View attachment 144938

The flare is visible at the bottom, but I added some sacrificial material, to protect it from potential damage, when removing the print from the build plate. This can be seen via Fusion’s sectional analysis feature….
View attachment 144939
(Mmmm, reminds me of a Jameson’s “Raspberry Ruffle”!). :))

I was well chuffed with the end result and after cleaning, drying and removing the support structure, the sacrificial material was removed, by swirling the dome around on some abrasive paper….
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(I’m pretty sure threads are possible in Fusion 360, so I may well print another dome and incorporate a thread in the centre portion, thus enabling me to screw it to the tender from below).

Having shown this to a friend on Friday, he reckons I should print a new water filler too. As that particular casting is already Araldited on, I think I might pass on that!


Regards

Dan
I’ve been trying to get to grips with Fusion 360 for about a year now, but having used TurboCAD for my 2D and 3D drawings for many years, I’m finding the learning curve extremely steep!

I’ve lost count of the number of Fusion tutorials I’ve watched via YouTube and am really impressed with the software’s capabilities and the ease with which people (who know what they’re doing!), design stuff. It looks so much easier and faster, than using TurboCAD and I really must keep practising, gain some basic competency, then apply this to my chosen projects*.

Ian MacCormac did an interesting tutorial on designing and printing a loco chimney a year or so ago, via the Gauge O Guild. This was fascinating to watch and I followed the various stages and achieved the required end result. More recently, Chris Walsh has done some tutorials (again, via the GoG), the most recent one, being the above mentioned Zoom meeting a couple of days ago. As I don’t do Zoom, I’ll watch this, when goes on general release in the next few days. (Both Ian and Chris were kind enough to answer some questions I’d sent them via PM, so huge thanks to them both).


*I do have something to show for my dabblings with Fusion so far though. For Christmas, I received an Elegoo Mars 2 Pro 3D printer and an Elegoo “Wash & Cure”. (Believe it or not, I only opened the boxes about 3 weeks ago!). Anyway, having set things up, I successfully printed the “Rook” test pieces that are pre-loaded onto the Elegoo’s flash drive….
View attachment 144946
(They were very firmly attached to the build plate and I couldn’t get them off with the supplied scraper, hence damage to the right hand one - I had to resort to whacking them with a piece of 2” x 1” timber in the end!). :))

Impressed that a), the quality was really good and b), I’d managed to get my printer working 1st time, I remembered that I’d used Fusion, to draw a water scoop deflector dome, for the tender on my MOK Ivatt 2-6-0. The lost-wax casting supplied with the kit was OK, but the pictures in the instructions, showed a flare at the base of the dome, which was absent from the casting, so I thought I’d see if I could do it as a 3D print. This was (for me), a fairly simple excercise in Fusion and this is how it turned out….
View attachment 144938

The flare is visible at the bottom, but I added some sacrificial material, to protect it from potential damage, when removing the print from the build plate. This can be seen via Fusion’s sectional analysis feature….
View attachment 144939
(Mmmm, reminds me of a Jameson’s “Raspberry Ruffle”!). :))

I was well chuffed with the end result and after cleaning, drying and removing the support structure, the sacrificial material was removed, by swirling the dome around on some abrasive paper….
View attachment 144940

View attachment 144943

View attachment 144944

View attachment 144945
(I’m pretty sure threads are possible in Fusion 360, so I may well print another dome and incorporate a thread in the centre portion, thus enabling me to screw it to the tender from below).

Having shown this to a friend on Friday, he reckons I should print a new water filler too. As that particular casting is already Araldited on, I think I might pass on that!


Regards

Dan

I’ve been trying to get to grips with Fusion 360 for about a year now, but having used TurboCAD for my 2D and 3D drawings for many years, I’m finding the learning curve extremely steep!

I’ve lost count of the number of Fusion tutorials I’ve watched via YouTube and am really impressed with the software’s capabilities and the ease with which people (who know what they’re doing!), design stuff. It looks so much easier and faster, than using TurboCAD and I really must keep practising, gain some basic competency, then apply this to my chosen projects*.

