LBSC's Designs

Just looking at my posting, I see that I have missed mentioning a potential "Grey area".

Some 3Dviewers, such as Solidworks eDrawings viewer allow you to measure dimensions directly off the model. So some care would be needed when deciding how the models are to be displayed online.

Ron

Pragmatically if several firms have the right to distribute the drawings, they will never know whose you have used to build your 3D models.
If you're not selling the CAD files I can't see there is an issue, the purpose of buying plans is to create a model after all.
​If you do want to sell the CAD files, why not do a deal with Kennions or Reeves etc so they get a cut. They must be aware that one can copy paper drawings for £1 a sheet, so will probably be open to a way of them making some money.

Finally, if you do go ahead, and I hope you do, probably best not to go into detail with boiler construction, things have moved on a lot in the interim

Good morning all,

What an interesting thread.

I cannot add to the copyrights issue except to say in the past many of the early LBSC designs, the drawings of which, were either drawn or LBSC's originals redrawn by Roy Donaldson and marketed by Donaldson and Piper, which I seem to think may have been sold on to the then A J Reeves; I have a set of Jennie Deans drawings on which the Donaldson and Piper reference has been lined through and the A J Reeves reference applied.

Interestingly, Kennions redrew many of the LBSC designs, which may have been a result of a copyright issue. I have here copies for Molly drawn by both the then publisher Percival Marshall's own tracer and Kennions.

In view of the impending anniversary of the old fella's death there may be an opportunity for the present Model Engineer to publish a special LBSC edition.

Regards'

Bob

Hello everyone,

Thank you so much for the insight on this matter, and I apologize if I have not been responding as much as would be desired- I still have a metric ton of work waiting for me from my clients here in the US.

I think that the best bet would be create the drafts (which will naturally all be slightly different, my version, Kennions, etc.) and find out if I would be in the clear some how through the legal system once I am completed with my drawings. By the legal system I mean the British one. If I find out that a version of the design that I have made is not going to cause any copyright issues or legal problems, then it would simply be a matter of finding a way for them to be made available to people in the UK.

At the bare minimum a museum of 3D renderings like I posted earlier would be interesting I think, with a little bit of information posted about each design. If I could have it where the designs were available for people to purchase, that would be wonderful. I'm not looking to profit off of this frankly. Now with a CNC mill/lathe in hand, this could get VERY interesting, but I haven't any organs I can sell- so I would have to count that one out.

Currently I am awaiting a copy of "LBSC His Life and Locomotives" to arrive, I am told that it has a complete listing of all his locomotives that he designed, I figure that would give me at least a handy list to go off of.

If in the total count of his locomotives it includes variants (meaning several different versions of the Tich, two Virginias etc.) then I have a feeling this project won't be nearly as bad as I thought, the worst that could happen is I am wrong about the locomotive count and find myself tied to a computer until my sanity or the computer fails.

I might also need some of the more... incomplete parts of his drawings clarified- it would be especially helpful if it came from people that had built the model.

Thank you!
-Dean

Having sat down and thought about this a little (I have been on night shift at work, my brain right now is running on coffee, cat naps and a shred of optimism) here's what I should have mentioned in my previous post I cannot edit for some reason:

Outcomes (from most likely to least likely)
1. 3D renderings on a website/in a forum while they are being completed
2. Archive of the original articles from which ever publication they came from made available
3. New design drafts made available
4. Publication into a book form of sorts- similar I would hope to the Kozo Hiraoka series of books, except where it would be a few of Curly's designs per book. This is what I would consider ideal, a hard bound series of this sorts. I'm not holding my breath though.
5. Some how a CNC mill and lathe combo mysteriously appear in my garage, and I am able to start building these wonderful models. I consider that so far fetched I wouldn't even count on that happening- ever.

If you are interested in lending a hand in some way shape or form, please send me a message on here. If you have scanned some of Curly's articles and would like to send me copies digitally or magazines that has Curly's designs in them, that would be outstanding.

