Been a While...

 It has been a while since I have updated the blog for ModelWorks....but here is an update. I wanted to show the T gauge layout that has driven a lot of products for ModelWorks, and provide a preview of the new 120mm Radius Concrete Viaduct (in T) that is available. 

I have a number of other projects underway, just not yet available. Included in these is an updated, improved and corrected FMC4200 car in N, Z and once again, I will see what I can do for an HO version. But these projects don't happen without some time invested by me, and unfortunately, time has been at a premium. In the meantime, enjoy the video.

Cameron

Shapeways sale

Hello everyone -

I haven't been able to be doing as much modeling or work on projects for ModelWorks in the last year. I had open heart surgery in March, and the recovery has been been ongoing. I am starting to get some more modeling done, and have started working on how am I going to decal the prototype FMC cars I have painted last September.

However, in response to some inquiries - the cars are available for sail on my Shapeways store - and even better, Shapeways is offering a Cyber Monday discount. To quote their announcement:

Enjoy 10% off* on your order of $25 or more with code CYBERMON.
Sale ends Tuesday, December 3rd.


So, If you have wanted to try out something from the store - today is a good day to do it!

FMC prototypes

I have slowly been working on painting a set of FMC4200 N-scale gons as demonstrators. Unfortunately, progress has been slow due to other projects and my day job which seems to drag on into the night. I got the original set of six models on July 6th. Here they are below:

The prints came out well, although I will admit that the stirrups are fragile! Just like on most N-scale models. The individual gons can be easily trimmed with my trusty nippers.

In minutes I had 6 individual gons. I also purchased coal loads, in sets of 3 trying both the versatile plastic from Shapeways and the professional plastic - both in black. I prefer the versatile plastic, which is fused Nylon. It has a slightly grainy texture, a flatter color, and looks a bit more coal-like to my eye. You may need to compare them to see which is better.

Professional Plastic Coal Load

Versatile Plastic Coal Load

Again, out came the nippers and I had individual coal loads. Which I quickly posed in a car.

I don't quite have it sitting in the car the way I would like it to yet. My plan is to glue a little foam on the bottom to give a soft friction fit - and I may revise the model a little once I have a fully painted car for comparison. But, for a first try - not bad. So, off to the paint shop. Well, not quite. As these are the FUD material, the cars needed a cleaning with bestine, followed by an ultrasonic bath, time to dry and then...the paint shop.

After a base coat of gloss black, I masked the cars and went about painting the blue ends. Lacking an airbrush (yet), I went to the spray paint aisle with a few pictures in hand. I settled on a spa blue color as being close enough.

Rustoleum Gloss Spa Blue Paint

Masked Cars - Sorry Black Cars don't photograph well

Blue Ends Applied

After allowing the cars to dry for a couple of days, I removed the masking to reveal...

Note the slight dark band where the black paint settled in the car seam. The seam is there - but it is a fine detail. Weathering will need to pull it out - but I got a plan.

The paint isn't perfect, but from what I saw in photos of the original cars, the same could be said of the cars in real life - particularly on the insides, where it seemed pretty clear that what paint there was if any was haphazardly applied. I figure that the load/weathering will clean that up. So, now it is off to the decal shop, followed by brake wheels, weights, weathering, a sealing dull coat, truck installation - and then 6 new FMC4200 Gons will be in service.

Sorry that progress has been slow - other projects have had some attention, including Gilpin Gold Tram Cars for another project. But they have not been forgotten.

FMC 4200s - Officially Released!

As of last night, I was officially able to put the FMC4200 models up for sale.

As I announced last week on the DRGW list, I have been working on a model of the FMC 4200 Rotary Bathtub Gondolas to offer via Shapeways in N and Z. I received my first prototypes last week, made the necessary changes to improve the model and printability (at least until Shapeways changes their guidelines), and today, the models are now available. See:

https://www.shapeways.com/shops/the-model-works-at-otowi-station?sort=newest

They are currently available in N and Z. They are available as single, 3-, 6-, 10-, 12-, and 18-car packs. Prices (for Frosted Ultra Detail - my recommendation) are:

N Scale: $21.95 / $62.95 / $119.95 / $197.95 / $235.95 / $349.95 - (less than $20/car for the 18-pack)
Z Scale: $11.95 / $32.95 / $56.95 / $92.95 / $109.95 / $159.95

The N-scale prices are competitive with other N-scale products, and are exciting for the Z-scale cars. Both scales will need wheels, trucks, couplers, brake wheels and additional weight. Sorry, some details are just to fine to print yet. Unfortunately, I also cannot offer more than 18-cars due to file size limitations. The cars are also available in Professional Plastic, although the prices are higher, the weight is a little lighter and the resolution is a little less, but the cars are generally tougher. Note however, that the professional plastic cars do show a little bit of warpage after 10 days of handling, which is typical of the material in fine detailed parts.

I also designed loads to go with these cars. The loads will look great (in my opinion) out of the box in either the Black Versatile Plastic (Laser Sintered Nylon) or in the Black Professional Plastic (HP Fused Nylon) which both have a fine grain to them. Some may however prefer to add a bit of fine coal detail to the loads. These are also offered in single, 3-, 6-, 10-, 12- and 18-load packs. Prices for the Black Versatile Plastic are:

N Scale: $5.25 / $10.95 / $19.95 / $29.95 / $34.95 / $52.95
Z Scale: $4.25 / $7.95 / $11.95 / $16.95 / $18.95 / $25.95

I'd like to thank Jeremy, Rod, Robert, Jim, Jay, and Glenn for their comments and feedback. I did go in and modify the model to reduce the car height by 6 scale inches, add stirrups, and the all important seam to the side of the car. I am hopeful that that feature will print well enough to be visible. Thank you all for the information and feedback that made this model come together. Hopefully, we will see some CCTX coal trains in the near future.

Long time coming - New Products!

It has taken me a lot longer than I wanted, but new products are on the horizon.

FINALLY!

What can I say, a lot of other things have been happening. Not only do I have the previously mentioned track gauges ready, just waiting to create the store entries, but I also have several T-gauge bridges and tunnel portals from my Central Railroad and Historical Society Layout project, but I also will soon have N and Z scale FMC 4200 Rotary Gondolas as part of another project. I just got the test runs yesterday.

These cars were part of the Coleto Creek Coal Train that ran to the Coleto Creek Power Plant in Texas from 1979-1998, often loading on the Denver and Rio Grande in Colorado (near Axial on the Craig Branch) although I have also read that there were loads also from Utah. The train ran over the Moffat Line to Denver (although again, I have read that it did polish the rails of Tennessee Pass) and from their down the joint line on Burlington Northern. Power was often pooled, BN-DRGW units, giving it a unique character. Notably, Union Pacific and Helms Leasing still own/operate a lot of these cars.

As part of the project, I found a few photos, and received a few from a wrecked car. These became the basis for the model.

And the wrecked car.

But the real find was a drawing, which at least gave me some basic dimensions to work from. With that in hand, next up was building a model.

After a bit of work, these models were the result. I was able to scale them to produce both an N-scale and a Z-scale version. Here are the prototypes. I printed them in the new HP Professional Plastic and in Frosted Ultra Detail, and the Z-scale version I also printed in Frosted Extreme Detail. Here are the prototypes. First off, N-scale in Professional Plastic.

While the grain is noticeable in the pictures, it is difficult to see in person, and once painted, gloss coated for decals, and dull coated after decals, I suspect that it will be essentially invisible. The Frosted Ultra Detail Models also look good.

They still need to be cleaned, primed and painted. But they are even cleaner than the HP models. In Z-scale, I also tried the Frosted Extreme Detail settings, but found that both Professional Plastic and FUD seem to do the job fine.

 Frosted Extreme Detail (Z in front) - Frosted Ultra Detail (N in back).

  Frosted Ultra Detail (Z in front) - Frosted Ultra Detail (N in back).

Professional Plastic (Z in front) - Professional Plastic (N in back).

With this design, I went to a concept of providing only a centering dimple for the truck pin hole. Thus, the circularity of the hole comes from a drill, not the printing process, which was difficult to get a consistent result. In N, this means I used a 5/64" drill to drill a hole for the MicroTrains Trucks (1035- Barber Roller Bearing Trucks with couplers that I had on hand). 

