Refining the Coal Car Trucks

When I visited Gary Hinshaw after Christmas, we were commiserating about our 3D printing woes. I’ve been feeling that my printing has gone downhill since I got new resin last year, and hearing that Gary felt the same, I decided to look into it. Well, it turns out that printer calibration is a thing, and […]

N-Possible Couplers

I got my first look at N-Possible couplers, a new scale-size N-scale coupler, at Tim Horton’s place just before Christmas. He had a pair of box cars on a test track, and I was immediately impressed by how well they coupled, and then easily uncoupled with a pick. While I could barely see them without […]

Coal Car Test Truck

I refined the truck design a little over the holidays, and assembled a couple of test prints. The mechanical aspects are fairly good now, and as you can see it equalizes quite nicely. I just have to improve the supports a little so I don’t lose any more brake beams!

Coal Car Trucks

I’m taking a little break from Percy as I wait for some slightly larger, more powerful motors that I ordered earlier this week. I cast about for another project to pick up for a week or two and alighted on the coal cars. They’ve been waiting for a resolution to the weight problem, and they […]

Coal Car Test Print

From 3D file to the first print always makes me feel like a ten-year-old on Christmas morning. A ten-year-old with a ventilator, gloves and safety glasses in a basement workshop that smells more of chemicals than of pine. With this being the first whole car I’ve attempted to print, I hardly expected it to work […]

Coal Car Brakes

The brake systems on hopper cars are often tight for space. So, it’s useful to be able to check clearances before construction. In the case of the coal cars, I found the train line was a little too close to truck bolster for my liking, and so, I raised it a scale inch or two. […]

Flat Cars Finished?

With the loads painted, the flat cars are substantially finished. I sprayed the underframes with a dusting of Vallejo “Smoke” so they’d look like they’ve done work if they should ever flip over. The trucks, body and the steel and iron parts received a muddy wash of raw umber and white so they’d look look […]

Painting Wood Loads

I had three flat car loads to experiment upon, and with time running short before the Railway Modellers’ Meet, I got right to work. I had picked up a Vallejo paint pack for wood and leather when I went to Burnaby Hobbies for some primer. The “Dark Sand” in the pack seemed a good starting […]

Lumber Loads

The 3D printer has been busy cranking out loads of lumber for the flat cars as I get ready for this year’s Railway Modellers’ Meet. I’d already printed quite a few loads, some of which are “factory seconds” and good only for experimenting, when I went back and looked at some photos of Canada Atlantic […]

Lumber Load Trials

The flat cars, despite being scratch built the old-fashioned way, were jig-built so that the loads can be swapped. The trick is to confidently locate the stake pockets in a 3D model to locate the stakes themselves. I started by measuring, and then printed a couple of test loads on the FDM printer. Its resolution […]