Regarding portions of the designs being out of date- I would rather draft that and have people omit it than omit it entirely. For example, in my situation here in the US, if I were to build something of Curly's which was generally updated in a better manner in the UK, chances are excellent I might not ever know because of either not knowing the design was that bad in the first place or the fact I live in Nearly Mexico (Yuma) Arizona.

If I had to chose only a certain gauge of models (or gauges) to draft again, it would likely be the models from 2 1/2" gauge on down. The larger gauges of models seem to be well preserved and have plans readily available, while the 2 1/2" gauge on down models do not seem to share that fortune- despite from what I can tell representing the bulk of Curly's work.

Once I have "LBSC His Life and Locomotives" in hand, I can really get a better idea of what I am up against.

On a lighter note, here's a Cracker.

Hello Dean

It is very interesting and if You have not seen it ,there can be some help here:

**LINK**

Is it part of Your plan to sell or give away 3D files and in what format?

Kind regards

I assume you know of LBSC's book 'Shop, Shed and Road'? It contains some photos of some of his designs. It does not contain build instructions for any complete locos, but it does deal with his standard fittings and approach to design and construction, including: injectors, pumps, gauges, whistles, safety valves, releif valves and snifting valves, motion work, lubricators, North-Eastern compounds and Mini-steam engines.

First published in 1929, the version I have is the 1969 version edited by the late Martin Evans.

There is also the book 'MONA: A simple 0-6-2 tank engine' by LBSC. That has drawings and build instructions for MONA in 3&1/2 and 1&1/4 inch versions.

The Gauge 1 Model Railway Association members are familiar with LBSC's gauge 1 designs

www.g1mra.com

You may also be interested in the copyright position stated here:

http://www.john-tom.com/html/LBSCEngines.html

What would be of tremendous interest to me would be new sets of drawings, updated to reflect modern safety standards (boilers etc), and dimensioned primarily in metric units. If you want the designs to live on, that's the way to go, IMHO.

Your CAD approach is the right one, I think, especially as it would allow easy transfer of the drawings from CAD to CAM and CNC with little effort.

Marcus

but Dean is from the USofA, that last bastion of Imperial measurements

Sorry, I'll take the dog out

That's alright sir, I've put them both out this morning. My male was a bit more stubborn than the female was. I don't think it would be TOO much of a problem to convert to metric, but I haven't the slightest idea on how the newer boiler designs would be done. Then again, I have a love hate with metric- it makes a lot more sense at times to use (especially concerning fasteners) but then at others I catch myself thinking "what the heck is this? Why can't XYZ in imperial have a nice round number in metric?!?"

I honestly am still scratching my head a little on how I am going to proceed with this. I'm hoping that maybe an established business in the U.K. in the world of model engineering would want to sell the designs- I really honestly don't care too terribly much about the money.

For what it's worth my machines are imperial. Curiously I own an American live steam pioneer's (Francis Moseley) personal milling machine. The same machine he invented the power feed for originally, as well as the DRO- the items the fine folks at Servo Products would go on to produce. Literally power feed number one that ever existed (the electric type that bolts to the table) was made on and for my milling machine in the previous owners hands. I joked once I only need Curly's Myford 7 and I'd have a machine tool museum.

If a club has a lot of the material for the models of a certain gauge (if not all) I'd do it for them no problem, I would actually love to see clubs maintaining this material to enjoy. If there are any typos in here I'm sorry, this was done on an iPhone.

I've actually seen the 2 1/2" gauge association website before. The fact they have Curly's "Ayesha" from the boiler wars almost makes them the bearers of the holy grail- at least in the live steam context.

I'm curious how incomplete some of these drawings are- if by incomplete they mean it's the articles with out proper drafts (draughts? I need to put my computer's spell check on proper English) but it has the little bits from the magazine I'm sure I could manage. Granted, I might need drawings of the prototype or some input on finishing up the CAD files.

