Nirvana Valley Model Railroad

Monday, April 14, 2014

Bennington State Bank, Bennington MN in HO scale, 3d printed

It has been a while since my last post. Busy with work, and being sick for a week kind of cuts in to modeling time.

I ran across this old picture of a bank in Bennington Minnesota, and liked the look of it. It also seemed to be sized for a model railroad. I decided to draw the building and print a reasonable representation of the building.

Here is the building drawing, exploded and oriented for printing on the Afinia 3d printer.

As you can see in this screen shot of the printer software, the building takes up almost all of the printer table, easily the largest item I have printed. The walls alone took 6 hours and 39 minutes, and if you look closely, the one I printed does not have the bracing that is in the drawing above. After I did the initial print, I added bracing to the drawing to add strength to the walls, so next time I print it, it will take even longer to print.

The basic structure, primed. At this point I realized the walls were too flimsy, and so I added styrene strip bracing.

An in progress paint shot. The front wall top pieces have also been added. The section with the dental mould was printed separately, and inverted, to eliminate the need for support material in the 3d printing process.

Mortar and weathering added.

Several compromises were made to be able to accommodate the requirements of the 3d printer, but I feel it still captures the general look of the building.

I still need to add guttering to the back, and a chimney.

Sunday, March 30, 2014

3 for $4.00, HO Scale Economy Buildings, Amherst 2014, #4

I picked these three buildings up at the Amherst show out of a manufacturers reject box, as they are bad resin castings. I got all three for $4.00, just thought it looked like a deal. I basically have the three buildings ready to install on the layout, but they started out looking like this.

This building has no detail on one side, just a flat surface. Well, really not flat, slightly warped, it is a manufacturing second, but it has no detail, so I will but it up against another building or somehow hide that fact. Note that one face has a round top window and the opposite, has a square top...that is because one had a big air bubble, and to hide that, rather than fill it in, I just made the round top window be the front. The building is also out of square.

I designed and 3d printed the chimney, the wall cap, including making it out of square to fit, and all the windows and doors.

I might make this the office the Spiral Brothers Masonry Company.

I still need to add glass to the windows.

Sometimes I think I just take pictures to find the things I have forgotten. In this case, door knobs.

The front, to which I need to add a mail box.

Both cabins had lots of air bubbles, among many flaws. I brushed on a coat of Aileen's Tacky glue, to at least fill in the smaller holes.

The doors on both of the cabins measured about 8' tall, so maybe they were intended to be S scale? At the suggestion of a friend, I cut the bottom log off, and that made the doors about the right height.

This was probably the roughest of the three castings. The edges of the roof were missing. The cast on chimney was so bad, I cut it off, and designed and 3d printed a new one.

All things considered, they did not come out too bad, at least for $1.34 per building.

Sunday, March 23, 2014

Pool Tables, HO and O scale, Just for Giggles #5

I was contacted about the possibility of printing O scale pool tables. We corresponded, and decided on just making the table tops.

I designed the table top to have pockets that extend down below the table, depending on the type of base one is going to build. The pockets are the bumps to the upper right.

In this upside down view, the pockets have been glued in place.

After I printed the top on the left, it occurred to me that I should put some balls on the table, so I did.

I also scaled it down to HO scale, and added a commercial style base to one.

The top and bottom of the finished item.

I modeled the pool tables regulation size, 4-1/2' x 9', but they could be scaled to the 4' x 8' size, which is the most popular size.

Saturday, March 15, 2014

Pill Bottle Heisenberg Drug Store, 3D Printed Parts

When I posted the pictures of the Ice Cream store, (http://nvrr49.blogspot.com/2013/08/ice-cream-store-made-from-pill-bottle.html), made using a pill bottle, several people suggested the same basic idea could be used to make a drug store from a pill bottle.

To make the drug store, I used a much larger pill bottle, as I recall, 2-5/8" outside diameter. I first drew a cylinder in SketchUp, then just started adding pieces.

