Project 24 - Battledown Flyover #10 (Phase 3 commences)

The plan is to embed the bridge in landscape and join the West of England tracks to my existing Misterton layout. To achieve this I need to replace my Hewish Gates layout with the bridge layout.

Photo shows Hewish Gates after removing all above ground features. I am expecting visitors in August who will want to see trains running so, tracks stay in place for the time being. What struck me was how open it is now. Trains running around are definitely the focus of attention with nothing else to disrupt the view (BTW the dead end tracks join a lifting section).

Buildings, trees and lineside furniture were not stuck down so lifted off easily. Some fences and hedges were stuck with PVA but peeled away easily without damage.

It is my practise to lightly stick paper all over the baseboard and build the the scenery upon it. When it is time to break up the layout the scenery is easily removed by breaking the bond between paper and baseboard thus leaving behind a clean baseboard. I can't remember what I used to stick the paper down but it came off extremely easily taking the embankments and tunnel with it (I remember on Misterton I used small blobs of PVA here and there to fix the paper in place).

Ballast had been set in place with 50/50 PVA and water. Using bradawl and small chisel the ballast was loosened and hovered up into a clean bag. The bag was then emptied and ballast sieved to remove dust and large lumps with the sieved ballast ready for reuse on the new layout.

The new layout baseboards will be in three parts instead of the two here. I plan to modify the existing baseboards for sections 1 and 3 and make a new baseboard for section 2. Section 2 will contain the bridge.

The rolled up paper in the photo is the track plan for Section 2. This will be stuck to the new baseboard for track positioning.

Never an easy decision to break up a layout after spending considerable time building and admiring it. To settle my mind I broke it up in stages over several weeks for a job that could be done in a day. What also helped was the ease of disassembly that resulted in parts being undamaged and available for future use.

Here are some views of Hewish Gates before the axe fell.

Embankment

Crewkerne Tunnel

To Part 1.

A Card Kit for July

 

1950s+ Petrol Station

View the Card Kit Here

East Somerset Railway - Cranmore Station

On the face of it, a small heritage station and 3 miles of track suggests there will be little to see. On the contrary, there is plenty there to satisfy the enthusiast.

I knew that David Shepherd, the wildlife and railway artist was associated with this line because two locomotives he owned ran on it but, I did not know he had founded this heritage railway having acquired and initiated development of the site.

I met David, who graciously gave me his autograph, at a model railway exhibition in Farnborough many years ago where he was showing some of his locomotive paintings.

What came as a great surprise to me upon visiting this railway was that he was also a railway modeller and had created a 3mm scale layout, part of which is now displayed at the station.

Our ride was on the lines Class108 DMU

Ivatt Class 2 46447

A small selection of their extensive stock

Project 24 - Battledown Flyover #9 (Phase 2 and Dilemmas)

This phase was about making the brick pillars and walls for the bridge. These were constructed from 5 mm foam board with decorative paper overlays. What is missing are the wing walls. These will be constructed during phase 3 - Landscaping.

The white wall in the photo will be covered by an embankment.

Dramatic view of girders beneath the deck.
No rivets here as not normally viewed from this angle.

I have not yet found an effective way of permanently fixing the bridge deck to the walls as there is little contact between them. In fact, I am in two minds as to keeping it removable or fixed.

In the first posting of this series I pondered about integrating the bridge into my existing layout, or scrap all and create a new layout focused on the bridge, or make a static diorama of it. Somewhat late in the day I sketched plans.

Integration

Integrated Plan

My existing layout - Misterton, lies on the Waterloo to Exeter route that passes under the bridge. The Southampton lines (one of which passes over the bridge) need to join it to complete the circuit.

Points of concern.

• The bridge is much longer than I anticipated, being nearly 1 metre long, due to the skew. With 1 in 30 inclines; at least 2m at each end is required to get the track down to ground level. I fear this would encroach too much into the station layout
• The Down Southampton line curve is too tight and the line it is to join would still be on the embankment

To confirm my concerns I temporarily plonked the bridge on my Hewish Gates layout that it would replace and sure enough the inclines would encroach on Misterton Station. (Misterton is the other side of the short tunnel in the photo).

Scrap All and Create a New Layout

This creates an interesting arrangement that provides the round and round operation idea with sparse landscaping that I suggested in the first posting of this series.

The design requires crossover tracks that enables a train on the up Southampton line to cross over the bridge, run around and go under it. The down line stays at ground level. A good point is that in the vicinity of the bridge the trains always travel in the correct direction, as per prototype. Another good point is that the inclines have room to reach ground level before the crossovers.