Being the perfectionist I am there is nothing that makes me more uneasy than having to guess at what I am drafting because the originals are missing dimensions. Especially with Curly's work. When I'm at my computer again I'll cite some examples that made me wonder a bit about his drafts.

Dean;

Just a comment from a northern neighbour of yours. These are just thoughts, and the only arguing about them I'll do is in person over a pint of beer.

My Tich was built in inch measurements, but when moving about NZ and Europe, most everything was metric, as was a lathe I picked up while living in NL.

I converted, it was tough at the first, but became really easy.

Now, I convert inch plans to metric before machining, even if I'm doing CNC, as, for me, metric is just so much easier.

I'm surprised how Model Engineer has adopted metric, it's no where near 100%, but it was about 0% a decade or two ago.

Building metric in an inch country; most all of my materials now come in inch form, but a 1/2" round bar of brass I use as 12.7mm, etc, etc.

I can remember trying to buy a BA tap when living in NL, and I have the same issue back here. Metric is pretty universal; yes there are some thread pitch differences in older country-specific metric tables, but it is really as close to a world standard.

Kids know metric. In the USA, most of the fasteners on 3D printers are metric, as are the spools of filament. Cars are metric, etc, etc.

I'd love a little CNC Sherline lathe, but the one major item for me is that the fasteners are NOT metric, so it means yet another bunch of taps/dies/spare screws; like the Whitworth and BA screws on two of my British made machine tools, it is a hassle I don't want.

What you choose to do is TOTALLY up to you, and the inch (english, imperial, whatever you wish to call it) system works very well, but the world seems to be adopting metric, so your re-drawing to metric may prove to be more popular in the future, and maybe the "defacto" go-to for accurate LBSC drawings.

(BTW, should anyone complain, right now we have a partial solar eclipse going on, so, rather than fire back vitrol, just shake your head at the poor Canadian, and blame the "Eclipse Madness"

The 2 1/2" gauge association had Ayesha on show at The Bristol Model Engineering show last weekend. The show theme was the LBSC 50th anniversary:

More unusually, Greenly's rival Loco was also on show, on a different stand:

Cheers,

Rod

Folks,

I'll have a post for you soon- a good long one. LBSC His Life and Locomotives arrived earlier than I hoped, and it's I think provided me with all the direction I needed for this project. I hope. 

-Dean

Edited By Dean da Silva on 23/08/2017 05:12:08

Design rights are different to copyright. Copyright only covers the documentation of a design so should be no problem. Design rights in the UK are a recent thing see **LINK**

Russell

There's a UK copyright wiki here

As promised, I'm back with a longer post- with more info.

Having had my mind warped from the tender age of 18 until I was 26 by the US military, here it is in the most... direct manner I can think of.

Positives:

1. A number of the designs are either rescaled versions of other designs, altered versions of other designs, or share parts with other designs, etc. Saves me time drafting!
2. Curly was NOT a rivet counter, or a spoke counter, or anything of the sort in a rubberized parka scrutinizing minutiae of a models realism. In a way, it would be almost the opposite of Curly to become wrapped around the axle about a set of wheels being exactly 100% prototypical and to scale. At least from what I can tell.
3. British locomotives are A LOT easier to draw in CAD. No bells, "cow catchers", big boxy head lights, super complex domes-just nice sleek, refined, elegance.
4. There is a LOT of variety in his locomotive line, the fact that he made a steam powered diesel in this era where I see electric powered steam engines is pure comedic gold, it's on par with two gentlemen in years past that lampooned diesel owners by putting a lawnmower on flanged wheels an running it around the Los Angeles Live Steamers club track.
5. So far, even if I have been doing little drafting and a lot of research on model steam engines, I am having a lot of fun at this!

