Re: White heat of technology, 3-D printing - watching paint dry

[Neil]

White heat of technology, 3-D printing - watching paint dry

The roaring of the diesel and an impatient tooting on Thursday afternoon heralded the arrival of the UPS van down the drive. This could only mean one thing.

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It's a 3-D print from Shapeways, this time in frosted ultra detail. First impressions are that it's a step forward from the gunpowder van I tackled a couple of months ago.

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As it's semi transparent it's difficult to fully assess the finish, but in handling the surface felt noticeably smoother though there were signs of some ridging in curved areas. By this stage I'd already given it a swift clean with a cream cleaner followed by a rinse under the tap. Once it's dried I misted a coat of primer over it pronto to see how the new material shaped up.

Primer applied late last night, photos taken this morning.

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Here's a cruel close up of the passenger brake alongside the gunpowder van I had printed earlier.

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Now while the photo implies that the surface of the brake is almost as rough as the gunpowder van, in reality this isn't so. The GPV has had a good amount of work put into it to ameliorate the deficiencies of the material finish followed by a few coats of paint and some disguise weathering, the passenger brake has just had a light blast of primer over it.

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Here I've done a bit of work to the sides; the plain area below the panelling had some slight but noticeable ridges running horizontally. I've taken out the worst of these with home made sanding sticks.The frosted ultra detail responds to sanding a whole lot better than the white strong. unfortunately the downside is that it's more brittle. With the gunpowder vans it was possible just to pop in a pair of Peco wheelsets and my favoured Bachmann metal jobbies only needed the bearing holes deepened to allow them to be sprung in. Trying to do this with the brake snapped off one of the axleguards. Criticism can't be levelled at the design here, they were originally produced with the shorter axle Peco wheelsets in mind and for the more flexible and forgiving white strong. However the design is such that the underframe could be milled out to take a Peco chassis unit without the running boards losing any of their structural integrity. In fact the whole item feels delicate but robust.

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We're still not quite at the paint and plonk stage, but hell we're close.

I should stress that the design isn't mine, full credit for coming up with such a pleasing piece of stock goes to Tom  (Tebee) on the narrow gauge forum NGRM-online and RMweb. He's lodged lots of 3-D models of narrow gauge stock with Shapeways, making them available for anyone to order. I certainly wouldn't have the skills to draft such lovely pieces, and it's to Tom's huge credit that he willingly puts his labours out there for the rest of us to use.

 

[JimG]

White heat of technology, 3-D printing.

Neil,

Can you give me some idea of the costs of having something produced by Shapeways and is their a difference if your product can be bought by others from their web site?  I'm putting together an article on modern methods for railway modellers for a society magazine and some idea of costs of the Shapeways and similar processes would be helpful.

Jim.

 

[28ten]

White heat of technology, 3-D printing.

That looks promising. Given a bit of work I can see some applications for it even with the current tech. Give it a few years and we wont be bothering with resin kits!

 

[Neil]

White heat of technology, 3-D printing.

.... Can you give me some idea of the costs of having something produced by Shapeways and is their a difference if your product can be bought by others from their web site? ....

The cost to the customer is dependant on the amount of material used, so the bigger the piece the bigger the cost. The 009 passenger brake van and roof came to fifteen quid in the frosted ultra detail. So if I'd wanted to buy a copy of it blown up to 7mm scale we'd be talking of a rough doubling of the dimensions, but if my calculations are right (and they may not be) the volume of material used will be eight times bigger hence an eye watering increase in costs. Different materials come with different costs; I got three gunpowder vans in the cheaper white strong for the same price, but the surface texture isn't as good.

I believe that the designer gets a small royalty each time one of their designs is used, and it may be that they are able to have work done at a slightly lower price, though I'd guess that any saving would not be really significant. If the info isn't on the Shapeways website I'm sure that there would be someone in the organisation able and willing to answer.

 

[Neil]

White heat of technology, 3-D printing.

Hmmm, recent events cast some questions over the excellence of the 'frosted ultra detail'. I applied a coat of Humbrol gloss brown to the brake van on Saturday morning, it hadn't dried by yesterday evening though the stuff on my palette that I used to paint the brake had. I suspect some unwanted chemical reaction going on. anyway yesterday evening I got the white spirit out and cleaned off the still wet paint. Funny thing though, instead of wiping clean some paint was left on the model giving a stained brown rather than painted brown appearance. As all  appeared set this evening I've tried brushing on a thin (but un-thinned) coat of brown. I'll let you know what happens.

 

[JimG]

White heat of technology, 3-D printing.

The cost to the customer is dependant on the amount of material used, so the bigger the piece the bigger the cost. The 009 passenger brake van and roof came to fifteen quid in the frosted ultra detail. So if I'd wanted to buy a copy of it blown up to 7mm scale we'd be talking of a rough doubling of the dimensions, but if my calculations are right (and they may not be) the volume of material used will be eight times bigger hence an eye watering increase in costs. Different materials come with different costs; I got three gunpowder vans in the cheaper white strong for the same price, but the surface texture isn't as good.

I believe that the designer gets a small royalty each time one of their designs is used, and it may be that they are able to have work done at a slightly lower price, though I'd guess that any saving would not be really significant. If the info isn't on the Shapeways website I'm sure that there would be someone in the organisation able and willing to answer.

Neil,

Thanks for the information.

Jim.

 

[Eastsidepilot]

White heat of technology, 3-D printing.

As a matter of interest, some of you will be aware, but for those who have not yet discovered this yet, there are some interesting items available in 7mm scale (S7) from "Off The Rails" at the Shapeways site.
Rail built buffer stops & S7 checkrail chairs, and I believe there are other items in the pipe line.



ATB, Col.  

 

[Dan Randall]

White heat of technology, 3-D printing.

As a matter of interest, some of you will be aware, but for those who have not yet discovered this yet, there are some interesting items available in 7mm scale (S7) from "Off The Rails" at the Shapeways site.
Rail built buffer stops & S7 checkrail chairs, and I believe there are other items in the pipe line.



ATB, Col.

I had the opportunity to chat with David Rayner (designer of said buffer stops), at the recent S7 bash at Brightwell.  I was so impressed with the finished products that I bought a couple to play with. 


Regards

Dan

 

[Neil]

White heat of technology, 3-D printing - watching paint dry

.... and now the downside. As I mentioned earlier there have been issues with enamels not drying on the frosted ultra detail. I tried a second thin coat over the brown stained body, in the hope that the thin residue of dry paint would act as a barrier to whatever chemical reaction was buggering up my attempts to see the paint finished and set within my lifetime. Unfortunately it's been more of the same with the best part of three weeks to reach tacky. Brutal action with white spirit, cotton buds, toothbrush and astonish cream cleaner got the model back to the gently tinted brown as before. Four days later I've blasted it with several generous coats of auto primer (acrylic I believe) which has actually set; hoo-bloody-ray. I now need to pluck up courage to have a further go with the enamels to see if I can get them to set over this thick base layer. I'll be experimenting with the underside of the roof this time; it's much simpler to clean.

here's a photo of how things look in grey primer.  Please bear in mind that it's a small 009 model and so appears larger on the screen than it does in real life. The surface finish is just about acceptable, rather than the ploughed field the photo tends to give the impression of.

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