Points of concern

• Curvature close to the bridge is not representative of the prototype
• Sparse landscaping makes for a boring model to view when trains are not running
• No storage tracks, unless run off tracks take us to an under layout storage yard
• Do I have the heart to rip up my highly detailed Misterton Station.

Diorama

Potentially a separate model, perhaps a shelf layout about 2 m x 0.5 m. This could accurately reflect the track layout of the prototype and the inclines pose no space limitation. 

Points of concern

• Operating potential extremely limited.
• I swore never to build another layout without scrapping one of the six already in the railway room, four of which cannot be operated in the room due to space constraint

Semi-Diorama

In this scenario the down Southampton line is omitted and the up line is a dead end. We have the advantage that Misterton Station is retained and we have the bridge scene with its flyover track layout and inclines being more prototypical.

Points of concern

• The two Storage tracks available at Hewish Gates are lost. Probably not critical as I also use an off layout storage cassette anyway
• Operating potential of the flyover extremely limited

This is looking like the best compromise but, I am taking a break to ponder further so, it will be a while before returning to this project.

There is an important lesson here and that is to plan the layout before making models to ensure everything will fit as you imagined.

To Part 10.

To Part 1.

Project 24 - Battledown Flyover #8 (end of phase 1)

Considering phases of this project then this is the end of phase 1 in so far as all the 3D printing is complete. Next phase is the brick pillars, which will employ a different modelling medium. The final phase will be integrating the bridge into a landscape.

The last 3D prints to make and apply were the three top spanning girders. I am glad it is over because the manufacturing process is complex, messy and time consuming but frankly, there is no better DIY way of making a model with such high level of detail comprising thousands of rivets!

Track ballast has also been applied. This is sieved pumice grit with a sprinkling of cork granules for colour variation. Ballast is fixed in the traditional way of laying it dry and then flood with a 50:50 mix of PVA glue and water with a drop of washing up liquid to ease surface tension so that it flows easily through the ballast. When dry a black wash was applied to the track bed between the rails.

The bridge looks the part when viewed from the sides (normal viewpoint) but looking end on there is some bowing of the sides. I found it difficult to keep the sides flat as the cured resin took on a life of its own. As I have mentioned before the water washable resin used is not really tough enough to hold the shape of a model this size where thin sections are present.

By the way, the loco chimney does clear the spanning girders with about 5 mm gap.

To Part 9.

To Part 1.

Project 24 - Battledown Flyover #7 (track progress)

The track needed lifting by 1 mm on the bridge deck to mirror the level of the prototype. The obvious method was to use cork sheet as this may also absorb the sound from 'toy' trains as they pass over the bridge. 1mm thick cork was duly bought off Ebay but, what arrived was 4 mm thick! 

Evidently the vendor had no stock of 1mm (despite their listing showing stock available) and thought 4 mm would do! Well, I got a refund and searched for another supplier and I also wondered if I had anything that could substitute for it.

Right in front of my eyes on my desk was a spare sheet of 1.5 mm thick corrugated cardboard. Since this had air pockets then it too might be suitable as a sound absorber. In fact, a test with and without cork or corrugated board had no effect on sound absorption (probably too thin). Anyway, the corrugated cardboard was cut to size and glued in place using Copydex latex glue.

On top of the cardboard a paper track template was glued down to guide adjustment of the double sleeper sections of the track, which was glued on top using Copydex. Copydex with a little heat allows easy removal of track for reuse in the future.

The masking tape shown in the above photo was to preserve the raw plastic surface for later gluing in place the bridge sides.

My method of painting the track was to spray a mix of burnt umber and black acrylic paint (colours that I had to hand) then wipe off the overspray from the rail top.

When dry the cosmetic fishplates were glued each side of the rail at the joins

A mix of brown, yellow and red to mimic rust was hand painted along the side of the rails and over the chairs. The fishplates being picked out in black.

To Part 8.

To Part 1.

Project 24 - Battledown Flyover #6 (track prep)

In the early 1960s the track style at Battledown Flyover was quite different to that of today. Both the Salisbury and Southampton lines used wooden sleepers but their chair style differed. (incidentally no third rail). The Southampton down line was fitted with BR1 chairs and Spikes. I guess the up line was too although I have not seen photo evidence for it. The Salisbury line was fitted with BR3 chairs comprising a lip to hold the outer edge of the running rail, with a single baseplate screw to secure the outer side of the baseplate to the sleeper.  The inside of the rail and baseplate were secured with two spikes. Track was made from 60 foot flat bottom rail joined by four bolt fishplates and there were 24 sleepers per section.

