3d Printing

I am certainly no expert on 3D printing, but the things you can do with this technology are endless and mind boggling. To me, it is a simple as it gets, you make a drawing, send it to the printer, in my case Shapeways.com, and they send you the part. Below is my first attempt. I drew the bench full scale, and then scaled it down to HO scale. Obviously, you can scale it to what ever you want, so if someone wanted this in O scale, I would just resize the drawing and submit it to the printer. I first drew one bench, the added enough to do what I needed, which was six. I sent the

drawings to shapeways.com and this what they sent me. Shapeways has a setup charge and then charges per cubic centimeter of material used. They have many different plastics and other materials to choose from. These benches were made with the Frosted Ultra Detail material http://www.shapeways.com/materials/frosted_detail . It will allow a minimum wall thickness of .03 mm, or a little more than an inch in HO scale. I primed them, and painted them. When finished, I installed them in the HOn30 passenger car they were designed for. Obviously they could be used for many purposes, church pews, etc.

If you don't get it, what 3D printers will do, check out this video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jQ-aWFYT_SU

I have received my next batch of projects, and I in the process of painting them. Here are drawing of the next items. This is a hand operated hoist, based on one that was on the Milwaukee Road in Chillicothe, MO. The top piece is made to slide on to Evergreen brand 1/4" I-Beam. In other words, each of these pieces is barely over 1/4" in size. The prototype is a chain hoist, but because no one makes scale chain small enough for this project, I will be using thread to represent cable in place of the chain. I will be able to use chain in a couple places, but not all.

Next I have dump truck bed based on a 1942 IH design. I ordered this in Black Detail, with a minimum wall thickness of 1 mm, so some of the finer details did not print. I will have pictures of these ready to post this weekend, I hope.

The next item is a Capstan Winch Car Puller. On the chance that you don't know what a car puller is, well check out page 4 and page 16 at this link. http://www.laffeyequipment.com/1824_railcar&bargehandlingbrochure.pdf I have modeled all three pieces, and, again, should have pictures of the final product up this weekend.

Oh no, more vehicles

I thought this was a model RAILROAD blog. Where is the railroad?

What can I say, the next batch of pictures to work their way to the top does not have any railroad items. They are all HO scale, so they are scenery.


This is a 1946 International, from Greg's Garage. These are out of production one piece solid resin castings.

1948 Ford Coupe, a Magnuson one piece resin casting.

I kitbashed the water truck from a Roco military tank truck and a Greg's Garage 1947 International truck.

1942 Buick from Stoney Mountain. Another solid resin casting. The one piece resin vehicles are easy to work with and cheap, but the detail is just not there, and can't be. To use them in a scene, they have to be in the back ground most of the time, or certainly not the focal point.

GHQ Low Boy trailer with a Woodland Scenics dozer load. These are both cast metal kits, and have nice detail. Unlike the resin cast kits above, these make great fore ground models, and are not that hard to assemble.

This 1940's Autocar cab is a Greg's Garage casting that I married to a Magnuson tanker body.

I am working on some 3D printed items, and should have them ready to blog about by next week.

Call it a comeback

My oldest, Jason, posted to his blog, http://jasonahurley.wordpress.com/2012/02/11/dont-call-it-a-comeback/ , which prompted me to get back to mine. This is my first full day off after working 26 in a row. Really the first day I have spent model railroading in more than a month.

Here are some pictures of a couple of HON30 flat cars, one with stake pockets, and one with out. These were kits that came with cast metal frames and laser cut decks. I added a few details, like the Grandt Line turnbuckles, and the stirrups are not the ones supplied with the kit. There was a gentleman on the HON30 Yahoo list that was selling these, and they were an easy build.

I am working on a gas station diorama, that will include a used car lot with a junkyard in the back. Below is a casting from Stoney Mountain. I started a little weathering and rusting ahead of installing it in the scene.

This is the first rolling stock I have lettered for the Kansas City, Fort Smith and Gulf railroad. This little caboose is kitbashed based on a PRR prototype. As I recall, it is a Bachman underframe and a Roundhouse body, with the body shortened. The roof is made from sheet styrene.


I would end this like Jason ended his entry, " have a Peachy day", but I don't care for Peaches, so it just doesn't sound good to me. Hopefully my next entry will be in a week or so, instead of a couple months.