Eastsidepilot

Western Thunderer
...........So the frames are actually 28.5 mm over etched detail, .........

Mick

Mick,
This is not too far out for S7 as it happens, especially when you take into account the type of axle bearing/hornblocks that are to be used, really depends how far they protrude through the frames.

Col.
 

mickoo

Western Thunderer
Mick,
This is not too far out for S7 as it happens, especially when you take into account the type of axle bearing/hornblocks that are to be used, really depends how far they protrude through the frames.

Col.
Col, fair point :thumbs:

Nick is getting his own authentic ones cast for this project, which should not protrude past the outside of the frames at all, so for S7 you may need to space a little with washers and put up with a slightly larger gap behind the wheels. I have to confess the A3 looks really good gap wise....but it is pushing the envelope of practicality, any wobble on the Slaters wheels really runs the risks of shorts and I'm now thinking that with all the other work that's gone into the A3, that good cast wheels should really be fitted.

Mick
 

mickoo

Western Thunderer
I like all the detail you can't see as I know they are there.

Len

As do I and a handful of others, but, I/we have to accept that's not what every one is looking for and if you took all those detailed stays out you'd cut the cost by a significant margin, not only in development and time costs but end product material costs as well.

When the original germ of an idea was hatched we kicked around the level of detail and what we all individually wanted, knowing full well it was mostly hidden from normal viewing angles and collectively decided to push it and aimed at MOK level of fidelity, whether I can achieve that will remain to be seen and we still have all the cab art work to do. Individually I then need to go on and do the tender and other LNER tenders versions I want/need.

If this all works then I will move onto the A4 frames for the three Hachette models and probably the Finney A4 I have, there is a also some interest in these frames by other parties, ultimately I will get back to the A3, Thompsons, V2 and B1 (complete etches), these and the A4 will be designed with a material thickness that naturally scales up to larger scales as I want a G1 or even G3 A3 or A2/2 model eventually.

Long way to go, lots of hours and test etches under the belt to progress this project forward though.
 

mickoo

Western Thunderer
Little more progress.

Image2.jpg

By this stage there's a lot of work involved but very little visual progress, a couple of cock ups on my part has resulted in some parts being reworked, some also reworked because after sleeping on it there's a better way to do it. There's still quite a bit of dead space but that will hopefully fill up with all the little nick nacks I keep finding to add.

Still to do in the large part department are sand boxes, Cartazzi bearing and axle supports, rear pony (whole assembly), front bogie assembly, in the nick nacks we have, Cylinder front covers, middle cylinder exhaust fairing, firemans side lubricator bracket, drivers reverser bracket, inside and outside slide bars, smoke box door winder brackets, brake hangers and associated levers/pull rods, some sundry brackets for internal pipework and flange fittings for the main injector pipe....plus what ever I can wrangle from the drawings, I may still add the major rods and such like.

Onward!
 

Pugsley

Western Thunderer
Little more progress.
a couple of cock ups on my part has resulted in some parts being reworked, some also reworked because after sleeping on it there's a better way to do it.
I'm glad that happens to someone else too :D
 

mickoo

Western Thunderer
Ok virtually there, I'm going to call time on this etch, you can go on forever adding bits, some almost invisible even when you turn the loco upside down. There's still the cab etch to do, so any bits I think I need or have missed here can go on that etch, I'm keen to get this to PPD soonest so it can get back here for construction, ready for Telford.

I'm under no illusion everything will fit perfectly first time, so a MkII will probably be needed, which will be another opportunity to add those bits I think I might need or have missed.

Just some flood filling to do, remove all the construction guides, mirroring and then producing the black and white front and rear sheets ready for PPD, hopefully on their desk by Tuesday.

Image2.jpg

Apologies for the poor quality image, re-sizing and compression does that to fine details :( it really does look better than that in the flesh....honest ;)

Onward !
 

OzzyO

Western Thunderer
About the only thing that I would say is give a bit more room for cutting the parts out. It looks like you have some parts connected to the next one with the tabs. I'm looking around the centre of the etch that shows it up the most. You could also do it so that the outside and the inside of the main frames just fold over onto one another, if you can do this with any other parts that have to be double thickness it can help with assembly.

OzzyO.
 

mickoo

Western Thunderer
About the only thing that I would say is give a bit more room for cutting the parts out. It looks like you have some parts connected to the next one with the tabs. I'm looking around the centre of the etch that shows it up the most. You could also do it so that the outside and the inside of the main frames just fold over onto one another, if you can do this with any other parts that have to be double thickness it can help with assembly.

OzzyO.
Your right, a lot of parts are tabbed to each other, splitting them up creates more waste and from the other etches I've done, not necessary, if the tabs are in the right place it all holds together firmly enough. I do see your point but a lot of the middle parts have to come out at the same time, two thirds of the parts in the middle are the rear drag box and cartazzi extension, the rest is the middle cylinder and front buffer beam. In some cases the actual part is larger and stronger than the surrounding supporting etch. I've seen that with a fair few kits where they add these little thin strips to split parts up, not really necessary when the parts they are separating are 10x the size of the dividing etch support.

