Plans afoot

Here starts my plan and experiences in building my first etched kit, obviously this is going to be a long process and I have picked a simple loco (Tmf2_2) to start off with at least I think so though the engine and gearbox placement will have to be carefully thought out. I have started by using Adobe Illustrator to start creating the etch plans and am going to build up the etch layers so that individual components can be checked and refined. Once these plans are completed then tests can be carried out using 3D CAD to check space and tolerances. I am going to be trying out a couple of packages, but this is a little further down the road. So there is quite a steep learning curve for this and the ultimate goal is to produce a couple of kits for my own personal use and then to move on to some more stock, but I am not getting to carried away with this.

Birthday pressies

Finally I have got hold of my birthday pressies and these books were part of that. I have for some time been looking for decent drawings with measurements of RhB stock both old and new. For some reason there seems to be very little information freely available, or maybe I am just not looking in the right places. So with these 2 books the plans for producing some TTm scale loco and stock moves every nearer. I am starting off on a small scale with one of the Shoma built Tmf 2/2 tracktor units as this is an easy box shape to replicate. Having spoken to my friend with considerable knowledge and practice in making and building kits, the suggestion is that the loco be made up of an etch brass/NS kit and the motor be mounted in the engine compartment of the kit. I am going to put together some drawings and then go from there. Having just got CS4 Illustrator and Photoshop to aid in the task of making the plans I can now make changes to plans much more easily and also all ething companies prefer drawings in digital format making it cheaper to provide the etches. But at least I have the reference material for loco and coach plans now. Also I plan to travel to Switzerland this year to experience the RhB for real! and get detailed prototype information for my self. So more to follow on this soon.