Looking around at what stock I have there is a bit of Peco code 100, that is already allocated to something else but could be reclaimed for this project. There is more Graham Farish Formoway code 100 available, though not enough to build a layout so, I'll use this and buy more from the after market if needed.

When I rebuilt Misterton in code 75 bullhead I 3D printed the sleepers and chairs using my FDM printer for greater accuracy of chair style than R.T.R. track offered at the time. I am doing the same again, this time using my Resin printer to make flat-bottom rail sleepers and chairs. For the rail I'll strip it from my GF track.

I started with the BR1 design and lost count of the number of trials to get it to fit the rail smoothly. I measured the rail foot to be 1.9 mm wide. The 'trough' for the foot was eventually set at 2.08 mm. I think the failures were due to me not leaving sufficient clearance (by the way, the Peco rail foot is 2.3mm wide so, my chairs will not fit that brand).

I also designed and printed cosmetic four bolt fishplates.

The photos do not give justice to the fine details. With a magnifying glass the bolts and wood grain are clearly seen!

To Part 7.

To Part 1.

Read about the SLA (stereolithography) resin 3D printer I use here.

Project 24 - Battledown Flyover #5 (disaster recovery)

The floor is in four parts. At the front of the photo is the East End and above it one of the centre sections.

The East End was printed first. The deck sides cracked and broke away as I removed the resin support structure and the deck surface is rippled and pitted. Both defects are not a show stopper because they are hidden when the bridge is assembled.

For printing, the part was angled 10 degrees for both X and Y. This is my usual setting. After further research I learnt that models with a large flat area are best printed at 45 degrees. This was set for the centre section and to my surprise fewer supports were created by Lychee and the deck printed without ripples. However, it still suffered from fractures of the deck sides and now the trapezoid plates as well. I could fabricate some infills so, still viable.

It was at this point I test fitted the deck to the two bridge sides and discovered to my horror that the width of the deck is too narrow compared to the prototype. It needs an extra 10mm. Well that was a show stopper. I had to rework the design to widen the deck and at the same time I doubled the thickness of the deck and trapezoid plates in the hope they would not fracture.

The East End floor was reprinted and came out much cleaner, except for some deformation of the bottom girder flanges, which can be corrected with plastic infills. The deformation is due to inadequate supports at the ends so, I added more to the East End floor and centre section designs. The reprinted centre section formed perfectly.

I am having doubts about using water washable resin due to its brittleness. Also, the usual method of leaving the dirty water in full sun for a couple of days to let the resin cure and fall out of the water is not too successful. The water tends to hold onto the resin. I believe IPA would separate itself more readily and whilst IPA can be used instead of water if I went that way I would probably move to a more pliable resin as well.

To Part 6. 

To Part 1.

Read about the SLA (stereolithography) resin 3D printer I use here.

Project 24 - Battledown Flyover #4 (full span)

Here is the full span, having joined the three parts together.

It was at this point I came across an article that cited the length as being 145 feet, not 150 feet that I had estimated. If the article is right then in 4mm scale the span is 20 mm too long! Too late now, this lot took about 39 hours to print and I am not repeating the exercise. I will plough on to print the other side, then the floor and then the three girders that go across the top.

To Part 5.

To Part 1.

Read about the SLA (stereolithography) resin 3D printer I use here.

 

Project 24 - Battledown Flyover #3 (centre span anomalies)

There is something odd about the angled struts in the centre span of the bridge seen today.

Looking left  to right:

Strut 1, whilst having cross bracing like some of the others, is unique in that its sides are not double thickness.

Strut 2 and 5 have riveted plate bracing instead of cross bracing.

Strut 3 has riveted plated bracing as 2 & 5 but it also has an angle bracket riveted to its sides that the other two do not have.

Struts 4, 6, 7 & 8 are identical all having cross bracing and double thickness sides.

I spent a long time meticulously designing the model in this respect and when done (and before printing, thankfully) I looked back over some photographs from the 1960s (my model era) and discovered two significant differences in finish and design.

1. The paint scheme was battleship grey and not the dark green of today (nice - grey stands out in the landscape making the bridge look even more impressive).
2. All the angled struts of this centre section were identical, being the same design as strut 1 above.

Had I known this before designing the centre span it would have been a much simpler task. The only saving grace is strut 1 which, was simply replicated and mirrored to replace struts 2 to 8.

