Ok a little update on the GEVO 3D printing, some good, some not so and a couple of own goals
First off the service was painless, upload, pay, receive in the post, much as it should be these days.
Quality, despite picking the best material I (naively) expected a better finish, it's not bad but you can still feel the tiny ridges so it'll need some finishing and prep work and a good coat of filler primer I think.
The not so good are any surfaces supported by the wax, these on the whole seem to be very rough and I orientated the work so that these were on the upper visual surface (doh). It was done this way to reduce costs and have as little support wax in the process but next time I think a rotation of 90° whilst slightly more expensive will give those surfaces that need to be smooth a better chance.
The own goals, well two big gashes appeared in one side, distraught I blamed Shapeways for their personal checks and assumed they had fiddled with it, there were also two lifting lug brackets missing as well.
However a quick check on the Shapeways site showed the same issues on their preview render which I had totally missed, again I assumed it was their process so decided to check the Autocad model, oh dear, shot my self in both feet with one bullet
It appears that when you have a large solid shape, as I had at the end before sending, that making changes on one part can have an effect on another, I'd done some splitting down and rotations and for some odd reason Autocad decided to add more faces and split some others, oops. So, check before send next time.
The Autocad model with errors circled, I had even deleted the lifting lugs myself, small circle at right
The shapeways render.
Again the errors are very much self evident.
The final model, it's a bit of a witch to photograph naked so to speak.
It does have nice hollow box sections with a small ridge around for the cover plate to seal them, one of the primary reasons for going the 3D printed route rather than cast though it might work as a lost wax part.
The dead beetle view is basically how it was orientated in the printer though the rear transverse beam was separate as the ultra detail printer only allows items up to 50 mm wide and the complete assembly is just a touch too wide. There's a square peg and socket on the ends and that has worked really well with a good fit.
Similar to the first view but shows the sloped areas on top that were supported by the wax as a more solid white colour and quite rough to the touch.
Next up is a clean (apparently) but it feels and looks clean enough already, but I'll give it a scrub in what ever anyone thinks is appropriate. Second is to find an adhesive that'll glue the rear section on and then think about filling the notches in the side frame and trying to smooth the roughest areas out. I'll also make a dummy inside frame to screw the printed frame onto for strength and handling.
I still think etched axle box carriers are the way to go but may make them rigid without rotating bearings on this one, something about too many steps in one process springs to mind.
In other news, back to the good ole US of A next year for three weeks, the boss is hunkered down in Mickey %&$£ Plastic Mouse World with the in laws (last time they'll realistically go due to age and health) and I have a pass out for rail-fanning. There's not enough action for me on the S line in Florida (24 trains in 24 hours, most at night), so up to the Folkston funnel (60 per day) to grab some action there for a couple of days.
However, I want more elevation so going to jump on an internal flight (I'll loose too much time driving the 2000 odd miles) and head West.
Cajon has 100 a day but it's arid and I'm no arid fan but could also pick up Tehachapi. Looking for bigger mountains I'm considering Donner (Yuba and Emigrant gaps), then up to Columbia River gorge and then Glacier park in Montana with the Marias Pass around Essex and Coram. Problem is, most of these are not that busy, ideally you want 40-50 trains a day to be sure of getting something.
Still a lot of research to do and working out where to stay, travel and how to get there on internal flights etc but looking forward to it now that I'm free of taxi driving and holding the hot dog / ice cream funds with a pass out of 10-14 days chasing trains
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MD