Here are the basic parts I ended up with. A recessed front door, large picture windows on the ground floor, and sliding windows for an apartment above, stairs to get to the apartment, and a sign board for the front of the store.

I laid out the pieces separately and oriented them for printing.

I printed the parts several times, making adjustments to get things to print correctly. Sometimes I am able to draw everything correctly, and size it so it prints right the first time, but sometimes not.

I think I adjusted the size and reprinted everything but the stairs on this project. Because the pill bottle is so tall, at least relative to HO scale, I felt I needed a second floor, which is why I added an apartment. The lid for this particular pill bottle, had a flip lid, and at the last minute, I decided to add a glass block skylight.

I drew half of it, copied, reversed it, and married the two parts together.

The I oriented in a way I thought it would print the best, and I added some support because of all the angles, I felt the support I designed would be better than that generated by the Afinia software.

And since I needed a name to put on my drug store, what bigger name is their in the drug business than Heisenberg?

Afters some trimming and filing, I installed the painted pieces in the pill bottle using thick CA.

I also printed a sidewalk to go around the building that will provide 12 parking stalls. I also printed a window to install on the back door to the drug store.

Thursday, March 6, 2014

Back Ground Building, Up and Down Outside Entry Stairs, Just for Giggles 4

I drive down I-35 here is beautiful KC all the time, and I always liked the lines of this building that backed up on the east side, just before the I-635 interchange. So one day I took the closest exit, pulled around behind the building, and took a couple pictures. I had been thinking about it for months, and the only reason I had not gotten pictures earlier was because I could not figure out how to orient it to 3d print it.

I wasn't trying to match it exactly, I just wanted to get the look, all those angles.

Here is my drawing, done in SketchUp.

This is what I came up with for orientation. Printing the building upside down generated lots of support for the roof, but none was needed for the lap siding, and it allowed the structure to be printed in one piece. The doors and windows were printed flat, except the glass block window, which was printed vertical.

Here is the main portion of the support material, oriented in the picture, just about like it would be under the drawing above.

I printed the glass block in clear resin, and the rest in natural. Currently, all I keep is clear, black and natural. Since I am going to paint most things, it does not make any since to have to cover a color, but there are a bunch of colors available. Here is a link to all the filament colors that are available at Afinia, https://store.afinia.com/Filament_c_12.html.

The shingles are printed on paper, as are the concrete blocks. I designed both in Photoshop Elements.

I really don't know where I will ever use this, but it can go on a backdrop just about anywhere.

Saturday, March 1, 2014

Blairline Corn Crib, Down on the Farm #9

The design of this kit in just an engineering marvel. It looks like it will be a difficult kit to build, but it would be a nice weekend project.

The instructions are very nice, and included a drawing of all the sheets, numbered, so it is easy to identify all the parts. I test fit a couple of the uprights before I started applying paint.

The only thing I don't like about laser cut wood kits, is the brunt black edges on everything. With this kit it was easy to cover it with paint. I painted the edges rather heavy, but tried to leave some bare wood on the faces, to give the appearance of peeled paint.

Assembly is very easy, as the uprights, shown here, fit perfectly in the holes in the base. There is even a top support that fits on the inside edge

The outer surface has this lattice applied, again I painted the edges, but dry brushed the faces.

At this point I gave everything a wash of A&I to get a weathered, dirty look.

Really is amazing how everything fits together so perfectly.

The roof framing is genius. Very intricate, but quite easy to assemble.

A close view of the building before the roof goes on shows the nice roof framing and the details applied to the doors.

The roofing includes some flashing for the hips that I painted green, and gave a wash of A&I.

I can't say enough about how hard this looked like was going to be to put together when just looking at a picture, and how easy it was in actuality. This will look great on my farm diorama.

Unless I add another structure, this will be the only wood kit on the diorama, there are also two metal kits, and the rest are 3d printed.

Previous postings in the series:

Down on the Farm