I feel I have neglected this thread in a while since hitting a rather large obsitcle in making my next loco. I was a little shocked to see it was taken on by a professional who had real dimentions. So with wanting to go down a route nobody had ventured I stopped production of mine.
I know I shouldn't get beat up by it but I could never compete with a pro model maker and I'd of only been picking flaws in my own work all the time.
Instead I have slowly been browsing the net when I get a spare 5-10mins for something else to model and build and who would have thought when looking at images I would come across a very similar looking loco to the 3D printed one. (the same one I'd searched for ages to see if it resembled anything) It turns out I was looking in the wrong places and one post of this image...
It was lurking unnamed and unknown on a Flickr members photos only titled with a location and that it was narrow gauge industrial serving builders in Germany. the title was "Dortmund / DASA: narrow gauge diesel locomotive" which shed no light what so ever what it was and its original purpose in life!
Not long after sharing with a group on facebook all about industrial locomotives I had a name and hp that matched the little 3D printed logo exactly!
Beyhold the wonders of a Gmeinder 10/12 hp loco... and there's some mighty fine examples people have made!
Above one in real life... Below the fine models people have made. particularly impressed by the brass and scale motor built one (exposed motor one looks to be maybe 5"!)
I think this has inspired me to make a open cab version with a lot more detail and correct to the real thing version. Time to find all the files again and start putting the odd print on out of hours at work!