3D printing o gauge roofs

[Marc Dobson]

I normally etch all the roofs that go into my kits but its expensive and I have to wait between 4 and 8 weeks to get them back. So I was thinking of printing some. Normally I use 18thou brass, roll them and solider the rain strips on. So my question is this has anyone produced one and if they have how did they do it.

The roof I'm hoping to have a go at first is one for a GER 16ft long box van.

Marc

 

[Arun Sharma]

I use 3D printed roof masters for my Class AM9, BR Mk1, HST and LNER teak coaches. These have etched sides [apart from the HST power car] and floors/internal corridor sides]. The end dome normally forms part of the coach end so the roof has a common section all the way along. I normally print off a 2-3 inch section as an FDM print. I use the FDM process because it is cheaper than resin printing and there are no great problems with intricate detail on roof sections so any surface roughness can be sanded smooth without destroying any detail. Also, because it is such a simple shape, the roof section can be duplicated very cheaply by resin casting it as many times as you like at home.
Note that I prefer to have the cantrail as part of the roof/end moulding rather than a separate strip to add on.
A picture showing the end dome and a roof section are attached below.

 

[Clarence3815]

I see in the latest MRJ, in the article about laser cutting for wagon construction, the statement that ` these machines have a vertical resolution of 10 microns, or 100 lines per millimetre`. The printer is stated to be an SLA type.

I had a tyre printed by a commercial company and the best they could do was a layer thickness of 16 microns.

Has the process and equipment moved on so far already?

Bernard