My
3D printer has already come in very handy for printing items for my model railroad.
These
include:
Before
painting I spray all items evenly with Rustoleum 2X Ultra Cover grey primer.
Shipping
containers – a future Free-mo module that I plan to build will portray a container
terminal. For this I will need a large number of containers. The cost of
acquiring sufficient commercial HO shipping containers to make convincing
stacks of shipping containers would be prohibitive. My plan is to 3D print many
“ends” of containers to serve as a facade and then placing full-size commercial
containers on the top. One of my first 3D print projects was to download an HO shipping
container design from Thingiverse (credit: phildc). I printed a full-sized
version (the larger one painted blue in the following picture). I then modified the design
to effectively cut off 2/3 of the container (the ones painted green, white and
blue).
Chain-link
fence – in the past I have used the excellent kits made by Walthers for making
a convincing chain link fence. However, I always struggle with how to make the vertical
and horizontal fence posts square and how to fasten them together (my use of
cyanoacrylate glue, or “super glue” has to be curtailed because I have a
respiratory allergy to the fumes). By designing and 3D printing these I get nice square
fence posts to which it is easy to glue the tulle chain link material using
Weldbond adhesive.
An example of a fence which I struggled to make straight:
The 3D printed fence in 4 steps:
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The printed fence still attached to its sacrificial "raft"
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after the raft has been removed and discarded
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Weldbond glue has been spread on the backside of the fence using a toothpick and the fence laid on top of tulle material (this material is what bridal veils are made of)
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the completed fence section ready for installation
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the installed fence (behind the "SLOW" sign); the rolling gate is from the Walthers Guard House kit which is also were the building is from
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| another angle |
Pole
top transformers – I designed these pole top transformers myself in Tinkercad:
Switch
machines and adjacent hut:
Tree
plant stand – after watching an excellent video by Gerry Leone on Model
Railroad Video Plus in which Gerry outlines the use of foam pipe insulation to
hold trees for painting I came up with what I believe to be an improvement on
the design – a rack that can hold trees upside down (sometimes necessary if you
wish to soak the tree armatures in some sort of liquid to soften them so they
straighten out) or right-side up (for spray painting and applying ground foam).
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| note that these can be interlocked with each other, enabling the expansion of the painting rack |
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| hanging the tree upside down as is sometimes necessary; note that the 4 wooden dowels are only added if this setup is desired |
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| turned over with the wooden dowels removed |
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| two interlocking racks ready to be attached to each other |
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after being attached
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I look forward to printing many more items with my 3D printer. It is turning out to be a very useful tool but has not become another hobby unto itself.
