WAGR A Class (steam)

Been a long time since I've updated, many know some good reasons why.

Today Im announcing that I have been working on a new project something to go with the 3D printed AI coaches some have seen Ive done, and may have seen running on Stuart's Denmark Layout at this years Perth Model railway show.

I've wanted an early steam loco for a while and because I had some spare time recently I started working on my 4-6-0 G Class and I decided to fix some of the issues I had with matching up the brass tender sides to the top and bottom parts made from urethane. I have a great 3D printer and have found with lots of sanding and coating with glue I can get good strong surfaces despite it being a FDM printer.

So I also have a N class 4-4-4 I had been working on, and it had some issues previously when I had an inferior printer, that I have been able to work out since, I have also seen others build locos using polyamide/WSF printed by commercial machines, and I wanted to see how successful it would be printing a loco. Now the issue is my printer will never do rivet heads or good renditions of small detailed parts but I figure a lot of my WAGR modeling colleagues are able to source detailed parts from Railwest and the like.

So I have been beavering away at an A class where most of the major components are 3D printed and details can be added after. There are a lot of similar componets on the G Class loco, especially for the later version which I will be doing, but I am keen to compleate the early version on the A Class, with sloped smokebox and 4 wheel tender; but work is underway for the standard smokebox and 6 wheel tender version.

See below for current progress (3 iterations are represented). I will be bringing it to Mondays SIG Sn Meeting. I should have a few more parts refined, printed, and attached. See you then