S2 E26 Odds and Ends | Bexhill West Model Railway | Midland Railway drawings & 3d Printed Locomotive 

What wonderful drawings - history evidenced - they still "speak" to an aware viewer... As for "No one will ever look under here..." Oh we will!!!

I would take the book to your local archive office (probably in the main central library) they should be able to give you some advice on how to deal with the problems.

Hi James I had a set of original blue prints for our 1939 Drewry diesel rail cars at at the Tasmanian Transport Museum, unfortunately my house got flooded and the drawings got damaged. When I showed the drawings to the insurance company they said don’t worry we will send these off to a document conservator. The drawings came back about 3 months later in a better condition than before the flood. So maybe you should look for a document conservator to send them to ,also get that book scanned so that a digital record is available to look at without having to touch the originals ,that is what we did with our railcar documents ,if we are working on something on the railcar we can print off the page or part of page without ever having to look at originals that are now archived. Regards Robin Adderley Hobart Tasmania. I really enjoy your channel and wish you the best.

Great to see you again James! Very interesting Drawing folder! I hope it can be restored and saved for future generations!!! Boy, 3D modelling takes a lot of time! I’m sure that finished model will be well worth it though! Thanks for sharing!!!!

Hi James, you never cease to amaze me, is there no end to your talent. The 3d printed loco looks absolutely amazing. I wish I had your skill in doing that as no doubt you are aware trying to purchase anything SR over the counter is impossible especially in N Gauge. At the moment I have got hold of a Dapol A1 Terrier which I am hoping to convert into a E1 shunter which look very similar of which there were quite a few at Bognor. I am also hoping to upgrade it with a with a coreless motor so that it gives me more room to upgrade it to DCC as it is so small. I am still around and watch all your updates.

I love the makeup artist! I also loved looking at the drawings. Before you start restoration on the drawings, I recon they need to be scanned, and then if something goes drastically wrong, the information has been preserved. Who would have that that an engineers drawing could be considered as art. I only wish I could drool over the workmanship in those drawings.

That blue coloured end paper (01:53) is decorated with what is called marbling, usually done by dropping hydroscopic inks on to a bath of water and passing the paper through it.

I would suggest that you contact the Wakefield Central Library who will help you get the most appropriate restoration, since they have an interest in the subject matter.

Dear James, as far as my knowledge allows, such damage is either caused by water or a combination of the original paper quality, the glue used to line the paper with the linen, the quality of the linen and a possible intrusion of moisture, which may have induced the decay. First of all, never touch the paper or the linen with your bare hands, our skin carries a rather acidic environment which definitely can affect the paper. The restoring of this marvelous book/folder should be approached by first taking it apart and thoroughly dry all the different layers and pages. The quality of the original paper, linen and glue should be determined before you decide on any measures. You may indeed need a new backing for the paper, like the Japanese paper you indicated, but it all stands and falls with the initial assessment of all the different layers and components. Love the book/folder, the content and am very interested in a full facsimile. Great work on the 3D drawing for your locomotive, looking forward to your next episodes. Cheerio

Hi James, Thanks for showing us those drawings, It was really interesting to see them and I hope you can restore them. The 3D Printed loco looks good, alot easier than messing about with brass, whitemetal and a soldering iron. Cheers

Lovely work Jamie! I do love the early Chatham 4-4-0. I slow building up a collection. 😅 My next loco project funny enough is the later rebuilt F1, an old jidenco kit. I got to ask you wouldn’t take on selling some of your prints would you? I’d love to add some of those SECR ballast hoppers and some of those cattle vans you printed in a early Video.

The Book; First thing, get images of the Drawings & Cover. Ideally, with a large-size scanner, though this is probably impractical in this case due to size & expense. A more DIY solution is to photograph the drawings, preferably from the same distance & orientation, and include a scale bar in the photos with plenty of overlap. Also, as high a resolution as you can manage. Make several copies of the saved info & store safely. There are programs that will stitch photos together automatically, however, it can also be done by eye in either a photo retouch program or a Desktop Publishing program. Again, save all work. Also, save to PDFs. Distribute as widely as possible. (NASA lost a lot of Apollo-era documentation when it was converted to Micro-fisci, after the readers became obsolete the film was binned). If you want a hard copy of the information, a possible option would be a display banner printer, the software on their printers would be able to upscale the drawings to whatever you want. It would also be printed on a more durable vinyl. To restore the book itself you could try looking on RU-vid for videos on how to do the work but I suspect that the book is too far gone for most of their advice to work. The other alternative is to try a professional book restorer, even if the work should prove too expensive, they should give you a quote to give you some idea of what would be needed (Crowd Funding is a possibility), or at least advise on storage to minimize further damage.

