"Forward" into 2023.

[John Candy]

Alongside the GWR coaches being produced, I am working on some LNER types.

Moving into the New Year, some 60ft Great Central corridor stock is being prepared.
The corridor brake compo is underway and attached is the rendering of the OpenSCAD file for the first of the three sections, which will form the corridor side of the carriage.

The design of the 60ft 1911 stock is very modular and the components already produced can be easily rearranged to produce an all-third, composite and a brake third.

These carriages ran on 10ft 6in wheelbase bogies, the parts for which will be included in the downloadable STL packages which will be made available.

[John Candy]

"Forward" : Part 1 GCR 1st/3rd Corridor Composite

This is a package of STL files which will produce the sides of a 1st/3rd composite of Great Central 1911 60ft corridor stock (a type which ran well into the BR era). There are six components to each side (12 files in all) which print the corridor and compartment sides of the coach. The sides have been designed in sections to fit a 350mm print bed.

http://gauge3.info/downloads/GCR/GCcompo(1).zip

The sides fit between  the ends to produce the scale 60ft length.
The photos show a sample section which is loosely assembled and roughly brushed with primer for purposes of showing the detail.

To enable the upper section of the body to be thinner than the tumblehome/matchboarded lower section (to keep the glazing inset realistic), the upper and lower sections are printed separately. The upper section is located by a rebate in the lower (matchboarded) section.

The ends and 10ft 6in GCR bogie patterns are in preparation, along with seating and corridor partitions.
The ends of these coaches appeared in both panelled and matchboarded types and the files for both types of end are in preparation (these coaches were produced over several years and photos suggest the ends of later-built examples were matchboarded, possibly an economy introduced during the Great War).

The intention is to produce matching stock of the following types:
All First,  All Third, Brake Composite and, possibly, a 5 -compartment Brake 3rd (but the dimensions for the van section window and door spacings are currently proving elusive).

[IanT]

"The sides have been designed in sections to fit a 350mm print bed"

I thought that this would rule out my Sovol John, as it's bed is only (physically) 300mm x 250mm. I download the STLs (for a quick peek) and the first one seems to show up as 191 x 56 x 5mm when opened in Cura, so should be OK for my printer. Is there a longer one in the set?

Regards,

IanT

[John Candy]

Ian,

The section you quote is, unfortunately, one of the shorter parts....the largest sections of the 1st/3rd compo are 338 mm in length.
The sides are divided so that the joints coincide with the hinge edges of doors. The minimum distances between the hinged door edges are 82.125mm for 3rd class compartments and 98.57mm for 1st class, so it was a juggling act to make it fit onto a 350 bed.

The window/door spacings on the other types are different (principally the result of the length of lavatory compartments varying considerably .... presumably to ensure consistent 1st and 3rd compartment widths within the 60ft overall length) and the longest sections of the All Third and All First are under 300mm (longest being 295.72).

I am still working on the Brake Compo but it looks as though all sections will be <300 (longest so far is 254).

The Brake 3rd will likely break down into modules <300.

Hopefully, you will be able to make use of at least some of these designs.

A possible alternative  with the 1st/3rd compo would be to reduce the lengths of the end modules by separating the lavatory section from the compartments at the closest door edge (would need to be done by tinkering with the OpenSCAD file).

Regards,
John.

[Nick]

John,

Gosh, much more of this and I'll be tempted into buying a 3D printer. Seriously, I can only applaud both what you are doing and the spirit in which you are doing it. Keep it up.

Nick

[IanT]

Ok Thanks John.

" (would need to be done by tinkering with the OpenSCAD file) "

And I had a feeling you might suggest that...  :-(

Regards,

IanT

[John Candy]

And I had a feeling you might suggest that...  :-(

Ian,
I wasn't expecting you to edit the files...... with all the cutouts/recesses, bolections, etc. the files are long and convoluted.
Knowing my way around the files, it is not a big job.
What are the max side-to-side and front-to back dimensions you have available for printing...I presume slightly less than the overall bed size?
Regards,
John

[IanT]

Well (obviously!) it's not mentioned in the Sovol Owner Manual John but external reviews suggest a Build Volume of 280mm (X) x 240mm (Y) x 300mm (Z). It's the 'X' that's of interest of course but if you can get that a bit under the 280mm Max that would be excellent.

