SimonD’s workbench

[simond]

My stock answer to my sales team (usually in response to an “ambitious” customer request) is “anything is possible if you throw enough money at it”, which whilst not pedantically true, is a safe first level approximation.

There are many types of additive manufacturing, or 3D printing, what’s available to the military and F1 budgets isn’t reflective of what can be done at a mass-market-hobby level, though the latter eventually follows the former, of course.

Those of us who grew up with Star Trek are habituated to mobile phones, our parents may have used them, but never quite in the same relaxed way as our kids do.

Wikipedia provides a useful overview of the technologies, Google “additive manufacturing” if the rabbit hole is attractive.


Micro AM and the Micro 3D Printing Process | Nano Dimension

these guys claim 1u resolution and layers from 1-5u.

it would take a while to print anything big…

 

[SimonT]

In plan, the finest definition will be the pixel size

Not for laser printers such as the Form. There the limitation is the focus of the laser and the steering of the beam.

 

[simond]

The Elegoo printers such as Giles’ Mars & my Saturn don’t use a laser, they’re an LCD screen directly below the FEP.

I guess that means it’s always ”in focus”, but there must always be some diffraction at the edge of pixels, thought whether this increases the size of the printed part or diminishes it is above my pay grade, and probably depends on the resin too. Similarly, the FEP must affect things to some extent.

Orientation will matter too.

I have not yet experimented to quantify the possibilities, but I guess a 100u embossment on a thicker panel will be visible, certainly dome head rivets of around 200u are, though whether they’re a bit undernourished is a question I’ve not answered yet. 300u (ie 0.3mm diameter) and up are very clear.

I guess as the FEP gets older, it’ll get less clear, and that will affect things too.

 

[michael080]

Not for laser printers such as the Form. There the limitation is the focus of the laser and the steering of the beam.

Correct! A Laser beam is normally slightly divergent, but it can be focussed to a point. The diameter of that point depends mainly on the focus length of the focussing lens. The diameter can be calculated using the Rayleigh range equations. It can be typically 10µm.

3D-Printers may have a better mechanical resolution, but the size of the smallest possible blob of material is not related to the mechanical resolution, only to the diameter of the Laser spot.

 

[simond]

Weekend weather has been fairly ghastly, so I’ve spent a bit of time playing with paintbrushes



Minerva vans, weathering is all acrylics, mostly washes, though I painted a very pale grey over the cement van, let it dry for a while and then wiped it off with cotton buds and Vallejo airbrush thinner. All the advice one gets regarding weathering is “find a photo of the real thing and copy it” but they’re few and far between. I have found a few on line, and in my books, but they're not plentiful. I’ve tried to infer from b/w pictures what the colouring should be. Well, I think they look a deal better than the pristine originals, and I think a matt black wash on the undergear will improve them a bit further.

Suggestions & comments welcome!

and a bit of 3DP, as you might expect. Quite pleased with these, the wheelbarrows in particular. I need to work on my “unpainted wood” for the platform barrow.



A wee while back, @LarryG changed scales, and I was able to purchase some of his 7mm buildings. Unfortunately, his paint schemes were BR(W) and I want early 30’s GWR, so some repainting was required. This required a steady hand, and though I’m not unhappy with the results, it might require a further touch in a couple of places. There are two more buildings to do…. It obviously doesn’t belong on a loco shed, but fits between the tracks, so it has a temporary home.



And on the building front, the goods shed has made some progress too - bargeboards done and fitted. The doors are now all painted and ready to fit, as are the windowsill (sill, or cill?) overlays. Sorry about the dark photo, it lives on top of a cupboard, and it’s not a well lit spot.



I want to 3D print the guttering, still struggling to find a decent photo of the appropriate gutter form, as it’s as easy to print the right thing as an interpretation. Hopefully I’ll strike lucky.

g’night
Simon

 

[Osgood]

FWIW, here are two pages of gutter styles from a late 1800s catalogue of the architectural products available from Walter MacFarlane's Saracen Foundry in Glasgow.
These are just two of the fifty five - yes, fifty five - similarly populated pages of gutter styles



For anyone interested in architectural cast iron stuff of this period, this two-volume catalogue reprint available from Historic Scotland must surely be the book bargain of the century - from a time when it was a job to separate engineering from art:

Saracen Foundry

This publication is intended to act as a technical reference for those involved in the conservation of existing ironwork, or assisting in the design of replacement items. View or buy now.

stor.scot

 

[Tony Overton]

Can I ask, does the catalogue include railway station platform glazed canopies?

 

[simond]

FWIW, here are two pages of gutter styles from an early 1900s catalogue of the architectural products available from Walter MacFarlane's Saracen Foundry in Glasgow.
These are just two of the fifty five - yes, fifty five - similarly populated pages of gutter styles

View attachment 177596

For anyone interested in architectural cast iron stuff of this period, this two-volume catalogue reprint available from Historic Scotland must surely be the book bargain of the century - from a time when it was a job to separate engineering from art:

Saracen Foundry

This publication is intended to act as a technical reference for those involved in the conservation of existing ironwork, or assisting in the design of replacement items. View or buy now.

stor.scot

Thanks Tony,

55 pages of options…

that’s made it easier

 

[Osgood]

Can I ask, does the catalogue include railway station platform glazed canopies?

