READY FOR PUBLISHING, MAYBE

 

 

"B" sized pages, most drawings 1/4" scale

Got a proto copy of my book of AutoCad generated drawings of D&RG folio six . The pages are "B" sized, 11 x 17, so almost all the drawings are 1/4" = 1' 0" scale, or "O" gauge.

It's pretty big when opened up, over three feet across.

Included, as bonus drawings,  are some locomotive drawings from the first 2-4-0 through the C-19's,  a couple of the K-36,   locos from the Colorado Southern, the Rio Grande Southern and the Denver, South Park & Pacific.

The hard part is figuring what to do next. Seeing if such a book is even wanted by anyone is step one, and then how to get it published... if warranted.

Even if nobody else wants one, I now have the only book in the world with the greatest concentration of detailed and accurate demensional information on the  D&RG ever assembled under one cover.

This all started when I was a contest modeler in the NMRA, Rio Grande Division and badly needed good dimensional details of the models I was doing.

One of my contest models shown below took a couple years to gather enough information to build a reasonably accurate HOn3 scale model.

First place, passenger cars, 1981 RMR NMRA Denver convention.

(left click to enlarge)

 

As I recall, that model had over 1,000 individual pieces, all hand crafted.

Now that I have all manner of information, my eyes are too bad to do any serious modeling.

That's the way it goes.

MY LACK OF POSTS

I've upgraded from my older version of AutoCad to AutoCad 2013, and it's a bit like picking up a book to read that's in another language... only partially understood.

In the years between versions, autodesk has changed many many features of it's product, so much so it seems a different product.

I'm sure they consider many of the changes as desirable new bells and whistles, but a lot of them just get in the way of creating a drawing up from ground zero.

The programmers at Autodesk - like so many other programmers - still need to lean the basic rule about "If it works, DON'T FIX IT"!

So, as a result, I'm spending many hours re-learning what I once knew and could use proficiently with yet another "all new and improved" update.

It's probably a better package for all the "improvements", but I'll have to learn about them before I can say they actually help. 2013 seems more like 3D Studio than an engineering drawing package.

I'll post a few more postcards to keep things running.

THE K-36 FRONT END (PART OF IT)




I had decided to 3-D the pilot before tackling the backhead under the assumption that it would be easier. Seems I like to fool myself like that more and more. Turns out getting the necessary details on the construction of the pilot, the truck, the snowplow, pilot beam and the host of other little doo-dads was a real challenge.

I'm presently 3-D'ing the coupler... because I enjoy inflicting pain on myself.

Seriously, none of this has been a walk in the park, but I am getting closer to wrapping this project up.

Once again, this is just another "quickie" render, and several layers are not shown, so the snowplow assembly can be more easily seen.

MORE ADDITIONS



This is - of course - more of the K-36. The picture is a "quickie" render without all the added point lights to improve contrast and shadow.

Those steampipes from the superheater manifold, what with all those twists and turns, were pretty tricky. They're not perfect, but close enough.

The CAD file is getting huge. 3-D files - if they have a decent number of isolines, get big in a hurry.(Isolines determine the smoothness of a curved surface.)