Westside Models from 1977, factory paint, getting ready to haul the varnish!
One of 3 on my roster, this one in Glacier Park, one in black, the third unpainted (so far). This one is numbered for the first in the series of H7 heavy Pacific locos that ran from 1910 and retired between 1949-1960.
3D printing has become a mainstream part of model railroading! If you're thinking about a 3D printer or have one but are feeling challenged by learning 3D CAD, don't give up! I design a lot of details and small structures without any CAD at all.
I'm going to present a series of short webinars on 3D Printing & Design and open it up to discussion starting on July 15th at 8PM EDT. RR Craftsman is sponsoring this, providing the resources for the webinar. I'm going to start simple with some common details and demonstrate how to create a fuel storage tank, a 1000 gallon industrial propane tank, and some basic window and doors in the first session. We'll build on this to create more complex designs that include a small station building with a platform, a "monopole" billboard, and several other detail parts that every layout can use - all without any 3D CAD software. Future sessions will cover "digital kitbashing, and we'll also discuss common printing issues and how to make sure your designs print well.
These webinars are open to anyone interested in learning about or expanding their Model Railroad Focused 3D printing knowledge. We'll have plenty of time for Q & A at the end of each session as well as take suggestions for future sessions. The STLs for the items we design will be shared, although we encourage you to try these techniques yourself! There will be no sales/marketing during this event - it's about information sharing only! It will be a good opportunity to meet fellow Reddit modelers, too!
For more information or to register, go to https://www.rrcraftsman.com/events - you'll receive an email from WebEx with the event info shortly after registering. Pre-registration is required as spots are limited.
Feel free to register even if you can't make the live event - we'll send out links to the recording and the STL files that we create so you can follow along on your own time!
I have a roughly 240 foot mainline and model the late steam/early diesel period. I need several water tanks around the mainline plus one larger one in the engine terminal. I started with the classic Atlas kit, but these are now getting harder to find and prices have become crazy. Walthers has tanks but are $$ and this stretches the operating budget to add 5 of them.
I designed my own 3D printed tank and will have 4 of these joining the Atlas kit on the layout. This was designed using only primitive shapes in the slicer as kind of a "how far can I push this technology" test and I'm pretty happy with the results.
The model represents a 20-foot diameter tank, stands about 45 feet tall to the tip of the roof pinnacle. The tank is printed in the actual color (aged wood gray) with black bands, and other parts are in white and will be painted. The spout can be positioned and is counter-balanced with thread and lead weights, and the roof valve moves the valve arm up and down and can be connected to a weight or spring to return to a "closed" position. I created both straight-side and taper-side tanks for some variety, and a 25-foot diameter tank for my engine terminal. I created standpipes to deliver water to 2 locations in the terminal and eliminated spouts from the large tank. I'm also working on a version where all of the parts are produced in realistic colors so only assembly and weathering will be required.
I've been working on this custom station project for some time and it's finally complete. I shipped the kit to our client and built a second one for display. It's based on the Erie Railroad passenger station that was located on Main St in Passaic, NJ until 1964, when it was demolished and the tracks removed to make way for parking lots. Working from nearly a dozen photos, I created a set of plans. These were then translated to 3D designs and printed. By request, we produced the south side (eastbound) of the covered platform and the pedestrian tunnel portals for both the south and north side.
Kit package with instruction book & Part details
Some of the special details were the glass-block windows used in the walls and portal buildings; the hairpin fence; printed mortar detail on the brick walls on both sides (the photos are unpainted except for the base and roof); the roof sign; and the functional manhole/cover that can be modeled open or closed. One of the photos shows the manhole cover placed such that the safety line that crossed it was off-kilter, which would be a cool detail to add. The pedestrian stairway portals cover openings in the platform base that allow the stairway to be modeled, even if it's a dark angle with a glow of light from the bottom.
The black lines on the corners of the stair portals were part of the prototyping process that allowed us to accurately measure the fit of the corner parts. The production kit has brick & mortar detail there. The finished kit consists of 136 separate parts and an additional 11 detail parts including a mail box, trash cans, and a RR signal relay box that was located just beyond the end of the station.
This project was particularly satisfying because it brought back some memories from my childhood, shopping in the stores, watching the trains run through, and using the tunnel to cross the tracks.
