I haven't seen much or been able to successfully search for and find very much about the 3D printer, Shapeways.com on this board. Over the last few months I have been working with several Shapeways shop owners and designers to have made for me N scale MoW , vehicles, log cars, sawmill interior equipment, fire vehicles and equipment and other items such as hand tools. A lot of these items are already available in HO, S, O and even some narrow gauges plus Z. Items are to scale, correct in dimensions and can even be customized by the shop owner for various specific roads, etc. I have purchased in N scale from Shapeways a Barnhardt logging loader, steam shovels, McGiffert log loader, and misc fire and Police vehicles as well as various rotary wing and spacecraft. I also have been fortunate to have found shop owners that are very willing to rescale some of their items to N scale. I assemble, paint and install Nano - 0606, 0605, 0603, 0402 and 0201 LEDs for headlights and taillights and emergency vehicle lighting including police motorcycles and structures. I also install sound in the structures . Prices are reasonable and various materials for the items are typically available . N scalers should be ready for actual correctly sized items. The downside is there are some very cranky shop owners that are unwilling to deal with anything smaller than HO, so you just move along to the next and be a bit more polite. Some shop owners that work with modellers tend to have a backlog so a wait can be involved . Be sure to contact the shop owners and make sure you are both on the same idea and this is where customization and options are involved. Sometimes a new item is kicked back by the prebuild inspector at Shapeways and the items may need a thicker wall or other change. I strongly recommend Shapeways.com .
There have been some decent topics about Shapeways here. So much is available in N these days, (I am a 45+ year N scaler), that most folks don't look at Shapeways to fill needs.
Actually i researched and polled modelers in 2 different NMRA regions and at shows as well as many Shapeways shop owners and designers before I made my post. So I'm extremely confident that my post is accurate. People have either done without or made from scratch . And a large portion of the people I polled had no idea Shapeways exists . Can you buy a logging carriage or Mack AC dump truck, Climax loco shell and more at the hobby shop or ebay? In the last week we have either lost or had suppliers or important model railroaders pass away. Resources are gone. I'm hoping that shop owners at Shapeways can develop a central file system to save their designs in case of ............. 3D printing and laser cutting are the future here now. Spread the word
I've bought quite often from Shapeways, learned of Shapeways designers here at TrainBoard. I follow 4 designers that I have found something they made I could utilize. I requested a design from one of them for Ethanol layout.
I have a Shapeways store myself (Low Bridge Studios, only a few items up right now) and also 3D print at home. Among other things, I 3D printed a Brooklyn Car Float and Float Bridge (will post pics at some point), several buildings, a vehicle or two, and subway car shells/chassis. Right now I'm about to try and 3D print small gears to replace crappy bachmann gears made from that crummy white plastic that splits over time. If it works I will let you know and we won't need to get rid of otherwise decent models plagued by bad gears
It would be great if some Shapeways shop owner(s) decided to make alternate steam locomotive shells to fit existing mechanisms. I know a few are available, but those are typically one shell for one mechanism. I am thinking that a lot of the design and development work is involved with fitting the inside of the shell to the mechanism. So, if that could be done for something like a 2-8-2 or 4-6-2 mechanism that is recognized as having excellent running properties, then making several different outsides for that design should tap a substantial market. The same can be said for tenders, and those would be easier to design, too.
