Very cool. I've been involved in CNC for a while. When I saw rapid prototyping starting to gain popularity some years back, I wondered how long it would take to start being affordable... and I had a feeling that it would be a big deal in modeling if/when it was. It's nice to see potential opportunities for modelers being able to get anything they want, no matter how obscure.
Wow! My daughter is taking an engineering class at high school, and they just got a printer and she was telling me about it awhile back. That is a fantastic model. What about n scale vehicles? This seems like it could be a great way to get some unique / not-commercially available models. Considering the size, would vehicles be a possibility?
Ah.... not sure which locos ou meant, but.... for clarification, I see you listed a 2-4-0 and an 0-3-0. I think you're listing the one-sided wheel arrangements, maybe double those figures and you'll get a 4-8-0 and an 0-6-0. A three-driving-wheel loco would be somewhat unstable? But you pegged the 4-8-2 Mountain wheel arrangement, so I am sorta perplexed by your post dude.
Ah I see you're in Arizona! Wonderful, as there is some beautiful ocean front property there. I assume you are selling such a parcel? lol
>Also, could you put a Rock Island R-67b 5000 series 4-8-4 on the list? After all, they had the most 4-8-4's of any road out there. Boy, this thread is a little mathematically challenged... I guess that the 160 rostered by Canadian National don't count.
Holy Cow....I just checked out shapeways.com (the 'model railroad' page) and this technology looks like a game-changer. The manufacturers out there should either be embracing this technology or be very concerned about this new competition. There's more Z scale stuff on that page than probably has been released by the traditional mfr's in the last couple of years! A question - can the technology print clear plastic also? It would be very cool to print a shell (of a bus, car, etc) in a solid color plastic, and print the windows in another clear piece that could be snapped in place for a Kato/Atlas type fit and appearance. This stuff is COOL and looks like it could revolutionize our hobby.
Wow, that was bad. Not quite sure what happened there. Can't even claim that it was modeling glue, 'cause I haven't done jack on the layout recently. That should be 2-8-0, 4-8-2, and 0-6-0.
Sitting here thinking of all the great possibilitys with this tech but also realizing that I would have to dedicate a lot of time to become a draftsman. I'm not sure whether I should leave the drawing and production to someone else and spend my valuable time for actual layout building and model building. There are several pieces of rolling stock I would love to have but while I practice drawing and designing the rest of the hobby would languish. Any thoughts ? Randy
I'm up against the same problem. I've got a show to attend the first weekend in August. My priorities are set. Even though I really WANT to sit down and learn Sketchup, I simply do not have time for it. AND, I don't want to pay someone else to do the designing for me. I decided that I'll really get elbows out on the module finishing and see if I can get to a point I'm happy with well before the show. THEN, I'll spend some time at the 'puter doing the tutorials. The solution for me just involves more work. Cheers! Bob Gilmore
Hey to each his own, that's what's great about a hobby! I happen to love the drafting/computer modelling to begin with, be a bit of rivet counter by nature AND have no space to build my empire at the moment.
So for all of those who were asking for pictures of the shell on the mechanism: -Profile shot- -For anyone wanting a size comparison- A few notes here – first off I did have to do quite a bit more sawing to the shell than I would have liked. The bottom front edge of the smokebox bit the dust, the drawbar pin needed to be removed entirely and the lower front edge of firebox needed to have a knotch cut out of it. Luckily though, these are all problems that I can easily correct on the digital model so that sawing should be unnecessary the next time around (hey, it’s just a manufacturer’s sample or something ). I’m thinking that I will probably (un-prototypically) extend the length of the boiler around 1/8 inch or so – this should give me room for the drawbar pin and correct most of the other problems. I actually think that it’ll make the shell look proportionally better on the mechanism anyway. Sharp eyes will notice that the boiler’s underside (from the mechanism) and topside (from the shell) do not line up perfectly and are slightly offset (don’t form a circle). That was just a concession that I had to make to fit such a small boiler on such a large mechanism – frankly I don’t find it particularly noticeable and think that it will be even less so after I finished adding the last of the piping and the air pump. The mechanism itself needed to lose the domes and the floor beneath what was the cab. This means that I’ll have to come up with some new ways of getting electricity from the frame to the tender and back – but I knew that was coming (and hey, if it was easy it wouldn’t be so fun!). By the same token, there is now absolutely no room for a decoder in the body of the loco, but I’m fine with running wires. As for the people asking/concerned about the rough finish rapid prototypes often have – I think this picture sums everything up well. To see FUD at its best, compare the domes. To see FUD at its worst, compare the stacks. The reason for the difference is that some of the upper parts of the stack overhang the lower parts while the sides of the domes never pass vertical. Since these models are made by layering material, if a part is going to extend outwards from the model, something needs to support it while it the first few layers are put down. To do this a special wax is used (which is subsequently washed off). Unfortunately however, this wax leaves a bit of a rough “shadow” on the parts of the model that it comes into contact with (in this case everything directly below the outermost ring of the stack). The domes would have the same rough finish, but since they only need support from below, that rough finish is found on their interior instead of exterior. As you can probably guess, clever design can help minimize these effects, but they probably cannot be completely eliminated. That said I think that photos like this one really do show the worst case scenario visually – I have trouble seeing the fuzz from any farther than six inches away when viewing that model in person. Another interesting effect that these images show is the distinct geometrical makeup of the curves (the boiler sides are formed by progressively angling a series of rectangles instead of being ‘true’ curves). I should probably emphasize that that is due to SketchUp and how I chose to build my digital model – not some artifact from Shapeways. The extent to which that effect could be reduced ultimately comes down to your own patience and frankly I also don’t find it all that noticeable in person. It’s also really rather irrelevant if you are designing anything other than a steam locomotive or tank car. So there you go Hope that clears up some questions, back to Sketchup I go!
I'm still studying things like the air compressor manifold piping and the handrail on the front of the smokebox and just shaking my head. I can't believe it. Let alone the spark arrestor, which is stunning in the production capability of that as an integral part. Considering the advances here... how far this has come in about two years... I think I'm in on the time investment to learn this. I've been promising myself that one of the things I wanted to learn on the 'bucket list' was a 3D CAD program (I love to draw manually, and think in 3D easily, computer geek anyway) and the capabilities now of Sketchup are pretty awesome. Another great leap forward in two years. I make no apologies that I think that I'm not doing this just for my own use here.
Looks even better on the mechanism. For a first try it's pretty amazing, I'm trying to imagine where this will be ten years from now. Something that came to me while looking at the European and Irish diesel bodies on Shapeways is Alco and FM switcher shells to fit existing mechanisms.
OK, so what you're telling us here... is that the RP is really doing a two-part material process... one being the actual plastic material and the other being a 'lost wax' of some kind that is printed as a supporting material as it goes along. That, obviously, is what makes crazy stuff like the handrails possible. And after it is printed, there is some process to wash or remove the supporting material like it was never there. I wasn't aware that RP printers could effectively do two different materials at once to achieve this, but now this makes more sense. There's still a 'stepping' problem but only outward... and yeah, depending on how the machine is set up it could be really good or really bad. If you took that same boiler and printed it 'upside down' rather than 'right side up' you'd have a bigger problem...and the stepping is more pronounced under the running board than above it...if I understand this now. And if you were designing a kit, you'd be very much aware of that. Hmmmm..... But as the sophistication of the 'resolution' gets better, and the 'smoothing factors' of the surfacing gets to similar resolution, it's only going to get better. Sort of like digital pixel resolution, inkjets, etc. As long as I don't have to maintain the equipment it sounds great.
