Posts

Circles and arcs

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I wrote about curves previously , but if your curve is a circle - or a section of a circle, an arc, - you have other options. Cylinder The most obvious is to just use a cylinder mesh. Remember to give it enough sides that it will resemble a smooth curve when printed. As a rough guide, at least 2 sides for every millimeter in the diameter. Too many, and you are slowing the computer down unnecessarily, too few and the steps will be visible. If you want a hollow cylinder, create two, one inside the other, with the inner one a bit longer. Then on the outer one add a Boolean modifier, and apply the inner one, I like to put all the meshes that are just there for Boolean operations into their own collection. You can then hide that collection, and see the hole. If you want a section of a circle, you can just delete the vertices you do not want, and add faces as required. However, if you have a move complicated shape composed of several concentric cylinder that gets harder to do, and you are be
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Bridges of Castlefield

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Castlefield is in the west of Manchester, and is home to some great bridges. Two canals meet here, and they were here first, so we start with them. The red is the Bridgewater, the first to be built, from coalfields in Worsley. It drew its water from the Medlock, in blue, which became increasingly polluted. When the Rochdale Canal arrived, the Bridgewater could gets its water from there. This necessitated building a tunnel for the river. Some sources indicate this used a siphon to allow the water to get back up to river level, after going deep enough to get under the canals. Further upstream, I guess it has just been culverted. The railways here are more complex - hardly unique in Manchester - due to the vagaries of history. This view is annotated with the lines, based on the Railway Clearing House map of 1910. The blue is the LNWR line from Liverpool, the original Liverpool and Manchester line. The station is now the Museum of Science and Technology. The yellow is rather more recent, i
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Ribblehead

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We stopped briefly at Ribblehead on our way to Durham, so a short post! It is not the fastest route, but makes a nice change. This was the view from the car as we approached from the west (I was not driving). The dominant feature is, of course, the viaduct. There are places along the road on the other side where you can park. It was very busy - a sunny day plus two charity events. A short walk gives a great view of the viaduct. I was surprised how busy the railway was - three trains over the viaduct in the short time we were there. The viaduct was built between 1870 and 1875 as part of the Settle and Carlisle line, to give the Midland Railway its own route to Scotland, in competition with the LNWR route via Preston. This is the view the other way, and you can see all the vehicles lining the road. That is it. I said it was short.
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Hydraulic buffers

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Buffers are there to stop locos and rolling stock coming off the end of the track. Hydraulic buffers give a degree of extra protection by absorbing some of the energy of the collision. They are fairly rare, but I came across a pair on Crewe station on the bay platforms on the north side. I do not know how hydraulic buffers work, but I guess... The red cylinders are hydraulic pistons full of oil. On impact, slides into the piston, forcing the oil into the reservoir - the blue tank - via an orifice. The orifice restricts the flow, arresting the speed of the impact. How effective they are I do not know. Hard to see how a 100 te train travelling at 40 mph is going to be stopped. As far as I can tell, there is no hydraulic buffer available in N gauge. I did a single buffer, then mirrored it in ChiTuBox. If I print out more, I would do the buffers and sliders separate so they can be readily replaced if the snap.
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At Exhibitions

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Some of my designs have been getting onto exhibition layouts. This page is an on-going log of sightings. Coketown at Leigh, 15/Sep/24 The wagonloads are my design, some printed by my, some by the layout owner. Wolverhampton Low Level at North Fylde, 21/Sep/24 The finishing touches were added to this layout just the day before! The bridge is mine; painted by the layout owner. One of the trolleys is also mine, and the name plate. Divorce Lane at North Fylde, 21/Sep/24 In contrast to the last one, this layout is over twenty years old. Three of the containers are mine - the MEGC in the centre, the Guinness Tanktainer above and right of that, and the Cutty sark tanktainer that is pretty much obscured by the crane.
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The ELR Bridge over the Ribble - The Model

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The prototype is discussed elsewhere . This has been a long time in development, and bits were printed some time ago. It is now coming together! Due to limited space, there is only one pier, and the height is reduced to fit. The abutments and pier are decorative - they are not intended to take weight. Instead, tracks will be supported by two aluminium U tubes, held up be wood at each end. The deck is made up of repeating sections that look like this in Blender: Eight are joined together to form one section for printing, and four of these are required. Each section is slid over the aluminium U tubes. At each end, there is an additional unit, plus an extension to the end of the U tube - the wooden supports go under that. The pier and abutments were printed in parts - an upper section and a lower section. The steps and curve of the arch were further parts. The image shows them after painting. The pier will be stood in the river, so is longer, which is why the section slopes! And here it i
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What do you use for...?

Occasionally I get asked what I use for resin or whatever, so here I reveal all! Printer I use an Elegoo Saturn 8K. It is a decent price, and the resolution is good enough that you do not lines, even when printing curves such as on a tank wagon. That said, Elegoo do a more recent version of the Saturn, and if I was buying one now, I would use that, because of the extra convenience features. Resin I use Elegoo Standard 2.0 grey. I started with this as it is the printer manufacturer's resin, so should be tailored to the machine, and it works well, so I have stuck with it. If you buy a pack on 10 bottles it is about £16/kg. I have used about 15 kg in 18 months. Wash I use IPA. It is non-toxic, and low flammability. If you use water, you still have to dispose of the waste afterwards; you might as well do that with IPA and recycle it. I have used about 10 l in 18 months. Glue I generally use superglue to stick parts together, though if there is a large surface area I will use UHU. Paint
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