Sketchbook

For your entertainment and reading pleasure, (and because I haven’t posted in ages) here is a page from my sketch pad exploring ways to assemble “Little Wonder” This is an alternate way to work the project than the one actually assembled so far.
You can see the water tank area would be a solid block of styrene, laminated to the right size. With a differently constructed smokebox affixed to the front. I think I’m going to try this as this way would be more suited to my planned construction of The larger Geo. England Locomotives like Welsh Pony and Little Giant.
I also need to work on dropping the footplate. Even though it will only be a drop of about .5mm in this scale.

Proof of concept

Having made bold claims about re-creating the Ffestiniog Railway in 1:305 scale I thought I’d better follow up my words with actions.

Here is a first view of my “proof of concept” model of the Ffestiniog railways first double Fairlie “Little Wonder”. 

Of course, you probably can’t make out too many details as that little white blob circulates the track, so try these tiny photos.

The proof is in the seeing

Here we are then. Proof positive that 1:1,000 scale scratchbuilt model railroads are a viable proposition. The locomotive, mounted on a IDL Nano trains platform, cut to fit, does work. The loco has a bit of a "tankslapper" (yawing motion) on the back straight. I think because the magnets aren't aligned properly. But other than that this is a phenomenally promising test run. If I can do this then you can.

I hope you are as knocked out by this as I am.

p.s. after I posted this I removed and re-aligned the magnet platforms and the "tankslapper" was improved. Not cured, but much improved

An SD38

Here it is the first scratchbuilt 1:1,000 scale locomotive from the Nano workshops.

An EMD SD38.

"But wait a minute" I hear you say. "You said it was going to be an SD70, or a SD60 or something.Now I'm confused"

I don't blame you. It was to be an SD 70 or 60 or somesuch. But as I progressed and studied the drawings and realised the models at 1:1,000 scale. I came to see that an SD60 or 70 was just looking the same. I needed something a bit more distinctive. So I came across some drawings of an SD38. Granted at this scale this could be anything from an SD 38 to a 40. But its shape has more... More character. Construction wise its just a selection of styrene strips cut to size and glued together. There's still a bit of filing to do in the roof fans to level them off. But once again, you're seeing this several times actual size. So in reality it doesn't look so bad. Take a look and let me know if it will pass muster as an SD38.

The next task will be to mount these to some of the magnet platforms and see if the train runs.

Now we get serious (locomotive part 3)

Right, I can't keep putting this off. at some time I have to put a blade to styrene and work on something to test out construction theories.

I have a large supply of styrene sections on hand from previous projects and just happened to have some suitably sized sections in stock. So I set to and cut them to size, glued them together and then shaved them to shape with a razor blade.

That's it. Nothing clever, and yes I did wear a binocular magnifier to do the job. This is a very crude "proof of concept" model. But I believe it shows that this method for locomotive construction in 1;1,000 scale is sound. The secret will be to take it slowly and slice off a little at a time. Sometimes "taking it slowly" is something I fail to do. Anyway, it certainly bolsters my confidence. Especially when I think about the difference between my first and third trees at the weekend. What could loco number three look like?

Photographing it was actually quite difficult to get the white styrene to show the shape I'd carved it to without bleaching it out and loosing all the detail..

A "what am I playing at?" moment

Last night I has another of "those" moments. A moment when it really sets in as to what I'm letting myself in for. So if you'll bear with me I'll explain.
Last night I printed off the drawing of the SD60M at 1;1,000 scale.
Its small.
Smaller than I envisioned. Place two wooden coffee stirrer sticks side by side. That's how wide the engine compartment hood is. Under 3/4" (about 15mm) long and a scant 3.5mm tall.
That's small. I was in a sort of shock.
Strangely though I was comforted to see that the lettering on the side of the hood was quite legible and there was a surprising amount of detail to be seen on the tiny drawing. Much more than I expected.
Then I began to realise that it wasn't all that bad. The calmer more rational side of my mind started to take over and actually start to work out how to create this tiny model.
Lets just say I have some good ideas and I'm raring to go to put them into practice.

The locomotive project (part 2)

Nothing is ever as easy as it seems. Sometimes it's the easiest parts of a project that cause the most problem. Case in point with the SD70MAC project. You'd think with all the information out on the internet I would be able to find a comprehensive set of dimensions out there to enable me to get the model right. Well if you thought that then you're wrong. I haven't found any yet.
What I have found however is a nice set of drawings of an SD60M. I like SD60M's also known as Tri-clops because of the three front cab windows... Not that you're going to be able to make out the three front cab windows on a 1:1,000 scale model when its moving.
So SD70MAC or SD60M? Who knows...

The locomotive project (part 1)

Well, if I'm really serious about this scratchbuilding in 1:1,000 scale malarkey I'd better nail my colours to the mast and come up with a project.

To be honest it wasn't all that difficult.

Here it is, the SD70MAC.

The one thing that drew me to this class of loco is the shape. It's nothing but squares. Square engine compartment hood, Square cab, pretty squareish nose. For a first time project in a ridiculously small scale it couldn't get much simpler.

At 74' long the SD70MAC scales out to 22.5mm long in 1:1,000 scale which is a bit shorter than the 25mm of the body of the Nano train chassis. (The chassis also extends to 29mm long over the necessary buffers.)

BUT (and here's the joy of striking out on your own in a new direction with new materials at your disposal.)

If I was to model the loco at 1:900 scale it then works out to be 25mm long! That is such an incredible co-incidence I don't think it should be passed over lightly.

1:900 scale would make things a tiny bit bigger, perhaps easier to work with. It would also be half the size of T scale, to give people a frame of reference.
But then I'd loose the 1:1,000 novelty.

Whatever I do its still going to be blooming small.

Perhaps I'll test my skills out in both sizes.

Now to work out how to actually make the thing.