I recently added a bit about 3D printed car bodies to the 'What's on your workbench thread' and having had some decent results from a couple of Stonysmith designs decided to look and see what else was available from Shapeways in the Z Scale section. The obvious one that caught my eye was Roy Stevens design for the 70 ton iron ore hopper, commonly known as a 'Jenny', that are a key feature of the iron ore ranges in Michigan. Some of you will remember the '0' scale Atlas/Roco ones available as a ready to run model years ago. Thay are a very small freight car only 36ft long and run in big block rakes. Roy has made them available as 6 packs which makes sense so I took ther plunge and bought a couple of packs which were printed at Shapeways facility in Holland. Some of the Z modellers I know over here in the U.K have told me they are a bit uncertain about how to approach finishing a 3D printed model so I took the opportunity of making a 'How I do it' video which is on youtube and looks at the techniques I've decided on. It lasts about seven minutes and can be found at. I also take a brief overview of the different types of freight car kits available at the beginning (etched cast lasered etc) hence the picture of the Freudenreich bunk car as the video thumbnail [video=youtube;3e9atQtQ9Xk]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3e9atQtQ9Xk&feature=share&list=UUI6p-eLL5zX3K226z27Josg[/video] I haven't finished all twelve cars because I have run out of wheels! once I've got them back in stock I need to decide what I'm going to do about decals There are two designs of these cars with different coupler arrangements, I have got the ones with the couplers cast integral to close couple the cars as they are goin to be used mainly in the yard on my Republic Steel module I'm starting to construct this winter. I notice from stonysmith section on Shapeways that he has a Taconite iron ore hopper listed and I think I'll get a few of them next as a contrast to the 'Jennies' cheers KEV
these hoppers make a nice ore train Kevin. How is the surface of the smaller details? Are these couplers printed on the car body?
I like those ore cars too and have seen them at Shapeways, the only think I don't like is the riding hide, far too high for those ore cars. I might do some in metal to fit my upcoming GE U30C project...
Yes, the couplers are printed on. I'm planning on running them as a fixed rake and not through any silly curves but I'll let everybody know how they behave once I've got some weight in them The surface detail is quite good, they must be printed at an angle as the layer lines seem to be at 43 degrees to horizontal unlike the Difco cars where the horizontal layer lines are hard to sand down in the recesses on the sides I agree they sit high but I can live with that as they are not going to mix with other stock. It might be something to do with the lack of space at either end, bearing in mind the wheels stick out from the end of the car which also make fitting an MTL coupler box in there very tricky Anybody got any thoughts on a source of decals for these? KEV
