Both the free range sheep and the wagon loads can be seen in this photo of 5085 climbing the grade to Wollar with a stock train of sheep.
Those who know the layout will note that the stock train is headed towards the country, away from the Bylong abattoir and the city abattoirs so the sheep must be being moved for agistment elsewhere, 1965 being a year of drought (yes, I know my backscenes are too green for a drought).
The sheep wagon loads have been designed to fit both the Austrains NSWGR GSV four wheel sheep wagon and the Eureka Models BSV bogie sheep wagon.
I have now offered them for sale on my Signals Branch Shapeways shop and while the price may appear to be of some concern the quality can be seen in the above photo and the 64 'free range' sheep work out at 57 cents each which is a bit over half the hobby shop retail price of approximately AU$1. The wagon load sprue has 100 sheep so these work out at 37 cents each.
The roofs of the above mentioned sheep wagons come off by slightly levering at the roof corner. The GSV floor comes out by slightly flexing the lower body sides away from the solebar. The BSV bogie wagon floor comes out by first pulling the buffer heads out of the wagon and then slightly flexing the lower body sides away from the floor.
It is advisable to spray the sheep on the sprue prior to snipping them off as it is easier to touch up the white snip area than to hold and paint the sheep individually. For Australia, a light brown is more correct (dust) than white as would be found in England or Europe.
While these sheep a just standing I hope to modify them so that they are grazing or looking another way, etc.
I hope that the modeller will find these useful.
Clarification of Sheep Wagon Loads:
1 sprue of 100 sheep has 4 blocks of 25 sheep which will do 2 GSV four wheel sheep wagons or 1 BSV bogie sheep wagon. The legs are dangling free so to speak, no 'floor' on the block of sheep.
13 comments:
Ray,
Those prices are actually not that bad. I recently bought a number of 60 pack Preiser sheep from eBay, and the cheapest I got a pack for was around AU$38.
Well done!!
Ian
Ian
Yes, well I am not making much at all, very little in fact only about AU$4. per sprue.
It was just a product that was needed in Australia at a good price.
Ray P
Great work Ray
I was wondering how to fix up Ron's wagons with a load. These wagons are fantastic to start with.I will have to get some more now.
How about some cow loads ?
Rohan
I have a cow 3D model but it is a cow not a steer. I have been thinking about remodelling it but that is a major undertaking. The sheep and the cow are freeware 3D models. I have uploaded the cow and apart from thin walls in various places such as the horns it looks like it will more expensive as Shapeways charges by the machine volume and the material used - a cow is much taller than a sheep so it gets hit both ways on cost.
Ray
Perhaps we can compromise and meet half way and do a Lama ?
Have ordered some - the price is great if you work it out - will leave Shapeways on 3 September - will report in due course.
Rohan
I guess the current day modellers could be looking for some but since I am modelling 1965 it probably won't happen. ;-)
Ray
gshsignal, glad you felt that they are worth it, the cost seems high until as you say you work out the cost of alternatives. I did these because I wanted them and certainly not to make money, almost 90% of the cost is the printing. Let me know how they are.
Ray P
Ray,
Tamiya XF78 "Wooden Deck Tan" (acrylic) is a good suggested colour for Australian Sheep
Regards,
Tom R
Tom
Thanks I will have a look at that colour. I have used Tamiya XF57 Buff so far (as pictured). Of course we would need different colours as sheep come from various areas with different dust colours.
Ray P
Ray, sheep arrived and to conduct an experiment I put them in a Eureka BSV's, one unpainted, and one painted Tamiya flat white (XF-2) with some Deck Tan XF-55 dropped into it - I think I'll paint the white one's as well.
Some comments - I think the sheep are possibly a little big (by 10% or so). I have previously filled a BSV with (I think) Kerroby sheep and yours a a bit bigger - even my wife said they seems to be a bit big. Not a big deal especially when they are in a moving wagon by I thought it may be of use.
I bought enough for five BSV's and will be buying more as I have more BSv's and GSV's to fill!
Anyway well done!
I'l try and post some photos as soon as I work out how blogspot copes wit them.
Graeme
Sorry for the delay in responding but we lost internet Saturday night and have just got it back, the whole area went down.
Regarding the size of my sheep versus others:
1. My sheep are larger because they have not been shorn so that can add at least four to six inches to the height and breadth of a sheep (about 1mm).
2. I have both ATLAs brand sheep and Kerroby; I sized mine based on the ATLAS ones as they also need shearing. The Kerroby sheep I see as sheep that have been shorn hence they are smaller and could be painted as such. I will be using my Kerroby sheep mainly in the distance to force the perspective on the layout.
3. There is a minimum wall and wire thickness specification for the printing and it took some work to thicken the ankles and also the ears to get them to pass this requirement. So part of this involved the overall size as well, a bit of a compromise, we have what we have or we have nothing.
4. I chose to do the sheep also to cut the price per sheep and so that wagons didn’t get too heavy when loaded.
5. Lastly, it is pretty hard to get a sheep to stay still while you measure it ;-)
Anyway, I hope that you like them but I would definitely paint them some light brown, white looks so wrong for Australia (I have seen some but it is rare, they would have to be on nice green grass, etc.). And of course you could also make the legs and noses off-white and the rear and underside stained brown. I have done the former as can be seen in the photo on my blog but I haven’t attempted the latter as yet.
Regards,
Ray P
Hi Ray,
Received my sheep this morning - one set of each - look good at first glance, now to get the layout done so I have somewhere to put them.
Cheers Alex
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