Author: Simon Wood

Lecturer in medical education, lapsed mathematician, Doctor Who fan and garden railway builder. See simonwood.info for more...

Extending to the station

Since it was not just dry but sunny today I’ve made some progress on Moel Rhos Phase 3 (yes, I know I haven’t finished Phase 2 which is around 5 years overdue, but I’m not big on doing things in order).

The photograph shows the end of the line as is and the new trackbed running through what will become the station area.

As a general rule I don’t remember to take a ‘before’ picture until I’m taking the ‘after’ picture and alas, today is no exception.

The trackbed here is larch (breaking Tony W’s rule 1) and I am experimenting with using plastic drainpipe uprights (the idea being to use plastic where there is contact with the ground). Around a foot of 2×2 is inserted into the top of the drainpipe and this is fixed to the larch trackbed. The 2×2 can then be adjusted up or down to get the level, before screwing through the plastic into the wood to fix it. It appears to be surprisingly stable!

There is still an inner loop to build and then the ground will be built up beneath as a raised bed.

Simon
Moel Rhos

Sir John Hurt

One of the first things I did when I got my printer, a couple of months back, was of course to download Sir John Hurt and print him at 1:19 scale.

There’s not only a fine drawing of him on Thingiverse, but it allowed me to connect several of my interests – and of course there is no limit to the number of Doctors Who that you can have on a model railway, since (s)he is a time traveller!

Anyway, I’ve only just got round to painting my John-Hurt-Doctor, so here he is:


“Great men are forged in fire. It is the privilege of lesser men to light the flame.”

I must admit that although I am getting a little better at faces, I still have great difficulty with the eyes…

Simon
Moel Rhos

3D Printed Bug Boxes

Also going through the Moel Rhos printshop today were various of bug boxes I’ve printed based on Andrewlongman’s Thingiverse drawing. I’ve taken his frame but redrawn the sides in Tinkercad to include some slightly different detail, or at least the first and observation (I will do my own drawing of the third too but haven’t got round to it yet)

First – obviously still much to do but here with a couple of coats of primer

Likewise the observation. I’ve opted not to try to print the bar across the middle that supports the mesh, instead I printed a hole and I’ll insert a brass rod.

But then I’ve also gone and adapted the drawing to make a very approximate porthole bug box (yes, there are the wrong number of panels on the ends for the porthole carriage – but this isn’t the Ffestiniog’s coach you understand, it’s the similar vehicle commissioned from Brown, Marshall & Co. by the Rheilffordd Moel Rhos).

And finally, pushing Tinkercad to its absolute limits I mashed the frame around enough to come out with an approximation of the flying bench…

Simon

Painting Prints

In the Moel Rhos paint shop, I’ve been priming some of the bits and pieces I printed over Christmas… something it has taken me a while to get to. A coat of primer helps to show up the finish you get off the printer.

Here are two milk churns (by _steve_ on Thingiverse) both printed in PLA the one on the left at 0.18mm resolution and the one on the right at 0.08mm resolution, hopefully you can see the difference in the pic, although in real life at >0.5m away I’m not sure you would. So maybe not the 3x longer print time…

Here are a couple of oil barrels printed in ABS at high res. Unlike the milk churns, whose handles still need a bit of tidying, there’s not much to do here.

Finally a hyper resolution PLA cow. Bit of roughness around the head and back (printed upside down, this is where the supports go). But cows are hairy anyway, right? So I might not bother to clean up too much.

Simon

A Snowdrop Special Train

At this time of year the snowdrops tempt us out into the garden to enjoy them and also to see what else is emerging as winter days are lengthening. No snow here (yet!) but it was dry and so a train to see the snowdrops was needed.

Sir Theodore stopped with the up train for passengers to admire the “giant snowdrops” along the line side, before heading on to the top station. On the return trip another pause was made, for the benefit of passengers on the other side of the coaches.

Mike Barton