JimG
Western Thunderer
While I'm waiting on all the bits to come from Steel River Engineering for the S scale wagon wheels, I thought I might have a try at printing a wagon body in S scale with maybe a thought about using it as a master to use for casting in resin. I had been working on an etched kit for a mineral using copies of Charles Roberts drawings which @AndyB had kindly sent me. But some members had suggested that a resin body might be a good option as well if they didn't want to have to build an etched kit.
The etched body was to fit on an underframe produced by Justin Newitt at Rumney Models so the resin body has been designed to fit it as well.
This is the third attempt. The wagon was printed at a 45 degree angle and you can see some evidence of layering in the upper picture. I dare say that the dead flat sides of a 16T mineral are not going to be the easiest to print.
There are one or two other faults. The corner angle closest to camera on the end door has got as bit of a wiggle and I might have to make it a bit thicker - it's 0.2mm at the moment. The one on the other side - the same width - is perfectly fine so I suspect that is in between pixels and would probably improve if I moved the placement on the build plate - but then the other one might suffer. Adding another 0.05mm will probably suffice.
I'm not sure what caused the small hole on the end door. There were also a couple on one side which you can see just poking over the top of the end in the upper picture. I suspect that this was down to me not ensuring that the resin was fully stirred.
There are no details, like hinges, on the body as yet. I've been experimenting with thicknesses to see what I can get away with. A lot of the metal work on the mineral was 1/4" thick sheet and angle and this scales out to 0.1mm in S scale. The thinnest that the printer and the resin will reproduce is 0.2mm and even that can be pushing it as the door angle mentioned above shows. So it's a case of making parts as thin as I can and see how they look. I've made the body sides and ends 0.6mm thick at the moment. I did try thinner but the sides were much too flexible. I suspect that they will have to be even thicker for resin casting and I'm waiting on feedback from CMA about minimum thicknesses.
It's not all that quick a process. I spend ages trying to persuade Fusion 360 to do what I want then the print takes nearly ten hours.
Jim.
The etched body was to fit on an underframe produced by Justin Newitt at Rumney Models so the resin body has been designed to fit it as well.
This is the third attempt. The wagon was printed at a 45 degree angle and you can see some evidence of layering in the upper picture. I dare say that the dead flat sides of a 16T mineral are not going to be the easiest to print.
There are one or two other faults. The corner angle closest to camera on the end door has got as bit of a wiggle and I might have to make it a bit thicker - it's 0.2mm at the moment. The one on the other side - the same width - is perfectly fine so I suspect that is in between pixels and would probably improve if I moved the placement on the build plate - but then the other one might suffer. Adding another 0.05mm will probably suffice.
I'm not sure what caused the small hole on the end door. There were also a couple on one side which you can see just poking over the top of the end in the upper picture. I suspect that this was down to me not ensuring that the resin was fully stirred.
There are no details, like hinges, on the body as yet. I've been experimenting with thicknesses to see what I can get away with. A lot of the metal work on the mineral was 1/4" thick sheet and angle and this scales out to 0.1mm in S scale. The thinnest that the printer and the resin will reproduce is 0.2mm and even that can be pushing it as the door angle mentioned above shows. So it's a case of making parts as thin as I can and see how they look. I've made the body sides and ends 0.6mm thick at the moment. I did try thinner but the sides were much too flexible. I suspect that they will have to be even thicker for resin casting and I'm waiting on feedback from CMA about minimum thicknesses.
It's not all that quick a process. I spend ages trying to persuade Fusion 360 to do what I want then the print takes nearly ten hours.
Jim.