No posts for weeks and then two posts in a day.

Although I have had these printed in resin by kind hearted fellow modellers, I also wanted to see what they would look like in Brass so I asked Mike Hopkins if he would add some to his next set of castings.

Well worth the money and the short wait.

After my efforts to create the lovely safety valve bonnet yesterday I was dismayed when I learned that I had orientated the ellipse at the top in the wrong direction. It should run in line with the boiler….

Today’s first task was sorting that out. All was not lost as I learned a bit more while correcting it and I have an even better end result for my efforts.

Next up I drew up a replacement chimney to the correct dimensions for the Class J and initially I added rivets around the base but Tom alerted me to the fact that the NER used countersunk bolts so nothing was visible on the chimney base after painting. A few steps back on the Fusion timeline removed them. It’s certainly much easier to remove them than to add them…

Although the Class J didn’t have a brass cap to the chimney the drawing that I worked from showed it so I couldn’t resist depicting it on the photos at least.

Finally I drew up a replacement dome so that should draw a line under this particular little project if you will pardon the pun.

After posting my earlier effort at the safety valve bonnet, fellow NERA member Tom Burnham pointed out that I had made an error and the the cover should be oval at the top not round. He kindly provided me with the info to put it right.

I am still being distracted by 3D drawing in Fusion. I have also discovered the render tool so the images look so much better.

As I have more than a passing interest in rolling stock I thought I would attempt an NER No2 Axle box.

A friend kindly pointed out that we mostly only model the part in front of the W Iron so I changed the drawing slightly

Moving swiftly along from the brake standard modifications. You may recall that some time ago I made a stove for the brake van using my Silhouette cutter. Although I proved it was possible, it was extremely fiddly to assemble and I certainly wouldn’t want to be doing a lot of them.

It’s also a perfect candidate for 3D printing so yesterday morning (after amending the brake standard files) I started to draw up the stove.

It has proved to be my most ambitious and ultimately satisfying design project to date.

My apologies for the image overload but I am delighted at how well it has turned out.

After Mike Trice kindly pointed out that I have missed the bolt heads from the base of the brake standards I made some amendments and here are the revised entities.

I also changed the base of the threaded rod so that it will (hopefully) print a bit easier.

I had a spare half an hour or so this afternoon so I created a revised drawing to include the rectangular cover that many of the phots show on these brake standards.

The recent hot weather has somewhat killed my enthusiasm for actual model making so instead I have been drawing up a few more bits and pieces. Some of them are still work in progress but I finished an LNER Brake standard last night.

I have long wished for a correct LNER brake standard casting so now assuming that it prints okay my wish should be fulfilled.

At the risk of boring people with my new found skill I have drawn up a couple more items yesterday.
First was a much simpler task than the chimneys that I have drawn so far, this time a dome for the D2.

Then at a friend’s suggestion I had a go at the GNR version of the Ramsbottom safety valves.

I had got this far when Chris looked over my shoulder and said “it looks good but it doesn’t look right” she was of course correct the springs should be on the lever that I hadn’t drawn yet not the valve stems…
To be continued…

The D2 chimney must have been beginners luck. The next one took me two days of fighting to get it finished. Despite the frustrations I have learned much from the experience (I am a great believer that mistakes and things going wrong are far better teachers than when things go swimmingly).

This chimney is for non condensing C12’s and J52’s. According to the drawing, the condensing versions were fitted with shorter but otherwise similar profile chimneys. I feel that I have done a better job of this one and it’s a bit finer in shape/detail.

I am not sure whether it’s beginners luck but further sessions today have added a tube under the centre of the flare to help locate the chimney in the smokebox and the rivets around the rim. I still haven’t got it completely hollow but I will perhaps try to achieve that on the next one.