Thursday, January 31, 2019

Cattle docks, 3D printing, terraced houses and telephone boxes in BRM

First up, in a very busy month for me, in the March issue of BRM, is this 4mm scale cattle dock scratchbuild. Inspired by the prototype at Higley station on the SVR, I decided it was time to get a bit of building from raw materials into the magazine. The model is small enough to fit in a Cakebox too, so you can find room on your layout!

Urban modellers will like the new BRM kit for a terraced house. Laser-cut in MDF, it's easy to assemble and offers potential for customisation - they gave me several and told me to make them all look different!


I'm a bit of a 3D printing sceptic - the technology fascinates me but I'm tired of the evangelists saying we can abandon all traditional modelling techniques. So, the team gave me a simple printer and told me to go away and have a go with it to see if I change my mind.


On the DVD, I'm talking about telephone boxes, especially the KX series that BT introduced to replace the traditional and much loved red version. This is simple kit building for anyone who fancies having a go at etched brass but is scared of soldering.


Finally, I've had the camera out again, this time pointing it at John Campbells 16mm model - "Campbells Quarry". It's a cracking model that is proving a hit on the exhibition circuit so I was glad to be able to shoot it a couple of years ago at Bressingham garden railway show.

Phew!

BRM March 2019 on RMweb
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3 comments:

  1. Huw Griffiths11:43 AM

    Judging by one of the photos, the subject for that 3D print is interesting. As for the results, I'm not convinced they'd be purrfect, even after some cleaning up and surface filling.

    I would, of course, be glad to be proved wrong.

    Personally, I've wondered if the real application for 3D might be parts of models - panels and other repetitive stuff (especially if they've got raised beading, bolections etc.) or engines and other stuff that might take ages to assemble from bits of plastic and wire.

    This does, of course, assume that they are easy to glue to the rest of a model - which I've got no way of knowing, when the information offered about the materials concerned often seems to be vague concepts like "Frosted Ultra Detail" or "White Strong & Flexible".

    Sorry if this sounds like a rant, but this information doesn't tell me what materials are being used - it also doesn't tell me if my bottle of Plastic Weld will bond any of this stuff to polystyrene.

    OK - I think I know the answer, but … .

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  2. BR601032:54 AM

    One of our members has a neighbour who has 3dD printers. He says it's easy to get hypnotised by the little mechanism going up and down and around.
    One item they produced is replacement NEM coupler pockets for certain models where the supplied pocket is not right,

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  3. Mark1:25 PM

    I'm going to take a guess (having not seen the magazine) that you didn't think much of the 3D printer. Judging from the photo it's a straightforward and relatively cheap deposition printer; essentially not much more than a hot glue gun in an X-Y-Z harness. Cheap and cheerful maybe but not really useful in our hobby mostly as the resolution and surface quality will be pretty horrid.

    For decent home prints you probably need to look at a liquid resin printer instead (something like the Form 2 or at the cheaper end the Anycubic Photon). They tend to give much better results in terms of surface quality than the printer in that photo.

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