My oo guage custom engins

For a few years now I've been wanting to make my own models of Thomas characters in oo scale, and in December I finally began, but before I start I would like to mention that these models are my own take on these engins and that I'm going to delay the 'Big project' a few years so that I don't rush it and so I can use my own custom models. now let's begin

TOBY

I never thought that Toby would be the first one that I would make, mainly because I don't have access to a rapid J70, which is what most people use. Initial I wanted to scratch build him, but in the end I decided on something else.

1.The chassis

Like the body I was initially planning to scratch build it but I decided to buy a loco for the chassis ,but this wasn't easy. Toby has a small 0-6-0 chassis. In terms of older British locos the closes thing would be the terrier chassis but is seams to be too big and I also hate the motor, and on top of this I couldn't find one for a good price. In the end I decided to look for a European Ho loco for the chassis and that was much easier.
In the show toby's chassis was made using a marklin Guage 1 BR 80, which look like this:



conveniently, marklin makes a BR 80 in Ho scale, but it's got an AC motor and it's also 3 rail, while I could convert it, I don't want to do that now. Thankfully I was able to get a Fleischmann Br 89 which is very similar. When I got it It was modified, by removing the front light, piston rods and other small things




As you can probably tell the chassis was MUCH TOO LONG so I cut it down







Give that I wanted to keep the red wheels an chassis I touched up the scratches



And that's where the chassis is today, unfortunately it's still to long but I'm not cutting it down anymore.



2.the body

In the end I decide to 3D print the body but First I need to design the body, as the chassis is larger than it should be and that's what I've been working on recently:




I currently don't have a 3D printer, but I can still detail the cowcatcher up a bit, but I won't be designing the body until I can confirm the the cowcatcher fits arrowed the chassis . 




That's all for now! I hope someone finds this interesting

You sure are ambitious I'll give you that, I would have thought a good chassis to use would have been a Hornby 3F (often referred to as a Jinty), these are freely available, generally good runners and quite price efficient. They are also a 0-6-0 and not too complex both in design or workings, one reason they run nicely and are probably one of the most bullet proof models out there.

What type of 3D printer are you thinking of getting in the long term? FDM (like an Ender or similar) or an SLA (like a Mars or similar)? The reason I'm asking is you may well find printing something like that cow-catcher will be problematic at best on an FDM printer. They do not handle that style of part well, especially if you intend to print it as one piece. Of course you could print the main body as one part then the cow-catcher and similar detail parts as separate items you then subsequently add to the main body. Even commercially made models will do this, mould the main body as one piece and then add the detail parts separately, its one reason why the latest high detail models are so expensive - paying someone to fit all these miniature detail parts by hand is slow and delicate work.

Anyway keep at it, I'll be following your post with interest

[Super]

Indeed! 👍