I think that the struts were modified/changed to reinforce the structure. I have seen photographs of the bridge in 1967 that show scaffolding across the centre span. The struts were of the current implementation and the bridge grey. Either the scaffolding was there to paint the bridge or inspect / reengineer the struts, I guess.

With regard to the end spans the west end strut 2 has double thickness sides but, not in the 1960s. That is the only difference between the two ends. I had already printed the ends so, I had to file off the riveted plate from strut 2 to reflect the 1960s version.

Here is the printed centre span with 1960s style struts. It is a simpler design proposition requiring consistently styled struts.

I am using Anycubic water washable resin for convenience. The downside is the plastic is very brittle and easily broken/snapped. However, it breaks cleanly and takes Superglue well to make invisible repairs. Other grades of resin are available that are more pliable but they require IPA as a cleaning medium*.

* Evidently there is a tougher ABS like resin that is water washable although some reports indicate, whilst a little more pliable it also breaks easily.

To Part 4.

To Part 1.

Read about the SLA (stereolithography) resin 3D printer I use here.

.

Project 24 - Battledown Flyover #2 (design approach)

With only photographs of the bridge to hand the challenge is to accurately determine dimensions of it. First stop was the satellite image on Google maps and using the scale measure provided I estimated the length of a side to be 150 feet, that's 600 mm in 4 mm scale and since the sides are skewed the model is going to be huge. Next, I needed to work out its height and radius of the curved top.

My photo of the north side was opened in Photoshop and scaled by reference to the brick pillars and a standard brick size and as a check measured the length for comparison with the previously determined 600 mm. It was 601.5 mm - good enough. 

The arc radius was estimated by overlaying a circle and enlarging it until it mirrored the arc. This gave an arc radius of 1600 mm.

I now needed to consider how I was going to fabricate it since it is too big for my 3D printer! I found two natural break points which resulted in splitting it into three equal parts. The two ends are nearly identical in construction so, I only need to design one end and print twice per side. The center section is of a different form.

I use the FreeCad Application 'Part' tool to design models. This utilises three dimensional geometric elements (blocks, spheres, cylinders etc.) to construct a model. I soon found a limitation in trying to create a 1600 mm radius part and had to learn the 'Sketch' feature of the Application to create it in two dimensions like a normal  drawing. Then it had to be extruded using the 'Part Design' tool into a three dimensional object that I could integrate with other parts using my normal approach. Oh dear, have I lost you with this esoteric discourse. Just ignore that and lets move on.

Here is the completed end design. The strut that seems unconnected is a separate piece that is fitted when the end is glued to the centre span. What is missing is the inside face of this side. I decided to make this a separate piece (easily created by mirroring the design of this side), with a view to painting the inside faces for full paint coverage of hidden areas. However, I reasoned it would not matter. I am glad I made a separate piece though, as you will learn.

I noticed in photographs that there is a difference between the two ends in that one end has one upright with double thickness sides made from rivetted plates. To achieve this in the model it was simply a case of creating two designs of the upright swapping them around and exporting two different .stl files. A .stl file is needed by the 3D printer Lychee Slicer Application for preparing the design for print and outputting machine readable code.

And this is what the Lychee did to it. All those orange bits are supports necessary for the printing process. I used its automated facility to both orientate the part and determine where it will place supports. However, I am learning to supplement the result manually, placing supports in places where I think more are needed since relying solely on the automated facility can result in deformations in areas of the model.

The Application tells me that this part will take 6hr 43 mins and 9 seconds to print! Time to print is dictated by the overall height of the part above the print bed. Subsequently, with growing experience, I now set the orientation manually. For essentially flat parts like this I set X & Y to 10 degrees each and this gives a lower print time without degradation. I noticed that the side connected to supports does not sustain the same quality of fine relief detail as the non support side. To overcome this we should always apply supports on the side with least detail - and this is a good reason why I made the inside face a separate piece since it has the same high level of detail as the outside face.

There is a lot of waste in this process. There is probably more plastic in the throwaway supports than in the model! The quantity may have reduced if I had inclined it more but, that would take much longer to print.

Rivet counters can have a field day spotting the difference in rivet numbers between the prototype and model (right). For others, be amazed at the level of detail 3D resin printing offers.

To Part 3.

To Part 1.

Read about the SLA (stereolithography) resin 3D printer I use here.

