Garden Railway Forum

Lonsdaler wrote: Thu Mar 12, 2026 10:43 am That is a great result for all your effort Philip. How about magnetic fittings for the roof, so that you can display the work you've done internally?

Thanks Phil. I never thought about magnetic fixing the roof, I'll think about that.

I keep going back and looking at the chap with the top hat framed in the window in the second shot, that looks so real.
Grant.
PS a pic of the engine and carriages would be good.

Thanks Grant.

LNR wrote: Thu Mar 12, 2026 11:41 pm
PS a pic of the engine and carriages would be good.

Yes, I haven't even seen them all together myself yet!
After the very wet and not very cold winter we've been having ( although it's bitterly cold and might snow today!) my garden track looks like a cross between the BigDipper at Blackpool Pleasure Beach and the jungles of Borneo, and is not very conducive to photography! I promise I'll take some pics and hopefully one of my awful little video's as soon as it's worth it.
In the meantime, I did manage to put a sneaky print of the body of one of the All Thirds on over night and it is currently dripping:

Does the build plate tilt on your printer? I wish mine did, it would help catch the drips after printing.

Rik

ge_rik wrote: Fri Mar 13, 2026 7:36 am Does the build plate tilt on your printer? I wish mine did, it would help catch the drips after printing.

Rik

No, not as such. The silvery coloured bit is a printed part which is clamped around the plate mount bracket and gives the angle.
So the pic below shows how it sits it is whilst printing. Once the print is finished, I simply loosen the big knurled knob, slide it forward and relocate it on to the slot in the angled bit. You can't really see but it is also slightly angled forward so that the resin runs to the bottom RH corner and improves the amount that drips. The stl for it came from Thingiverse. Just do a search for your machine and look for "drip bracket" or similar. you'll probably find there are half a dozen variants by different people and its just a case of looking until you find one you like. I think i printed a couple of others before I found this one.

Thanks. That looks handy.

Rik

Not sure how I missed this thread, but that is absolutely superb.

Thanks Aaron. After a long hiatus, I managed to get started on the All3rd's again yesterday, so hopefully it wont be too much longer before I can put the whole rake together.

They do look fabulous. I was particularly impressed with the internal detailing. Of course the passengers are also amazing!

Trevor

Ok, the world trundles on and some modelling has been squeezed in. The two All-3rd's are now virtually complete, just need the couplings attaching to their mountings and the buffer heads painting. I've assumed that a train that transports slate quarry workers would have a film of grey dust everywhere inside, not sure if I've quite achieved that but it won't be seen with the lid on anyway.


Also, there are a full load of passengers now printed. The first 4 are painted, as below, and only another 20 to go...! I promise to try to do a better job on those scary eyes next time! They still need a coat of matt varnish to even things out.

Can't wait to see a pic of the whole train. Superb paint job all round Philip, think the bloke in the middle might have a fly on his nose
Grant.

They do look as if they're apprehensively waiting for the dentist.
You've really cracked that figure painting technique, Philip!

Rik

Thanks chaps.

Rik, I think its more apprehension about being squashed into that coach for the rest of their lives!

As for my painting skills, that is all really down to Durley's excellent painting tutorial a few months ago. Just follow that and it all just happens. My only variations from his printed words are some slight variations in jacket colour, etc.

I did the 1st Class passengers for the Composite some months ago but apart from them and the loco crew, I've just made my first real attempt to vary from "workman" figures. I asked Gemini to create a quarryman's wife travelling by train with a basket of vegetables. That looked Ok so I asked for appropriate colours for the clothing. Then Meshy did me a 3d figure stl. An hour or so on the printer and I was all set to test my painting with no more than Durley's general guidelines and Gemini's colours to work from.
I'm not totally happy with outcome but it looks better in real life than in this photo.

Well I think you have made a wonderful job of the figures and we need not be so critical as once on site they just blend in. Only when studied individually do minor defects show but not as a group or inside carriages etc. Top marks.

The detail on the coach looks very crisp, and you have really cracked the 'Durley' method. The figures are excellent. As for the eyes; who will see once they're in the coach?

I can sympathise on painting eyes, very difficult. Using a pin for pupils helps - if you can get it on target.

In any case, it's all coming out beautifully.

Thanks Aaron. I tried the pin idea but didn't get anywhere, if there was enough paint on the pin to get it to stick to the eyeball, it flooded!

However, I now have a train load of quarrymen passengers. I was going somewhat crazy by the end so the detail is a bit iffy on some of them, but it won't be seen when in the coaches.



All aboard!!!!

Superb in every way Philip, can't wait to see a pic of the whole train including the loco.
Grant.

Thanks Grant.
Yep I know you want to see the whole lot together - so do I!

Hopefully not to far off now though. A few odds and sods to sort out: glue the passengers in, fix the coach roofs, add the couplings, charge the batteries in the loco and other minor details, then keep your fingers crossed that the loco does actually have enough grunt! I've just weighed one of these coaches with passengers and it comes in at a little under 600g, so that's going to be a 2Kg+ load of 4-wheelers all up.....

Brilliant all round!

Trevor