Garden Railway Forum

I remember when watching Star Trek as a kid I used to marvel at the idea of a replicator. Whilst not being the Trekkies dream a 3d printer goes some way towards the goal of a working replicator. I am fortunate as a teacher of product design, I have access to a number of CAM machines, one of which is a 3d printer. I had a couple of ideas in my head on how to use it in relation to garden railways. Anyway to cut a long story short I came across a website called Thingiverse. Here you can find STL files for all sorts of things ready to download and print using the 3d printer. Amongst these model I found a Hudson Tipper. The bucket is printing as I am typing, frame and othe parts will be done tomorrow. The downloaded model comes in 45mm but can be easily modded to 32mm for my railway.
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Print now finished, need to remove the support material next, quite pleased with the result so far.

That's looking good,

Support material broke away easily. This is the raw finish, I will probably give it the once over with some wet and dry before priming it. I will try and print the frame today.

Was wondering how long it would be before somebody started doing designs for 16mm scale rolling stock to be 3D printed. The results look pretty good, looks like the surface finish is a bit better then I would have expected for a Fused Deposition Modelling machine.

laalratty:100830 wrote:Was wondering how long it would be before somebody started doing designs for 16mm scale rolling stock to be 3D printed. The results look pretty good, looks like the surface finish is a bit better then I would have expected for a Fused Deposition Modelling machine.

Are you aware of PVMR?  http://www.pvmr.co.uk/home/4578077269 You wouldn't have seen his stuff at Peterborough......................

I was talking to PVMR at Peterborough and he uses a different type of printing - he told us he uses a dutch company who (basically) have a bucket of dust and fire a laser into it, hardening the dust into a solid. It means virtually everything can be created in on printing Quite a good idea really!

Thanks for the PVMR link Brian, the Peterborough display stand has given me some ideas for forthcoming scenic work...

I've built a couple of PVMR slate waggons and reckon they're pretty good, that tipper looks most interesting too.

Cheers,

Andrew,

MDLR:100832 wrote:

laalratty:100830 wrote:Was wondering how long it would be before somebody started doing designs for 16mm scale rolling stock to be 3D printed. The results look pretty good, looks like the surface finish is a bit better then I would have expected for a Fused Deposition Modelling machine.

Are you aware of PVMR?  http://www.pvmr.co.uk/home/4578077269 You wouldn't have seen his stuff at Peterborough......................

Strange, I put a reply to this yesterday... I've got two PVMR slate waggons, however he manufactures his own kits, whereas I believe this is the first time to my knowledge that someone has put a design on the internet to be printed out at home.

Printed the frame and hubs yesterday, here is the progress so far.

I must say that this looks excellent. However........what is the cost of the material relative to say buying an injection moulded kit? I know its not all about cost but I did just wonder.

Whilst on the material how well do you think it will take paint and will the wheels be too soft for much running?

The cost of the machines seem to be coming down, there was one in my local Officeworks at about $1300 the other day, which I think compares favorably with a small format laser cutter.

robc_wa:100871 wrote:I must say that this looks excellent.  However........what is the cost of the material relative to say buying an injection moulded kit?  I know its not all about cost but I did just wonder.

Whilst on the material how well do you think it will take paint and will the wheels be too soft for much running?

The cost of the machines seem to be coming down, there was one in my local Officeworks at about $1300 the other day, which I think compares favourably with a small format laser cutter.

Cost of the material ABS in this case was £13 for a KG of filament so quite a few wagons. ABS takes paint well and can also be fettled with files or wet and dry. In terms of wheels I will either use steel ones from Swift Sixteen or Resin from Andel. Not convinced that ABS will up to the job of wheels. Just for reference there is a Kickstarter 3D printer about to come out at $100!!