New high quality 3D printing models from Ferro3D

A new railway model accessories shop is born in Spain. It's name is Ferro3D. I know the owner, Pedro, from many time ago. He is a passionate of railways and his personal works in his layout always stunned me.

I wanted many time ago to acquire a 3D printer to make my particular models and accessories like stone lamps, shinto gates, guts, pipes, .... possibilities are infinite. I was looking some of the cheap and common models like RepRap, Prusa or Kossel. But soon I realized it's not possible to have even a medium quality with this kind of printers and I would have to spend thousands of euros to have the desired quality.

Ferro3D is printing with those high quality and professional printers and can give even in N scale the best quality and precision.

First models to come to light have been buffers for N and HO scale, with many finishes and options. Take a look to the first one, with the concrete formwork finish:

I'm sure Ferro3D will have a great success with all models and accessories in which Pedro is working. His passion and eager to obtain perfect and realistic models for sure assure his company a long life. Keep an eye to the news of this page, I had to chance to look at some impressive models that will be launched soon.....

Hobby Center Kato Tokyo

Sorry for my delay writing new posts.... but I was in Japan!!!!  ;))

It's been an exciting and unforgettable trip, with all my family: fathers (first long trip), my sister and her husband, my little and pretty niece (just 18 months old), and my girlfriend.

But I took time for my hobby, and visited the recently reopened Kato Hobby Center and bought a lot of hobby stuff. Kato has built a new building in its old location, two floors full of layouts and hundreds of shelves with all their current and old models and any spare part you could need.

http://www.katomodels.com/shop/hctokyo_e.shtml

When I went there, just the 1:1 scale train of the front was covered and under renewal works.

This is the main layout in the entrance:

And the views from the stairs of the second floor:

And finally that's the huge layout of the second floor:

Now I don't remember all the stuff I bought there, but I got crazy taking scale people (workers, railway stuff, people in matsuri, ...), cars, buses, a container lifter, some old house models I was not able to find in other places and, of course, trains. I bought the N'EX, a stream D51 Hokkaido version, and some cheap EMUs from a discounted price section.

A must see spot if you go to Tokyo.

Train shops in Paris

I use to travel often to Paris because my sister lives there, and I found very interesting posts in Quinntopia about train shops in Paris, so I decided to follow that route and take a look:

Quinntopia Part 1: http://www.quinntopia.com/2010/08/paris-hobby-shops.html
Quinntopia Part 2: http://www.quinntopia.com/2011/06/paris-hobby-shops-part-2.html

The best thing is that the major part of train shops are concentrated in the same street, so you don't have to travel a lot to see all them. Taking the metro to Place de Clichy, go to Rue de Douai street and will see all store fronts one close to the other:

In that map from Quinntopia is clear the concentration of shops, just one important shop is distant from the others:

First on the right is "Les Cheminots". Particulary I liked very much this one because they have a lot of rolling stock in N and HO scale. Also there's a bargains vitrine, impossible to avoid buying something from.

In my first visit I took a chemical transportation tank from the old french company Rône-Poulenc at a bargain price, and the first set of the Venice Orient Express.

Yes, I collect japanese rolling stock.... but I love tank cars from all over the world, and the orient express is a jewel than once arrived to Japan... so why not??

This Arnold set is really wonderful, but I have to admit it doesn't move as smooth as other cars. May be is just a question of oil and roll on some minutes, but just putted on track it's not as smooth as expected.

Next to this shops you can also find Transmondia, Trans-Europ Trains and Decotrain. The first one is also focused on N scale, while the others are more focused on HO and O gauge. If you search for old O gauge trains, don't miss them. Transmondia also has a lot of Kato and Tomix articles.

In my second trip I was searching a cleaning vagon from Tomix, and the owner of "Les Cheminots" sent me directly to this shop. I found a special Tomix kit containing the cleaning car and also a wheel cleaning track. It seems a very good solution for cleaning wheels, not only of the locomotives, I'll write in a special post the tests. Finally I didn't bought only this Tomix set, but also the rest of Venice Orient Express set. Actually the second set consisting in two sleeping cars was out of production and sold out, but there's a 4 car set including the two cars from the old set.

I always miss more room in my suitcase coming back from Paris...

If you walk down to Rue de Amsterdan, there is another nice shop "Au Pullman". The storefront is decorated as a passenger car, and the quantity of rolling stock is also relevant.

And finally, I tried to go to OfferLine. It was my birthday and I wanted to have my own gift, but Saturdays is closed!!!! So I cannot write any review about this shop, but surely next time.

See you!!