In Z scale, I used a 1/16" drill instead. The cars are designed to accept body mounted couplers, but I did not install them at this time. 

With trucks installed, I decided it was time to put them on the rails to compare to other cars. Here is a MicroTrains 100T 3-bay BN hopper. 

And here is a TrainWorx DRGW Quad hopper.

The car looks to be a little high compared to the TrainWorx car, so I got out the calipers to take some measurements. Turns out it is a little high, about 6 scale inches higher than it should be per the drawings. The truck centers are also a little off, but I based those on the MicroTrains trucks to put the couplers in the right spot, so I think that is a minor compromise. The final version is going to be lowered about 6 scale inches. Everything else is within 2 scale inches. Turns out this is due to the printing process, the Z-scale version is virtually right on in all measurements, including height.

Weight is a different issue. The cars are light! In N-scale, the cars are 8.8g for Professional Plastic, and 9.8g for Frosted Ultra Detail (including couplers and trucks). The NMRA recommended weight is 45.4g. However, there is plenty of room in the tub for weight. It will take about 3 cubic cm of tungsten powder to bring it up to weight. Some of that will also be made up by a separate coal load part that I still have to design.

Anyways, hopefully, they will go live over the weekend. I plan to offer at least singles, 3-, 6-, and 10-car sets. They come without trucks, couplers, and brake wheels, and I may offer them with and without ladders for those who would rather install their own. Coal loads will be a separate part.

Things are changing

Well, things have been changing. Shapeways has changed their pricing structure on the Frosted Ultra Detail, Frosted Extreme Detail and cast metal parts. The good news:

Many of my designs became cheaper!

The bad news:

Some of my multipart designs, such as the sets of 2 and 4 FC-150 trucks - did not see as much benefit, and a few designs became unprintable. So, I am at work revising a few models. I have taken down all the offending parts currently, but I will be getting those back up as soon as I can. In addition, the track roller gauges will be going up.

The walls project hit a bit of a roadblock, and I am once again reworking the models. However, the Gilpin cars came out very well. They do need minor modifications now that I have my hands on them, but they too will be coming soon in HOn2. Other versions - HOn30, Nn3, Zn2, maybe even On30, On2, Sn2, and N may also be coming.

Next major project - a locomotive for the cars!

Projects Coming to Fruition

Yesterday included the arrival of a box from Shapeways, with some new test prints contained within. Not all were successful, but several will soon be for sale from the ModelWorks. First up, let's look at the new Roller Gauges:

These are roller gauges for T-gauge track (3.2mm). I printed them in White Soft and Flexible (Left), Clear Acryllic (Middle) and Metal (Right). The metal gauge needs to have some left over casting material cleaned from the rail gaps, but all three gauges fit nicely on the T-gauge tracks I have. Which means, I now have a tool to lay T-gauge, Zn2, and Nn18 (or Nn2) track by hand. The metal gauge is obviously the best for handlaying, but the others are cheaper and may work well as long as they are not near the soldering iron.

Using a similar design, I also produced roller gauges for Z-scale track (6.5mm).

They are shown here on MT track, and they also work well on the new Atlas Z-scale Flextrack. I haven't tried them on Peco, Rokuhan or Marklin yet, but those will be tested before I release the gauges. You can see that I cleaned out the metal gauge's grooves. My preference is the metal and clear acryllic gauges. The White Strong and Flexible Gauge works, but doesn't have the same precision as the others.

In addition to the gauges, I also printed a new version of my T-gauge Station in Frosted Extreme Detail. The version comes with several spurs of detail parts.

I went for gusto on this print. Here are some closeups of the station.

The model includes interior fireplaces, walls with doorways, and stairs.

Yes, stairs. See them in the center of the photo? Or how about this view.

And yes, they are scale sized. But that is not all. On one of the spurs are the roof pieces and the chimney caps. Plus, there are windows and doors for the model.

The other spur contains furniture for the station. Yes, T-scale (1:450) furniture.

There is a fishbelly stove, tables, benches, chairs, a bed, desk, a cabinet and a bar. Can't see them?

The desks are on the left, then the bed, the round tables are on their sides, followed by a "J" shaped bar and the station waiting room benches. They got a bestine bath and cleaning last night, and next up will be a bit of primer before I start assembly. I'm excited for the finished product. Just need to do the decals for the exterior details.

