RMweb Gold 2mmMark Posted July 8, 2017 RMweb Gold Share Posted July 8, 2017 Are you finding 3d printing good enough for steel constructed wagons? It's pretty good now for wood construction* but I'm wondering if large flat surfaces will still highlight any striations. *provided Shapeways print and check the damn things properly! Mark Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Higgs Posted July 8, 2017 Author Share Posted July 8, 2017 Are you finding 3d printing good enough for steel constructed wagons? It's pretty good now for wood construction* but I'm wondering if large flat surfaces will still highlight any striations. *provided Shapeways print and check the damn things properly! Mark Generally I think it is smooth enough on flat surfaces provided you use the highest spec Shapeways do (extreme fine detail). After their price restructuring, EFD costs hardly any more for these wagons than FUD. On a wagon like this it's also not too difficult to give the sides a polish with a fibreglass brush or similar as there are no rivets in the way and most surfaces are accessable. I'm waiting to see how my GW tenders turn out, the welded ones will be easy to polish if needed, the rivetted less so. Chris Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Higgs Posted September 30, 2017 Author Share Posted September 30, 2017 *provided Shapeways print and check the damn things properly! Mark Everyone who prints FUD or similar at Shapeways needs to find the 3D-print orientation button and use the support material viewer to understand where they are going to get rough surfaces. Chris 1 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Higgs Posted November 25, 2017 Author Share Posted November 25, 2017 (edited) Are you finding 3d printing good enough for steel constructed wagons? It's pretty good now for wood construction* but I'm wondering if large flat surfaces will still highlight any striations. *provided Shapeways print and check the damn things properly! Mark You can judge for yourself. Here are some shots of my BR Anhydrite wagon print. You can see the layering, and it more prominent on the sloping faces, that is down to there being support material there for the underframe (it prints upside down). If I do the underframe separately then the slopes will be smoother, however then I won't be able to do those support stanchions at then end because they are too fragile. Decisions, decisions... Edited November 25, 2017 by Chris Higgs Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guy Rixon Posted November 25, 2017 Share Posted November 25, 2017 The headstock and end supports on the hopper have been printed with a "checkerplate" pattern. When this happened on one of my prints I queried it and Shapeways acknowledged it as a printer problem and gave me my money back. I did find that the pattern could be scraped off successfully with a knife. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold 2mmMark Posted December 7, 2017 RMweb Gold Share Posted December 7, 2017 You can judge for yourself. Here are some shots of my BR Anhydrite wagon print. You can see the layering, and it more prominent on the sloping faces, that is down to there being support material there for the underframe (it prints upside down). If I do the underframe separately then the slopes will be smoother, however then I won't be able to do those support stanchions at then end because they are too fragile. Decisions, decisions... DSCF2909.JPG DSCF2910.JPG DSCF2911.JPG Clearly the potential is there but for me, that kind of surface finish is unacceptable, however cheap (or in Shapeway's case, expensive) the prints are. The French metre gauge items I obtained were much better than this, albeit on the replacement printing. It illustrates what I find so frustrating about 3D printing. Akin to producing a beautifully crafted document on screen when you've only got a 9 pin dot matrix for the end result. Mark Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Higgs Posted December 7, 2017 Author Share Posted December 7, 2017 (edited) Clearly the potential is there but for me, that kind of surface finish is unacceptable, however cheap (or in Shapeway's case, expensive) the prints are. The French metre gauge items I obtained were much better than this, albeit on the replacement printing. It illustrates what I find so frustrating about 3D printing. Akin to producing a beautifully crafted document on screen when you've only got a 9 pin dot matrix for the end result. Mark I must admit, when I come to look at the actual model, I cannot even see most of these lines with the naked eye. Must be getting old. I have redesigned the model with the solebar separate, and I think this will make the worst sections on the slopes much better, and also easier to get to to sand down. Plus painting it will be simpler. 