Three-D Modelling for Railways

 These wagons were French built and owned by Ermefer, a Swiss company. Their TOPS code was ICX-D, diagram E536. In the UK, it looks like they ran from Harwich to a bottling plant in Telford, Saccone & Speed, carrying Cinzano, but I think they originated from Sète, near Montpellier on the south coast of France, though Cinzano comes from Turin in Italy. Prototype here: https://paulbartlett.zenfolio.com/ermeferwine

This was inspired by a recent trip to Worcester, and a desire to do a half-timbered building. I decided to do a row of three buildings. On the right is the Swan, formerly the Swan with Two Nicks, which is half-timbered, but got a brick facade in the eighteenth century. It dates from ca. 1550, and has been a pub since 1764. The building in the centre is the King Charles II, and is said to be where said king hid after his defeat in the English Civil War, Worcester being the site of the final battle. Built in 1577, it became a pub later, some time after it was a hiding place for a king. Originally, it was a corner building, right up until... The building to the left was built in the 18th century as a shop with a home above. It is now two shops; most prominently  "Kents hairdressing for men", and it looks like that has been since 1934. The entrance is round the corner, and so not included on the model. On the other side is "Bleeding Canvas Tattoos", the entrance to whic

These were (and I think still are) used to fix the track, getting the ballast right, etc. There were numerous designs and my model represents one that would have been around in ca. 1980. It is not an accurate model; for one thing it had to fit the chassis I had (a Kato). These machines were not photographed much, so that makes it difficult too - but hopefully makes it hard for someone to say it is wrong! From a modelling point of view, this was interesting as I used NURBS to create hoses.

 For about ten years, from the mid-seventies to mid-eighties, ICI used these PNA wagons to transport drums from Runcorn to Willesden. They were divided into three sections, with standard 45 gallon drums in the larger end sections and larger drums on their sides in the centre. I now suspect the drums were covered in a tarpaulin, so may want to address that at some point!

There are broadly two types of curves in Blender. If you create a cylinder, sphere or circle you will get an approximate curve that is made up of numerous straight lines. I am not interested in that here. You can also do real curves, of which there are various types, and that is the subject of this post. Spline This is a generic term for a curve. Splines in design pre-date computers; they were originally strips of wood that were constrained by pegs, and naturally assuming the least strained curve. Historically, they were used to design boats and aircraft. In the context of computers, a spline is a series of joined curves. The points where they join are called knots, and the points you move to charge a individual curve are called control points. Bezier Curve A Bezier curve  is defined by a number of control points, the first and last being the start and end of the curve. If there are no further points, you have a straight line. In all the applications I have seen, the Bezier curve has t

 I need some tiny parts - cylinders 2.4 mm across, 2 mm high, with a hole in the middle. They need to be pretty accurate - bogies will rotate on them and a "top hat" pin needs to go through the hole. What is the best way to support them for printing? Small parts need a relatively large number of supports - I have already established that - but that has a necessary loos of fidelity. My first attempt had them vertical, with three medium supports directly under it. Out of eight prints, two were useable - the rest the holes did not form, and the bases were rough on all of them, though sanding did resolve that. So here are six trials. On the left, three using light supports, on the right medium supports. In the top row three supports directly under the part, in the middle row I have the supports out at the sides; this allows space for more light supports - I am pretty sure three medium is enough. On the bottom row, I have tried having the cylinder horizontal. I did three of each,