A virtual smoke stack

Posted on April 18, 2010 by Koala Creek

Just a quick update on my 3D-modelling efforts. For the last couple of days, I have played around with CoCreate Modelling Personal Edition and have tried to create my first virtual model. I tested it with the easiest part, the Diamond Stack of the Shay.

It should fit the base of the smoke stack on the body of the Atlas Shay … unless I did not measure it correctlyof course …
The shape has been based on the Diamond Stack of the Joe Works “Class A” Shay, but it could be that I have to adjust it later on to fit the spark arrestor. Yesterday I uploaded the STL-file of the model to the site of Printapart.com and placed an order with them. Curious to see what will be delivered to my house one of these weeks!

Koala Creek Chronicle – part 1

Posted on April 16, 2010 by Koala Creek

I started building my first structure for Koala Creek. It is based on a StructOrama kit and will house “The Koala Creek Chronicle”. As it is my first Structorama kit, I decided to write a review during the building process. Although the box itself looks like it had been printed in the seventies, the content of the box fortunately gives a different view.
It contains a sheet with instructions, clear plastic windows glazing, a bag of parts and a small sheet with transfers.

All the parts are made of the same kind of white translucent plastic and have already been removed from their sprues by the manufacturer. As these parts have only one colour, it looks more like a resin kit then an injection moulded one.

Continue reading →

Oh Lucky Day!

Posted on April 13, 2010 by Koala Creek

In one of my previous posts, I mentioned that I was looking for an HOn30 “Class A” Shay from Joe Works. Fortunately one of the members of the Australian Narrow Gauge Railways group read my post and offered me his unbuilt Joe Works, as he had found a KTM Ali Shan Shay himself.

So now I am the lucky owner of a Joe Works “Class A” Shay … well, at least of the parts. I know that it will take some time to assemble, but I will take it one step at a time.
I have already compared the size with the Atlas Shay and have noticed quite some similarities. Although the boiler of the Atlas Shay is tapered, the locations of the domes and stack are exactly the same. So the Joe Works kit will probably also help me to build the Atlas based Shay!

Building Down Under

Posted on April 9, 2010 by Koala Creek

One of the biggest challenges of modelling a tramway in a country that is located at the other side of the world, is building realistic scenery. The overall impression of the layout will have to convince the audience that they are looking at a village that’s located in Queensland. Unfortunately there are plenty of examples with a complete mismatch between the look of the layout and the location it is trying to depict. I really would like to prevent that my future layout will become one of those …

I presume that most of the structures on the layout will have to be scratchbuilt, but first of all I started looking for kit manufacturers that make typical Australian buildings, which will fit my HOn30 layout located in Queensland.

Continue reading →

Wholestick trucks

Posted on April 8, 2010 by Koala Creek

My layout will be set around the 1930s and in those days the sugar cane was still being moved from the nearby fields to the Koala Creek Sugar Mill in little wholestick cane trucks, which were small four wheeled flat wagons with posts on each corner. The wholestick (cane that is cut off at the butt and topped) was just stacked on these small wooden trucks and winched down with a chain to keep the wholestick in place during the ride to the mill. Empty trucks were also used to transport cane cutters from the hotels in Koala Creek to the cane fields.

It will not be possible to create a sugar cane layout without these wholestick trucks and looking at the amount of trucks that are needed, I will probably have to set-up a small production line.

Continue reading →