Project 24 - Battledown Flyover #1 (preamble)

Having successfully completed my first Resin 3D print project I was considering what to create next. The thing about Resin 3D printing is its ability to produce miniscule, crisp details. This drives us to go the extra mile in model design. In particular, as far as railways are concerned - rivets. Yes, I have become a rivet counter! 

Within walking distance of my home is Battledown Flyover - The Gateway to the West. It carries the up line from Southampton whilst the Salisbury up & down lines pass underneath, at a slew.

Battledown Flyover by Sandy B, CC BY-SA 2.0,
via Wikimedia Commons

If I modelled this scene where could I put it? My railway room is overflowing with layouts. 

My Misterton model railway layout in its current form has existed since 2016, having evolved from an earlier incarnation dating from the 1980s with the station building and goods shed created in the 1970s! It is based on 1960s Crewkerne station in Somerset, England. It being a main line station with goods handling facilities. 

I realised that from an operational point of view it mainly gets used to run trains round and round for the enjoyment of grandchildren. Shunting and Goods Yard operations are as rare as hens teeth. This might be the time to replace it with the Battledown Flyover scene. It would be exciting to see a train running over the flyover whilst another passes underneath.

I am a bit hesitant abandoning a station scene but, I do have a small branch line layout that maybe could be placed somehow on the other side of the oval. I am not sure at this stage whether a new layout will come to fruition. But, a flyover model diorama is certain, if only to make use of my 3D printer and satisfy my creative soul.

I researched the web and books, gathering images of the flyover and visited it several times to photograph elements of it. When I saw the beast close up I was taken aback by its complex construction and use of riveted plate girders. So many rivets! Its construction is compounded further by the struts not all being the same design. Some have different form (why?) and width meaning each need to be tweaked or designed independently for the model. I'll answer that question in a future posting.

To Part 2.

Read about the SLA (stereolithography) resin 3D printer I use here.

Ballast Cleaning Train - Part 19 (SLA Resin 3d Print Version)

 This is the final part for this project.

Matisa 3B5 Ballast Cleaning Machine (late 50s early 60s BR era)

Aerial view of the machine and its electric generator wagon

How they were coupled for travelling.
In operation the generator was coupled to the other
end of the machine and an electrical cable connected between them.

To the beginning of this SLA Resin Printed 3D model series.

Read about the SLA (stereolithography) resin 3D printer here.

Read about the FDM 3D printed version and its train here.

Movie below features the FDM 3D printed model and its train.

Ballast Cleaning Train - Part 18 (SLA Resin 3d Print Version)

Photo shows the cabins for both wagons and two other bits for the generator wagon after a spraying with black gloss car paint.

Why black for wagons that are to be finished in 1960s departmental yellow? Black is a common base for figurine painting as it enhances shadows caused by creases in clothing when overpainted to let the black through in places. The same principal is applied here except there is so little relief in these parts that shadows are minimal. Furthermore, I found that it changed the hue of the final yellow coating requiring multiple layers to recover. I will not use black for the remaining parts of this build. However, it was useful in simulating the rubber surround of the window panes that were revealed when the masking tape was removed.

It was really difficult to emulate the yellow colour of the prototype. The Railmatch 2304 I chose was far too yellow. My first approach was to tone it down with a white wash.  This made it too pale so I followed up with a brown wash that brought it as close to prototype as I could achieve.

There are seven components that are resin printed, including the chassis with all its levers, rods, axle boxes, leaf springs etc. printed as one piece. The railings are galvanised wire, the couplings Hornby, the wheelsets proprietary, the lights are ends of a biro ink tube with polystyrene gell glue infilled and the vacumn pipes are wire with thinner wire wound around. These could have been integrated with the chassis print.

Here is a comparison between the FDM printed model (background) and resin printed model (foreground).  For the uninitiated there does not seem to be much difference. But there is!

First, we may notice the colour change. The FDM paint finish is completely wrong having a green tinge. Next is a difference in equipment. I believe the resin model is more representative of the picture in the book and an early period photo I used for reference. The equipment on the other is based on a later version that was photographed in a yard awaiting scrapping.

Other notable differences where the resin printed model wins over FDM:

• No visible print layers
• Finer details e.g. axle boxes and leaf springs fully formed - as good as injection moulded. (For the FDM model I butchered a proprietary wagon and implanted its injection moulded axle box and leaf springs to achieve detail.)
• Sharper corners and edges
• Fewer parts

All the parts for the ballast cleaning machine have been printed and painted. Assembly next, which will be featured in the next blog posting.

To Part 19.

To the beginning.

Read about the SLA (stereolithography) resin 3D printer that I used here.