Ian MacCormac did an interesting tutorial on designing and printing a loco chimney a year or so ago, via the Gauge O Guild. This was fascinating to watch and I followed the various stages and achieved the required end result. More recently, Chris Walsh has done some tutorials (again, via the GoG), the most recent one, being the above mentioned Zoom meeting a couple of days ago. As I don’t do Zoom, I’ll watch this, when goes on general release in the next few days. (Both Ian and Chris were kind enough to answer some questions I’d sent them via PM, so huge thanks to them both).


*I do have something to show for my dabblings with Fusion so far though. For Christmas, I received an Elegoo Mars 2 Pro 3D printer and an Elegoo “Wash & Cure”. (Believe it or not, I only opened the boxes about 3 weeks ago!). Anyway, having set things up, I successfully printed the “Rook” test pieces that are pre-loaded onto the Elegoo’s flash drive….
View attachment 144946
(They were very firmly attached to the build plate and I couldn’t get them off with the supplied scraper, hence damage to the right hand one - I had to resort to whacking them with a piece of 2” x 1” timber in the end!). :))

Impressed that a), the quality was really good and b), I’d managed to get my printer working 1st time, I remembered that I’d used Fusion, to draw a water scoop deflector dome, for the tender on my MOK Ivatt 2-6-0. The lost-wax casting supplied with the kit was OK, but the pictures in the instructions, showed a flare at the base of the dome, which was absent from the casting, so I thought I’d see if I could do it as a 3D print. This was (for me), a fairly simple excercise in Fusion and this is how it turned out….
View attachment 144938

The flare is visible at the bottom, but I added some sacrificial material, to protect it from potential damage, when removing the print from the build plate. This can be seen via Fusion’s sectional analysis feature….
View attachment 144939
(Mmmm, reminds me of a Jameson’s “Raspberry Ruffle”!). :))

I was well chuffed with the end result and after cleaning, drying and removing the support structure, the sacrificial material was removed, by swirling the dome around on some abrasive paper….
View attachment 144940

View attachment 144943

View attachment 144944

View attachment 144945
(I’m pretty sure threads are possible in Fusion 360, so I may well print another dome and incorporate a thread in the centre portion, thus enabling me to screw it to the tender from below).

Having shown this to a friend on Friday, he reckons I should print a new water filler too. As that particular casting is already Araldited on, I think I might pass on that!


Regards

Dan
The tender dome looks good but you could probably get away without using supports to print it. I try and avoid as much as possible using supports on my prints if I can. I find them a pain and they can damage the item they are attached to when removing them. With the tender dome all you need to do is say add a filleted edge at the bottom of the dome. If say you go for .5mm you design the dome to be .5mm higher than it should be. Getting the dome off the build plate will be made easier because you have a filleted edge where the bottom of the dome meets the build plate. Any damage done to the fillet won't matter because once of the build plate and cured you will sand away the fillet giving you the correct hight of the dome. For small items I use an artist palette knife, the thinnest you can get and providing you lay the knife flat on the build plate you won't scratch it.
 
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Rob Pulham

Western Thunderer
I was asked by a friend who models in 4mm scale asked me if I would draw up some injectors for GNR tank engines (J52/53) so in between working on the lathe improvements, while waiting for bits and pieces to arrive through the post I had a go.

He provided me with an annotated photo to work from which didn't have every dimension on it so while I don't think that it's 100% accurate, it's good enough for small scales.

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Of course we need a handed pair which was the last job.

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Since taking the renders above I have softened a few of the edges that I had missed.
 

Rob Pulham

Western Thunderer
Hi Rob,
What is your impression of your new lathe?
Mark
Sorry Mark, I missed this when you posted it back in January. I love it. You may have seen elsewhere that I did a few modifications to it to make it more rigid but it's does everything that I want from it now.
 

Rob Pulham

Western Thunderer
Back up the thread I did some injectors for a friend which will ultimately end up as masters for a 4mm J52 kit .

He had them printed and cast in brass by fellow member @Mike Hopkins of Scale Factor. Knowing that they were from my artwork Mike Kindly sent me some photos of the finished castings.

Injector-01.JPG

Injector-02.JPGInjector-03.JPG
I also drew up the chimney too
Mid Chimney-01.JPGMid Chimney-02.JPG

It's most satisfying to see your creation turned into a brass casting.
 
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