18 November 2025

Strange day ... started by taking the large bed support off the 3D printer. It finished over night so not quite the 26 hours quoted. I then had a phone call from the roofing contractor to meet around the garage in 5 minutes! Quick grab of coat and shoes and brisk walk around, and I was waling down towards the garage as they drove down. Bottom line, the roof panels need replacing due to cracking, but they are asbestos, so not a simple rip off job, and they will need the garage cleared before they touch them. That could be helpful as I've already moved more stuff here and the remaining kit is going down nicely. May be the drive to simply give up the lease as having emptied it, do I need to go back ... in which case does the roof need replacing? Nothing is easy.

There are scheduled appointments for the call alarm and fire alarms booked in as well so I needed to get back quickly. In the end the call alarm service arrived at mid day, but I'm still awaiting on the fire alarm and I need to get out to finish my walk!

In the meantime I've been successful in producing the missing flange for the Marble Run drive. Getting FreeCAD to play ball was as bad as I remember and I've probably done the 2D drawings too many times, but I now have a better understanding of where I've been going wrong in the past, and have an STL model which Cura was happy with and it took around 15 minutes to actually print. It's a little rough and the second print is cleaner, but they key thing seems to be to use a good needle file rather than the sanding block to tidy up. Next step I think is to follow some of the tutorials for the more complex models I would like to make. It is a little annoying that the source files for the FreeCAD model of the traction engine are not around. I have line drawings of how far I'd progressed with it, but none of the FreeCAD files on the machines I still have access to. Starting again from scratch may not be a silly idea anyway and no rush to add to the work load.

Still keep hitting small roadblocks. I've stopped assembly because I need some wax to lubricate the various parts. Not something that is 'in stock' and finding a suitable one is proving difficult. I did pick up some candles, but the wax is rather too hard and I need the same sort of paste wax that is used in the american build video, but £30 seems a little steep. Even £10 is more than I'd like to spend, but can't find anything cheaper even on-line, and none of the local shops have anything. I've also damaged one of the top right wheels which carries the balls. The MDF really is crumbling in places but I'll package up the parts I need and run another set to build a replacement!