Read about the FDM 3D printed model here.

Ballast Cleaning Train - Part 17 (SLA Resin 3d Print Version)

Spent some time viewing tutorials on weathering to learn a method for the two chassis.

First stage was grey primer even though one recommendation was not to bother because the plastic base will take acrylic paints and the more layers of paint that are applied the more the definition of fine details will be lost.

However, the next layer was not acrylic. It was gloss black car paint that I had to hand and this needs a primer. The finish gave the models an ex works pristine appearance.

Before applying weathering a spray of matt varnish is necessary to dull the gloss and give good adhesion for the weathering layers. The varnish I purchased was Pebeo Auxiliary Matt Varnish which, due to a mix up, was not the one I intended to buy. I intended to buy a rattle can but this one is for brush application and has a white appearance in the bottle. At first I was not at all sure if it would be suitable. Anyway I mixed 50:50 with water and sprayed a test piece. It quickly dried giving the required matt finish and also suppressed the black intensity to a dark grey which is also what I wanted.

The first weathering layer was a wet on wet application of watery mid grey paint. What this means is water is brushed over the model and then paint applied which runs into crevices for highlighting and gives a mottled effect on flat areas.

The light grey areas in the photo are where masking tape has been removed. Those areas are for gluing the superstructure in place. 

The next layer is various coloured, scraped pastel sticks (powders) brushed onto the chassis sides. This final effect was quite pleasing until I sprayed with an artists fixer compound to seal the powders. It glossed the surface and suppressed the powder colours! I remedied with more powder covering and left it like that. Not quite as good as the pre fixer coating.

The Generator Wagon has footboards painted the same colour as the superstructure. The closest match to that seen in prototype photographs that I found was Railmatch 2304 Early Warning Yellow. However, once applied it looked too bright so a wash of watered down white was brushed over. It is still not right. But, who is to say old photographs accurately portray colour anyway.

To Part 18.

To the beginning.

Read about the SLA (stereolithography) resin 3D printer here.

Read about the FDM model here.

Ballast Cleaning Train - Part 16 (SLA Resin 3d Print Version)

There is a lot that could go wrong with the design and print of this generator wagon chassis. For a start there is a lot of thin levers, rods and brackets in the underframe that may not print well. Then, there is the distance between axle boxes; did I get it right taking into account fitting of brass axle bearings and free running wheels.

Well, the print (6hrs 42 mins) was near perfect. The only damage was a few breakages as I cut away the intense support structure. (I think the Lychee auto support facility goes OTT on quantity but, it is a godsend for the novice.) Plasticard infills repaired the breakages.

One mistake was to use a hairdryer to quickly dry off the print after water washing. The heat warped the axle box tie bars badly. The print is quite pliable prior to UV curing so, I used various materials with required thicknesses to prop and force the tie bars as straight as possible before the UV curing process. The UV then hardens the plastic allowing parts to hold their shape. The tie bars were much improved although a little warping is still present that I'll have to live with. I really don't want to reprint the model.

The wheel sets fitted perfectly between the axle boxes. However, they did not turn freely. I had made a big design mistake by setting the brake shoes too close to the wheel treads and flanges. The brakes were locked on! I had to snip off the break shoes, cut the brake rods back a little and re-glue the shoes in place. Did I say I really don't want to reprint the model. (It uses a lot of resin and takes too long.)

Talk about printed detail - the individual leaves of the leaf springs are clearly visible! Each leaf must be no more than a quarter millimeter thick.

Postscript: I had a eureka moment about the warped tie bar. I glued a piece of stiff wire behind the tie bar which pulled the bar straight.

To Part 17.

To the beginning.

Read about the SLA (stereolithography) resin 3D printer here.

Read about the FDM model here.

Ballast Cleaning Train - Part 15 (SLA Resin 3d Print Version)

 Printer worked flawlessly this time.

Here are the cabins for the ballast cleaning machine and generator wagon plus two more components (print time 7hrs 42mins). Once again some fine details visible.

The cabin on the left has two hand rails replaced with copper wire because I knocked the printed ones off whilst removing supports. The auto support generator facility of the Lychee Slicer Application was a bit over ambitious there stuffing the rails with unnecessary supports that were hidden by other supports  (and on the printed model). I could not see them in the Application to manually adjust but, have since found out how and have adjusted the offending ones.

I believe there is just one more model to print and that is the generator wagon chassis.

To Part 16.

To the beginning.

Read about the SLA (stereolithography) resin 3D printer here.

Read about the FDM model here.