Another building item was a set of doors for my modular wall system. I got the first two prototypes yesterday. They are already for sale, but this is the first time I have had them in my hands.

On the left is a standard sized door, on the right is a panel roll-up door. The standard door even has a door knob. The paperclip is pointing toward it. Need to zoom in?

Okay, I am at the limits of my camera's ability to focus, but you may just be able to make out the door knob here - the small blob of white on the left side of the door. You will notice that I made the door frame integral to the door in order to print this.

After their cleaning, I did try the doors in the walls I have already printed. Note that they are not yet painted, but here is what they look like.

They fit like a glove, and it looks like the design works well. So, that is encouraging. Next up in this project is an improved modular wall design. I am hoping to reduce the costs a bit, and provide for a number of brick types and bond configurations.

Gilpin Ore Car Parts

There was one more project that I got prototypes for last night. The HOn2 Gilpin Ore Car (using Z-gauge track - technically 22.3" gauge).

I tried printing the car a number of different ways. I tried the metallic plastic (top), followed by the White Strong and Flexible Nylon, a Polished Nylon, and as a Frosted Ultra Detail part.

These cars used link and pin couplers, and I also designed a set of them for this car, and printed them in Frosted Ultra Detail (top), Black Nylon, and Elastoplastic.

Finally, the cars also had brake wheels, which are of a geometry that I cold not find already available. This was surprising, since the drawings for the cars call out a different wheel style, but I found two photographs that clearly indicate that the brake wheels looked like those I printed. My best guess is that like the Link and Pin couplers, which were manufactured for the Gilpin Gold Tram by the Colorado and Southern shops, so too were these brake wheels.

The couplers were eyeopening. A close examination of the couplers revealed that the elastoplastic couplers lost a lot of detail, and in fact, do not fit in the existing coupler pocket. They are elastic alright, much more so than I needed. The tolerances on the Black Nylon couplers are better, but still don't fit in the pocket. Unfortunately, the spring features designed into these couplers did not print well either in Black Nylon. They are just too fine. (I thought so going in, but gave it a try. Fortunately, the Frosted Ultra Detail couplers did print well, and with enough resolution to both fit the couple pocket and hold the spring detail. Upon testing the springs (arranged as cantilever beams) even work as designed.

The coupler has three springs built into the shank of the coupler. Each spring is designed as a cantilever beam. At the normal position, none of the cantilevers are engaged with the coupler pocket, but as the coupler is displaced from its center position, the beams deflect and will push the coupler back towards a neutral position. I've now tested the design on the first prototypes and they work as designed. However, only the Frosted Ultra Detail print produced working springs. Time will tell if the coupler fatigues or not. I'm hopeful that the coupler will work out.

The coupler is designed to use a piece of wire (such as that of a paperclip) as both the link and pin. The U-shaped link-pin simply goes through the hole in the top of the coupler. So, the coupler will ultimately transfer all of the weight of the train to the body of the car. Hopefully, the Frosted Ultra Detail plastic is strong enough for the trains I envision. Worst case, there actually will be broken couplers.

The cars are tiny - a little more than 2 inches long, but they also measure out to within +/- 1 inch of the actual length of the car. They also feature bolts and rivet details. But these are not really visible unless printed in Frosted Ultra Detail. With couplers the car looks like this:

And as an example, I used a paper clip to test the coupler hole size.

I haven't installed trucks yet, or a few other details, including the brake stem. The brake wheels look really good in closeup views.

The outer ring is actually part of the support structure. The brake wheel is actually composed of an HO-scale 1-inch diameter round bar. I may actually make these thicker given that I do not have an actual dimension on the size of the bar used, just to make these a little easier to handle.

All of these parts have had a bestine bath and ultrasonic cleaning. Today, I temporarily but a set of trucks on one car (the wrong type, but at least it was a set of trucks), and made a first attempt at a link-pin from a paperclip. Grabbing a piece of the new Atlas Z-scale flex track, here is the prototype on the rails for the first time.

Once I have the proper trucks, I need to check a few clearances, but I am very encouraged. I probably need one more iteration and I will have a great model. Now I need an engine.