3D printing is still going to a whole lot quicker than building 20 of these from an etch, even without factoring in that I have to design and test build that etch in the first place. Chris Edited December 7, 2017 by Chris Higgs Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold 2mmMark Posted December 8, 2017 RMweb Gold Share Posted December 8, 2017 That's a fair point. I'm in a different ball park in that I don't want or need block trains and am more interested in having smaller numbers of higher quality models. Building a 20 wagon hopper train would tax my patience, so I'm in awe of the determination shown by the Fencehouses team. Mind you, cleaning up 20 substandard prints will also be time consuming and the results probably disappointing. Now that there is an adaptable and inexpensive 6.5mm gauge chassis on the near horizon, there's a range of French autorails on Shapeways which I find attractive. Smoothing down those wouldn't be too bad. Mark Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Higgs Posted December 8, 2017 Author Share Posted December 8, 2017 That's a fair point. I'm in a different ball park in that I don't want or need block trains and am more interested in having smaller numbers of higher quality models. Building a 20 wagon hopper train would tax my patience, so I'm in awe of the determination shown by the Fencehouses team. Mind you, cleaning up 20 substandard prints will also be time consuming and the results probably disappointing. Now that there is an adaptable and inexpensive 6.5mm gauge chassis on the near horizon, there's a range of French autorails on Shapeways which I find attractive. Smoothing down those wouldn't be too bad. Mark I'll have to see how the second go looks. On the end shot you can clearly see the parts of the sloped sections that had support wax on them for the underframe and the smoother left and right edges where that was not present. Having bought Bill Blackburn's air compressor and airbrush I should also resolve to use them. But I persist with using a can of Halford's primer instead, which as a substitute seems to work rather better on Gauge 1 models than it does in 2mm scale. I think some of the rough finish is down to this. Chris Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bécasse Posted December 8, 2017 Share Posted December 8, 2017 I persist with using a can of Halford's primer, which as a substitute seems to work rather better on Gauge 1 models than it does in 2mm scale. I think some of the rough finish is down to this. I wonder whether you have a rogue tin - or nozzle? I have used Halford's primer, some quite old, on tiny O14 industrial models (which, despite the hugely greater scale, don't bulk out much bigger than most 2FS models) and am always surprised how well it goes on without hiding fine detail (or, sadly, some slightly less than perfect workmanship). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Higgs Posted December 8, 2017 Author Share Posted December 8, 2017 I wonder whether you have a rogue tin - or nozzle? I have used Halford's primer, some quite old, on tiny O14 industrial models (which, despite the hugely greater scale, don't bulk out much bigger than most 2FS models) and am always surprised how well it goes on without hiding fine detail (or, sadly, some slightly less than perfect workmanship). No I just find it difficult to even hit the target and if I do, I end up putting far too much on. Plus if you don;t have a tight hold on the model the pressure of the paint tends to blow the model away! Chris Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
bécasse Posted December 8, 2017 Share Posted December 8, 2017 No I just find it difficult to even hit the target and if I do, I end up putting far too much on. Plus if you don;t have a tight hold on the model the pressure of the paint tends to blow the model away! Chris Many years ago Roy Link came up with the bright idea of soldering 4 lengths of brass wire into a rather shorter length of brass tube, the diameter of the brass wire varying with the scale/bulk of the model to be held. The wire is splayed out slightly, with the ends bent over outwards a few mm and sprung into the axle bearing cups of the model (obviously without the wheels fitted). The brass tube can be held (preferably in a rubber-gloved hand) or inserted into a suitable hole drilled in a block of wood, and the ensemble holds the model to be painted without impeding the paint spray. The raw materials are cheap enough to enable one to make up several holders if one is batch building - and painting. Otherwise it is just down to practice, although it can help considerably to have several spot lights focussed on the model so that one can readily see how much paint is actually going on the model, and getting the spraying distance right is probably the most crucial thing. Try clipping up a sheet of paper and spraying that so that you can see how the spray pattern works for varying distances - then apply those lessons to spraying the model. Making several light passes is often recommended but most times I manage with a single pass; if I know I am going to be using the several light passes technique (on an intricate model for example), then I use both red and grey sprays, alternating for each pass, as this enables one to readily see the coverage being attained each time. Red as the top (or only) undercoat can be very useful for locomotives or wagons that are to have a "dusted rust" on black finish. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris Higgs Posted February 4, 2018 Author Share Posted February 4, 2018 (edited) I must admit, when I come to look at the actual model, I cannot even see most of these lines with the naked eye. Must be getting old. I have redesigned the model with the solebar separate, and I think this will make the worst sections on the slopes much better, and also easier to get to to sand down. Plus painting it will be simpler. 3D printing is still going to a whole lot quicker than building 20 of these from an etch, even without factoring in that I have to design and test build that etch in the first place. Chris The new version of the Anhydrite body is better now that the chassis is done separately. Still clearly in need of some smoothing, but it is all in positions now easily reachable. The big red polishing brush lurks in the background... Edited February 4, 2018 by Chris Higgs 2 Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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