Model Railway Forum

Anyone familiar with my West Orton thread will know that some months ago I invested in a 3D resin printer to help with all those little details that seem to take forever and cost a small fortune. Around the same time I got talking to the guys from ModelU at Ally Pally and found out that they were investigating the possibility of making some of their 3D figures available for home printing.

Needless to say I kept an eye on developments and last month they announced that they were ready to pilot the scheme to iron out any bugs, and were looking for some help in testing the system.
The files will be available via a Patreon subscription scheme, initially with two levels of membership to give access to up to five files per month at around £2 per figure (if printed only once).

Yes, you guessed it, I am fortunate enough to have been selected for the pilot.

I received my first two sets of files at the weekend and after a bit of adjustment for scale, I ran a few test prints to check the most effective way to orientate the models for printing - very important or the figures lose extremities or end up with the print ‘scaffolding’ erupting from the model’s face (yes, it happened!).

2023-07-12_07-21-23 by Steve Mumford, on Flickr

If anyone is interested in this new service, keep an eye on the ModelU website for a formal announcement, Ts&Cs etc

They look good. Be good to see what they are like once they have been removed from the fish ponds. Exciting times ahead for you Steve.

Edit: just looked at your other post. I think they look very good and the painting is excellent. I feel an order may be coming your way.

Walkingthedog wrote: ↑Wed Jul 12, 2023 7:54 pm They look good. Be good to see what they are like once they have been removed from the fish ponds. Exciting times ahead for you Steve.

Edit: just looked at your other post. I think they look very good and the painting is excellent. I feel an order may be coming your way.

At this point Brian, the user license does not allow the resale of printed items (copyright, intellectual property etc.) However, the third tier of membership (not yet launched) may allow for this.
Apparently, I can give them away - but why would I?

There goes your early retirement.

For anyone else who may be interested - ModelU should be opening up the Patreon scheme for downloadable figures to the general public in the next couple of weeks.

I'm almost a year into my membership of the ModelU pardon scheme and have printed over four hundred figures in that time.
Today it was my turn to be scanned when I spent some time with the ModelU team at Alexandra Palace - that will be revealed in due course.
They have invested in a new scanning booth that takes a scan in the same time it takes to take a photo rather than the relatively slow hand scanning process. This same technology is linked to another advance in 3D printing - printing in colour. These OO figures for diesels are an example - it will even show the subject's tattoos!

Saw them yesterday Steve. I was hoping to get a crew for the up and coming Dapol J94 but they weren’t ready in time.

Very much looking forward to seeing the Model Railway Forum’s equivalent of Jack Reacher in 00 gauge

More like Jack can’t quite reach it.