What may not be readily apparent is that this is 0.45 mm thick Nickle Silver, which is naturally stronger than Brass and 0.45 mm is quite a thick material.

But, we'll see, if it all goes pear shaped there's always MkII to fall back on :thumbs:, though I could probably squeeze one extra support in between the middle cylinder and drag box, the run is probably only going to be three or four, myself, Richard and Nick so I'm not overly worried if it's a little difficult to go together, and then there's some basic instructions that need doing as well...blah!

The minimum tab is 0.6 mm wide and that's the minimum gap around everything, helps protect the etched parts and ensure overall rigidity I find.

I did think about folding over the frames etches but there are no two or three points where you can make the folds, plus the fold has to be so accurate to get all the holes to line up. I'm still not sure the rear outer half etch will fold up and be the right length so it's calved off the main frames and had 0.3 mm added to each section, the joint being in a tight bend so should be near invisible. Other than the frames I cannot think of anything else that can be folded to aid construction I'm afraid.

Thanks for the feedback, as I say it may all go belly up in which case a redesign will be needed, which will certainly push the size and thus cost up.

All the best

Mick
 

mickoo

Western Thunderer
And now in black and white :cool:

Front etch
Image2.jpg

Rear etch
Image4.jpg

It's now sitting in PPDs inbox, hopefully it'll get approved tomorrow morning and be on it's way to be printed.

I've resized as best I can for the forum to retain detail and hopefully let others see how it's all done, or my cack handed way of doing things :cool:

I did manage to squeeze a few extra bits in this evening before the conversion to black and white, that was a trauma as the layers wouldn't play ball, probably due to size of the who sheet.
Probably also not helped by the way I'd hatched some areas over other areas, next time, or the MkII I'll hatch differently so that there are not hatches on top of other hatches. Autocad only seems to be able to sort two layers, send to front or send to back are the only two options I've found. It would be nice to be able to set the four layers into four distinct set layers and move lets say an item from the top layer one to say layer three, but you can only move it to the top or the bottom :headbang:
 

demu1037

Western Thunderer
Mick
have you tried Tubocad, it can do the move & layer bit, both move (forward or back) on the same layer like MSword or move objects between multiple layers

Andy
 

mickoo

Western Thunderer
Andy,

No I haven't, I tend to stick with software I'm used to (too old and not enough time to learn something new I fear), mind I'm a bit of a clumsy klutz with Autocad anyway and there probably is a way to do it, but like everything, it has to be winkled out of it somewhere. We use Autocad at work for all of our electrical drawings, that's easy work, just lines and no layers.

I suppose at some point you have to stop, take time out and learn something, rather than struggling along just getting by, an expert would probably have set the layers in seconds, which took me a good four hours to get everything to show correctly, lets hope it gets to PPD still all sorted, I did include the original master on the same sheet as reference for them, that one is fine, it's just when you start moving parts and changing their colour for the black and white photo tool. Normally PPD would do that but on a big etch I try to make their life easier....cheaper... before production.

There are a couple of process I can do differently next time which will help speed things up....I hope ;)

All the best

Mick
 

pete waterman

Western Thunderer
Fantastic stuff if I can make a little point why don't you do the cylinders in plastic. This is the biggest area in scale for shorts you can then add all the fittings as castings and no short's. We are doing this on the Black five and the 28XX.
 

mickoo

Western Thunderer
Pete,

That's a very good point, I hadn't considered 3D printing the cylinders, it would certainly remove that source of shorting.

Thinking through, or should that be reflecting? On the current work, I think it could of been laid out a little better, Ozzy had a point about tabs and supports, and on this etch I took the easy root of simply mirroring the main frame etches. This made it simpler for the half etching, visually and mentally to keep things in order, however, I could of kept all the frames in the same orientation as the lower pair and simply reversed the half etch on the upper pair, red becomes blue and vice versa. That would of allowed all the frames to remain in the same orientation and the stays down the middle of the etch could of been moved to the top and better spaced.

I've also just fathomed that all those parts are going to need their cusps removed :eek:
 

mickoo

Western Thunderer
Not long now until the 'D'oh!!' moment then..
JB.
I hope not, not too many anyway;), no time left to revise and get a re run before Telford, best I can do is note down any errors and make do with what I have here then get a revised one out for the other guys and their models.

Looks like a fine piece of drawing from here though!
JB.

Cheers, it gets easier the more you do :cool:
 

Scale7JB

Western Thunderer
Honestly, I find the best thing for removing cusps is a nice sharp Swann Morton blade, takes seconds, and no chance of changing the shape of the part due to over-filing..

JB.
 

mickoo

Western Thunderer
Ok back for some more, I rang PPD today as I'd not heard anything and they are usually very prompt after receiving the files, anyway, it was in the queue so no worries.

However, this layering was concerning me and I'd taken the file to work and opened it up at lunchtime, disaster, the layers had not saved, well they probably had but it seems Autocad can have some funny turns when loading up a large image with layers ( my guess) as reloading caused the error areas to go away.....and new ones appear :rant: clearly something was amiss.