Good to see you again, James. You seem to have so many projects running simultaneously, I don't know how you keep on top of it all! The book of plans/architectural drawings is a great find. A quick glance through the comments shows others have already suggested getting in touch with your local records office (aka county archives). I see the West Sussex Records Office is in Chichester, and the East Sussex Record Office is in something called The Keep in Brighton. They may run courses on conservation of documentation, or you might be able to make an appointment with someone from their conservation department at least to talk through possible ways of conserving the plans: it is, after all, their day job to preserve such documents. They may also have large format scanners or other reprographic tools. I wonder if it would also be worth contacting the National Railway Museum (possibly also RIBA if I'm remembering the architects' body's acronym correctly) to see if they have a copy of the book and the plans that you have. If the NRM doesn't have them (and assuming they wanted to take on the task of conserving them) there would be a strong rationale for donating them to the national collection, though that would mean giving them up, which I can understand might be painful. If they are very rare, I would have thought it all the more likely that record office staff, or staff in the archives at NRM would be interested in helping you. The printing on the end papers is called marbling. I remember doing it at junior school mumblety years ago. A tray of water, and then I think oil paints dotted over the surface of the water and swirled together, then lay plain paper on it. But it was a long time ago, so I might be misremembering the technique. I'm always amazed at what's possible with 3D printers.

Hi James. Another fascinating video. I like the suggestion of the Repair Shop, it would be very interesting to see. Pete.

Those bridge drawings emphasise just how elegant those structures are (or were). The modelling is meticulous as ever! What type of 3D printing method do you use - filament or resin?

The National Archives site is better for providing the info you require to preserve your document, especially the link to the British Library in 'Caring for archives'

My preservation suggestion would be to try The British Museum James

I feel this is a bit grandmother and egg sucking tutorial, but… You could try talking to your local reference library, records office or what ever name they are currently going by. Or, if you have access to your local university libary they should be able to help. If they can't help personally they will certainly be able to point you in the right direction. Alternatively try the record office in the area of the railway concerned, who would probaly be even more interested. You might also try the Science Museum in London, or the Railway Museum in York? It's often a good idea to go straight to the top guys. A Gofundme in the area concerned might produce the cash?

Those drawings are something special. Given that I have absolutely no knowledge in that area, I can only imagine professional advice being the better answer - unless you have an interest in getting a book preservation apprenticeship under your belt along with all your other skills 😉 And to tackle a unique 100+ year old book as a first project 😉 Scanning - either with appropriate scanning equipment or photographic stitching will, of course, enable you to use and/or share the content on a more day to day basis, although it wouldn’t _feel_ the same. It would also distort the drawings, without some very clever software, which would lose some of the engineering value if they’re scale drawings - but then again, so would having them disintegrate. If I had documents of such an age I such deteriorating condition, I’d also be concerned that the deterioration is an ongoing process without something to arrest it… I’d worry about whether or not time was on my side. But I imagine you’ve already thought of all these things anyway 😊 Loving all I’ve seen in your videos - some great design skills demonstrated from a different perspective to many railway modelling material. Thank you!

I'm a bit late to the party, but have you tried contacting the Midland railway society? They ought to have an archive with proper controlled storage etc, or know where to go.

Hi there what a fantastic document I'm just an electrician that plays with model trains. I think that before you start to preservation you photograph everything to the best of your abilities so that if you have any problems with the restoration you have a full record of the original status of the book. Which could be part of a digital archive. All the best

2:00-2:05 some (rather expensive) publishers still do those coloured thick papers in. Preserve the book *for use* by digital photography from stright above, as fare as I know Bibliothèque nationale de France did this with alot/all of their books as it´s milder then scanning. Better wear gloves, as sweat is corrosive. 7:35 that footbridge ironwork style look very british to me. 18:50 yep, some nice piping work to be done there. 19:10 that is, one of the reasons, why we (the viewers) warned you about OO. 20:30 (+25:00) cylinders (and valve gear) inside the frame, very british. Even if you get it printed well, may rethink of doing the frame and boiler out of brass -> better live span and you need some wights for good running characteristics anyway. Till next time

Thank you for another informative video, would be great if you could produce a tutorial on the CAD side of things, 3d printing has so much potential

Dear Sir, Are we seeing the demise of models manufacturers? Would they become providers of parts 3D printers can't produce? How long till a home metal depositing 3D printer? Interesting times. Cheers from Brazil! Painting would be the next step in this technology? P.S. I love old books, papers and drawings. A Gamma ray treatment would eliminate fungi and bacteria from the paper, preventing further damage from biological sources. This is done to surgical material, seeds and artworks. Once that done, restoration could begin.

I had to look at some drawings for some London Underground signalling equipment a few years. They dated from 1908 and were blueprints, a large linen page covered in blue wax with the wax removed when a line was drawn on the page.

Wow! You have your own make-up artist now! All that's missing is your very publicly reported and outrageous demands for millions per episode! I love your book of drawings. Somewhat envious if I'm honest.

Hi James. How about contacting The Repair Shop a TV programme