Not a high priority for me at the moment, as I'm busy with the L&Y BEL project (so don't break your neck) but I'd certainly like to try a carriage print. I've been generally pleased with the quality I can acheive - not perfect but pretty good.

Regards,

IanT

[cabbage]

As the most highly qualified computer geek in the G3S... I have had a look at the source code for the parts above. The source is a vast improvement on what I have seen before but it is still heavily stylised but the style is consistent. The main problem is that the code is built as a monolithic "write once" approach. This is fine for writing small pieces of code, but when it comes to writing the code to print locomotives and rolling stock -well...

That is not to say they do not produce an excellent print(!)

RepRaps and OpenScad have allowed us as a society to take a quantum leap in what we can do and I look forward to other prints.

At the moment the code produced similar to the early works of HG and LBSC.

Regards

Ralph

[IanT]

Well Ralph

I'm certainly not qualified to comment on anyone's code but I will be grateful if John is able to help me fit these prints onto my Sovol. The ability to use others people hard work in this way is a great gift and one that I very much appreciate. So I'm not going to worry too much about the programming 'asthetics' if the end result prints OK.

For various reasons, I choose to walk a different 3D-CAD path (e.g. not Open SCAD). I'm pretty sure a 'Professional' Draftsman would have fits if he watched me drawing with SE (lot's of backtracking and corrections!) but as long as I get there in the end, that has to do.  :-)

Regards,


IanT

[cabbage]

IanT,
I come from a 80x25 line green screen terminal background. This meant that EVERYONE in the company had to write in the same style and only specific data names were allowed.

There several systems of programming around JSP/KSD being the most famous. If you wrote programs for HMGOV you had to use precise SSADM(3) and Data Entity Life drawing - or get sacked!

The system I use normally is the commercial one called GRAPES.

I did post the construction, design and coding on another forum of a class22.

I still think they are in a state of shock....

Regards

Ralph

[John Candy]

In my defence, I will argue there are times when unorthodox thinking comes in useful!

Back in the early 80's, I dragged the City law firm I was with into the 20th Century and wrote a suite of programs to handle specific tasks for which commercial programs were not readily available.

One involved trust accounting, where an instant overview of all holdings (i.e. shares and bank funds) needed to be available and attributable to individual trustee/clients.

A short while after I had implemented the system, a professional systems programmer (whose wife happened to be a Barrister) asked the senior Partner whether he could be introduced to me. I already knew (via a "mole" in the firm he had been advising) that he had been struggling for a couple of years attempting to design a system similar to mine (I had, incidentally, written my suite of programs over the four days of the 1983 Easter weekend).

He couldn't get his head around how you could integrate the necessary components while complying with the Solicitors' Accounts Rules.

I had to explain the method of the coding to him several times before the "penny dropped". He took a lot of convincing that the system was compliant with the rules because of the unorthodox fashion (in his view) of the way the data was pooled in a single database.

Via the  "mole" , I learned that, immediately after the meeting with me, he had telephoned his client firm and claimed to have had a "flash of inspiration" and had solved the problem!

I rest my defence!

Regards,
John.

[John Candy]

Ian,
A new fiile containing reduced-length components is at

https://gauge3.info/downloads/GCR/GCcompo(1compact).zip

The longest item is now 272mm.

The compartment side of the coach is now in four lengths (eight components) and the corridor side in five lengths (ten components).

The original set of files (for which a 350mm bed is required) remains in situ.

Regards,
John.

[IanT]

Well, I don't really care how either of you are doing all this, as long as you continue to share it!  :-)

John, thanks very much - that was quick!  I will have a go at these once I've got the L&Y BEL out the way.

Regards,

IanT

[John Candy]

GCR All Third Corridor (1911 stock)

This is the All Third (which is of matching type/style to the 1st/3rd composite coach).

https://gauge3.info/downloads/GCR/GCRthird(1).zip

The coach is symmetrical about the centre line on both sides, so, while there are six files for the upper sides (3 each for compartment side and corridor side), there are just three for the lower sides (you require two printed copies of each of the lower side files).

This version fits a 350mm printer bed (there will be a "compact" version for smaller printers).

The All First will follow next, followed by the files for the ends and then the matching Brake coaches.