Whilst fudging around I noted about 40 rivets missing off the RH frame skin :eek: so a quick call to PPD to delete the file was in order, ironically they didn't as I had a mail when I got home saying they were ready to go if I contacted them with payment and delivery address :rolleyes: not to worry I will make sure verbally tomorrow they have the revised file before they proceed, minor FUBAR averted !

So, back to the layers, it'd been a while since I'd done any multi layered work and had forgotten some basic principles, that's not to say what I'd done wouldn't have worked, just that there was an increased window of opportunity for Captain cock up and his merry crew to make an entrance.

First off an image of an area that will hopefully try to explain what was wrong, and the better way of achieving the same result.
Untitled-1.jpg

This is the front LH overlay with rivet and raised detail, we are going to focus on the front bogie wheel arch as it has all three layers, I.E. a front etch, a rear etch and solid. Everything in red will be etched from the front, everything in blue will etch from the rear, everything in black remains the full thickness. I know there are some here who already know this, so apologies for the egg sucking exercise.

To achieve these areas we flood fill or in Autocad terms, hatch these areas, before we start the whole art work is just a bunch of outlines.
Untitled-0.jpg

Now when we hatch we have to select the areas we have to fill and the areas we do not want to fill, being as most of this part is half etch red then the easy way is to just hatch it all except the bits that are etched all the way through, slots for the cylinders etc.

Untitled-0a.jpg

The dotted areas being the boundaries required for the hatching, this gives us this result
Untitled-2.jpg

All of the frames are now red, except the areas where there are holes all the way through, from this point we now add the extra layers on top, black and blue...those that know what they are doing will already know we're on the road to doom and frustration! Note in the above, when we highlight (it turns hatched) the red area it obliterates the black and blue areas, this is not good. In the first image, no hatching was selected so we had nice solid colours.

So adding the black areas in next
Untitled-3.jpg

Again note it obliterates the blue guidelines, but is a layer above the red.

Finally we add the blue
Untitled-4.jpg
This does not cover anything as it's the last layer.

Now, if we take a close look at that last blue half etch rivet under the cursor in the last image, we now have three layers under here, blue, black and red and here's where Autocad sometimes has a fit, sometimes it will render the red above the black, so that lozenge bracket becomes red, or it will render the black above the blue and you get no half etch behind, Autocad knows there are layers there but fails to render them very well on occasion. Even if you try and send the blue dots to the top or the red layer to the bottom, it will revert back or worse still do something else somewhere else, you end up playing wackamole around the etch, fix one layer error and another pops up.

So how do we do it properly, well we stop being lazy and hatching the largest area possible, we hatch exactly the area we want.
Untitled-0b.jpg

Which now gives us this
Untitled-2a.jpg

The red only covers the red areas, it does not cover any black or blue, the same applies to the black
Untitled-3a.jpg

it does not cover the blue.

If we now go back to our rivet from before, it still has three layers like before, but only the blue layer is filled, so if the red of black layer decides to jump about it will have no effect as in both of those layers there is a hole which cannot ever cover the blue. The same applies to the red and black layers, simples :cool:

Back to the first image
Untitled-1.jpg

Some notes for those that might be interested, the small black clips for the mudguards can be seen, these have half etch rivets from the rear, as does the brackets for the sand box, upper right and the slidebar bracket up there as well. Up front is a strip plate for the smokebox footplate to rest on. At the bottom rear of the front arch is the lozenge bearing fitting for the cylinder drain cock activation rod which runs right across the engine.

The large oval hole is for the combination lever, larger on this side as the short lever is deeper than the longer one on the other side (which has a smaller opening), above and forward of that is the lifting hole. There are five vertical slots, the first two are for the outside cylinder faces and this area is also covered by the large cylinder flange plate, with corresponding slots in it too. To the rear of these are the two slots for the sand box fixing and finally the outside slide bar bracket slot.

The rest of the large black dots are full depth heads (as opposed to domed rivet heads) used to fasten the various stays, front to rear, the combination lever stay, then lower down the bogie pivot stay followed by the inside cylinder mounting bolts (many covered by the sand box....but I know they are there;)) and finally, far right we have the double row that holds the front brake cylinder stay. All of these stays are on the etch sheet.

Below the frame is one side of the cruciform stay O-12818-D, no drawings exist of this stay but the GA's that do show what few parts are visible show it to be close to the A3 and A4, whilst this part is accurate there are no front or rear views so best practice is used, although the W1 looks like the A4 the frames are very different in many areas, some parts are common right through the LNER range, like the front combination lever stay, but others are unique. The slots are for the horizontal and vertical plates to slide through, these also go right through the inner frames and the + effect will strengthen the frames in this area and increase the chance of it all being straight and square, longitudinally and vertically. The large boss is the rear of the intermediate driver brake hanger, there being a corresponding cut out in the vertical part of the stay.

Finally we have the two bogie mud guards with flanges for the brackets, these appear not to be riveted to the mudguards but welded, certainly on A3 and A4 and the one image that shows this in any sort of detail on the W1 shows it follows suit.

Enjoy.
 
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