Negatives
1. I really don't like seeing vague drawings, or when I follow drawings the math doesn't quite come out right, case in point on the Dot, the radii for the pilot wheels at .75" at the location mentioned in the drawings left .985" between them instead of 1". While that seems little and silly, I am a perfectionist, and it DOES bother me.
2. There is no accounting for how many steam powered models he actually designed. Why do I say steam powered models rather than locomotives? I found a crane. A fire truck. A steam whistle. Only Curly and God knows what else I'll find.
3. A lot of locomotives have had their names changed, used different names, etc. Prime example: "A Six Year Old's 4F" is actually listed as "FIRS 245". I'm pretty sure that the Mona is going to be interesting, as I have heard of them existing in gauge 1, 2.5" gauge, and 3.5" gauge, and that Curly designed ANOTHER locomotive that was very similar to the Mona in many respects- which could have been relabeled as a Mona variant.
4. There are some of his locomotives (this is the worst of it) that really never were. Case in point, Hollywood Annie. I am frankly really nervous about trying to bring them to life, as I don't want to botch this project.
5. Did I mention that I am going to have to scour eBay for magazines that are as old as my grandmother and have them sent across the Atlantic to a place covered in sand dunes, tumbleweeds, and cacti?

Now the fun part....
If you feel so inclined to scan copies of the articles, send copies of articles, send magazines that contain Curly's work in them which ever order I receive them in, I shall draft them in. I'll also be sure to dedicate the designs contributed to me to the people that contributed them to me, and hopefully find some way to repay the generosity extended in helping me with this massive undertaking. It would mean the world to me to finish this to the best of my ability for model engineers the world over to enjoy, and I cannot thank anyone who has lent a hand (even in the form of advise) to me enough.

Thank you, I cannot express my gratitude enough, and if I tried writing it I'm afraid I would bore you.
Plus I am a terrible writer.

For being willing to read my terrible writing, here is an exploded view of the Allen Models Chloe I did for fun.

Dean, can I ask what experience you have in building and designing steam locos? My reason for asking is that by adding in the bits LBSC left out, correcting errors, maybe converting to metric then testing them on a Solidworks model is one thing but you will in effect be drawing an untested design which may not work in the real world or be as efficient as it could be.

As an example there is another chap who has redrawn a lot of small engines and a few locos and traction engines in cad, converting to metric as he does so. It all goes together on his cad assemblies but in some cases what is drawn just cannot be built or has some very impractical sizes, missing or hard to work out dimensions, etc.

So unless an example has been built to this revised design how will anyone know it is going to work?

Regarding your comment about the detail on LBSC's designs they were built to be practical to run not display case replicas and it took someone with many years of designing engines to know what could be made to work in the smaller scales and what should be left out. Had he been making 7.25" locos then I'm sure he could have counted the rivits.

My 2cents would be

Do one CAD to completion and see what the pitfalls and issues are, instead of 26 at the same time

Dean,

Diane and I think the principle fo this is great and we would be happy for you to make 3D models of any designs we have the rights to and put something like interactive 3D PDFs or similar of them this website.

The problem is that it is proving almost impossible to identify which, if any, LBSC designs MTM still own the rights to; MyTimeMedia sold all its plans (except the Martin Evans plans, which MTM definitely own the rights for) to Traplet, Traplet have passed those on to Sarik Hobbies www.sarikhobbies.com/

There are also, of course, various designs Curly produced for other magazines than ME and associated Percival Marshal titles whose rights are (probably) owned elsewhere.

We think it would be best to avoid publishing full drawings in CAD format, but we could host CAD models here if:

• They were designs published in ME or English Mechanics.
• There's no sign of anyone else selling the design commercially.
• They go with a disclaimer saying that if anyone has the rights to the design let us know and if it they wish us to take it down we will do so as ASAP.

This does put the onus on you to do a bit of research on each design.

I hope that helps a bit.

Neil

Neil,

You are confusing design rights with copyright. The plans and the "words and music" are covered by copyright which lasts a long time. However the design rights for unregistered designs are relatively short term and any rights that LBSC had will have expired by now. So anyone is allowed to copy the design but not the documentation.

Surely a 3D model is just an electronic copy of the design. If drawings are created from that they are not the same as the original plans.

I think you are worrying too much.

Russell