Building Tenders

[cardean]

Hi folks,

A question on how to designate a tender in TSM.

In the project properties list of types you can only choose Locomotive, carriage or freight. Can someone tell me how to save a tender model as a tender and also how to close couple it to it's locomotive.

Cheers

John.

[ianmacmillan]

Make it Freight and edit the .wag file to Tender after you have converted it to MSTS.

To get the size line correct, measure the length from front headstock to rear buffer head.
Make a guide box the full width and hight and the measured length. Make the length 2 sections. Ensure the middle line of the box is on the origin.

Name the box Main texture it and convert it to MSTS with the name Guide.

This will give you a .wag file and .sd file with the correct size and bounding box lines. Use these in the final model.

Now rename the guide part and tick the Reference part only in the F2 properties window and build the complete tender inside the guide box.

The same method should be used for locos to ensure things like overhanging roofs are excluded from the calculated size and bounding box measurements.

One other tip for 6 wheel tenders is to make the first two wheels as a bogie and the other wheel as a single wheel bogie.
This will ensure all wheels are centred on the track.

[cardean]

Thanks for the reply Ian,

I'm a bit baffled by a couple of things though.

What should I rename the guide part as?

also you said I should texture this part, should I use the plan or something else?

John.

[ianmacmillan]

I thought TSM would object if you didn't rename it as Main but I've just tried making a default 20x20 box and converted it to MSTS and it produced a .wag, .sd and .s file.
The shape file lists the texture as blank.ace but for some reason it did not produce one.

So just name it Guide and don't bother texturing. You only need the .wag and .sd files anyway.

[cardean]

Cheers Ian,

I'll give it a bash and see how I get on

John.