Model Railway Forum

I know, one of the guys Rob Pulham, scratch builds bits for loco kits that are works of art then you realise they’re only 4mm long.

Using some free software and an 3D open source file, I have at least learnt how to resize, duplicate and add texture to a model.
This is as far as I have got so far - I think each chair is 5mm long but who knows what it will turn out to be.
Meanwhile Amazon and DPD at going to be busy this week.

2023-02-06_12-26-58 by Steve Mumford, on Flickr

That looks good, can't wait to see the finished product. I can see Kent getting a new model shop "Mumford's Models".

This is the start of a slippery slope Steve. Make the right things and by this time next year you could be a millionaire.

Walkingthedog wrote: ↑Mon Feb 06, 2023 1:13 pm This is the start of a slippery slope Steve. Make the right things and by this time next year you could be a millionaire.

Well, I may have a million rail chairs.

The memsahib is starting to ask questions - I have just had my sixth parcel of the day delivered.

Tomorrow I intend to make a small part of the garage a dedicated area for this exercise - I understand that the resin is toxic and smelly so probably not best to set it up in the kitchen.

Steve M wrote: ↑Tue Feb 07, 2023 3:45 pm I understand that the resin is toxic and smelly so probably not best to set it up in the kitchen.

With my wife's cooking I probably wouldn't notice

Quick change page she's coming

Mr B clearly likes living dangerously.

Amazon only lost one of my parcels yesterday so I plunged further down the 3D rabbit hole today.
3D printing can be messy but also everything needs to be kept scrupulously clean - even more than DCC track! I started by builders no a ‘clean box’ - not absolutely necessary but as this sits in a corner of the garage I thought it may be a good idea. I have built a temporary lid and front (I ran out of plywood ) which serves two purposes, first to keep the dust away but importantly to stop sunlight (UV) curing the photosensitive resin in the print hopper.

20230208_184728 by Steve Mumford, on Flickr

The printer is on the left and the wash and cure station is on the right.
The printer comes with a few test files - this is the first test print - a hollow ball with very fine perforations in the wall.

20230208_191730 by Steve Mumford, on Flickr

Buoyed by this I made a test run of the rail chair file - and made a complete horlicks of the thing. In the design software you set the scale and size of the model - I mistakenly set it to print a block of twenty but made it the size of a single chair. That was never going to work!
So I reset the scale and tried again. A better result but not perfect. The height of the chairs is a bit shallow and in the phot you can see a couple of missing chairs at one end of the print. I think there may be a smudge of dirt on the screen and that point stopping the resin from being activated by the UV light from the unit.

20230208_220533 by Steve Mumford, on Flickr

The learning curve gets steeper.

From what I have seen lots of things are printed at 45 degrees.