Tony, it certainly includes the components for such structures (columns, spandrels, glazing bars), although much of it is far more ornamental than would typically be found in a station environment.
For example almost 400 designs of 90 degree single spandrels between 2'6 and 7' are illustrated (I lost the will to count the column designs ).
This page is the only one offering examples in a railway station setting:


I'm sure they would have supplied standard products to some railways, also products to other railway companies with the customer's initials although these would not be shown in a general trade catalogue - even the big companies must have sourced such items from companies like MacFarlane before they had built their own foundries.

I have a 'standard style for the late 1800s' platform spandrel from Melton Constable station with interwoven initials CNR, but the Central Norfolk Railway never existed other than on paper - however the promoters were so confident they actually ordered the architectural cast iron components for their planned main station before having formalised the company, the failed scheme later being taken over by the Lynn & Fakenham Rly (which joined with others to become the Eastern & Midlands Rly, later taken over by the M&GN).

 

[Osgood]

Trying to think what I might have to trade for 3 of those awesome wheelbarrows.....

 

[Tony Overton]

At £6 (£10.99p with P & P) the catalogue is a bargain and a must have for me, I've just sent for a copy. Thanks for bringing it to my attention.

 

[simond]

I did the same!

I also discovered who the architect was for the conversion of Tetbury goods shed to the Arts centre, and dropped them a note, in return for which I received a host of photos, which will undoubtedly help my model. Unfortunately too late for some things, annoyingly the barge boards fitted only yesterday for example, but will surely help for the rainwater goods and other details, so a definite shout out to Jonathan at Blake Architects

https://www.blakearchitects.co.uk/story/22

Sometimes you only have to ask!

cheers
Simon

 

[simond]

Books arrived. For six quid, I was expecting a couple of brochures, not a pair of door stops!



remarkable!

it’s a shame one can’t convert the drawings to 3D models in an instant…

 

[Tony Overton]

Mine came today too. Like wise I was surprised by their size and weight. The Postman was very pleased to hand them over, his words were 'I'm glad you're at home'. Bargains are few and far between these days, but they certainly are that.

 

[JimG]

Mine came as well. I wonder if there was a noticeable bump in their turnover in the past few days.

Looking through the catalogue, you wonder where they stored all the patterns for their range. I assume they cast on order.

Jim.

 

[simond]

I had exactly the same question in my mind, in my brief initial glance, I noted that they had a site of several acres, but they must have had a substantial warehouse of patterns.

 

[Tony Overton]

A surviving example of what MacFarlane's could produce can be found at Skipton today. MacFarlane's tendered for, and won the contract against five other contenders, for the glazed platform canopies for the then new Skipton station in September 1875. Their tender amounted to £11,174 6s 11d.

They may have supplied canopies for other Midland Railway stations, my research continues.

 

[simond]

Well, the combination of massive catalogue, and photos from the architect gave me confidence to proceed, but I’m afraid the modelling is more interpretive than I intended.

Still, 3DP is just brilliant at things like this. Cruel closeups…

Window cleaner’s been fired…



not fixed yet, need to touch up paint first.

 

[simond]

I said “it’ll only take an hour to put these last few transfers on”. WRONG. But they are on, and a shelf queen looks a little more like it should. Needs number plates on the solebars, and label clips, and a big of weathering.

note to self. Acrylic paints are ok, but not with methfix transfers. Especially not with old methfix transfers that don’t want to stick…



other things you don’t want to do. Leave your modelling bench to serve lunch, and come back to find that you knocked over an open bottle of cyano. . The upside, if there is one, is that it’s an old cutting mat and not much else that’s gone in the bin.

Gutters assembled for the weighbridge office - needs some more paint, and a slightly shorter duplicate for the goods shed office. In this state it’s a bit fragile, but hopefully I’ll be able to install without disaster striking again.



The slates on the goods shed office had been troubling me. They were not correctly aligned with the sides. Not troubling me any more.



Right, that’s it, had enough for today!

 

[simond]

A bit of more traditional modelling this evening, lasers being old hat, an’ all.


My laser is playing the goat, so a work colleague kindly cut these from my drawing. Not sure why but when he imported my Turbo-Cad produced DXF artwork, it came out at over 7 metres long. I had happily included an outline A4 on the drawing so he was able to cut everything for me.

So I’ve been busy with the dark & light stone. These are destined to replace the chocolate & cream doors on the station buildings I bought from @LarryG last time…. I had tried repainting the ones which were installed but my hand was not sufficiently steady to get a sharp demarcation around the panels, and I figured ”if in doubt, whip ’em out”. I’ll have to do the white window frames though…

I’ll get my laser sorted when the weather warms up a bit.



Seems to fit ok

And I redid the slates on the Goods Shed office, and decided I didn’t like the gutters, so took the scalpel to it and had another go. Needs some paint to hide the cut edges, I’ll print new gutters over the weekend, and see how it looks.



looks a bit tatty at the moment but fingers crossed, it’ll clean up.