DB rails on from a post that was going to be yesterday's which will probably appear out of order in the next day or three, but since I've started on these carriages:
I didn't realise they were this bad until I had primed, painted, dulcoated, and then started washing them with some weathering. They certainly don't look great with a light shining off them that's for sure. Had I noticed this earlier I'd have sanded them down a bit. Which I did with the roofs, as there is a pronounced 'ridge' along the roof centreline and on the rounded ends. Fairly easily dealt with using a long thin fine file for the centre ridge (so as not to knock the roof ventilators which are nicely done, and fine sandpaper for the roof ends to give them a smoother-flowing shape where the curves join.
These are fairly old prints now I guess, and new ones from higher resolution printers will be smoother... but having said that, I've paid for them, and there is now a much better one available. A bit like every camera and computer I've ever bought I suppose.
My next grumble is is warping. It seems most 3D printed things that are shaped like a bathtub will warp - wagon sides and locomotives bow out like the below, and often they have a minor 'humpbacked' longitudinal bend.
While most prints seem to have relatively fine supports inside in an attempt to counter this during printing and curing, they tend to snap and break off due to the warping forces. So why not make them stronger and more numerous? These carriages have this feature already, with some good thick cross pieces under the crown posts that tie the sides together. If there were two more located here (red arrows) the whole side would be nice and straight, and the truss rods wouldn't splay out and then pull apart:
Fine unsupported rodding often sags too, such as on these Shapeways Z tanktainers:
Presumably this is from a lack of supports, or maybe it happens during curing.
So you have to cut off the offending bits, and then due to the material's brittleness, even more bits snap off. Maybe its time to accept that 3D isn't yet ready for this type of fine detail yet and it could be omitted, with slots or holes left instead so that we can put these details in ourselves using straight plastic or brass rod.
I used .030x.030 plastic square rod to replace the broken and bent truss rods to match the existing printed rodding, but in hindsight, looking at some prototype pics afterwards, I should have used much thinner brass rod and done all six carriage sides.
Bogie screws and couplers are yet to be figured out. I added battery boxes to one of the cars and immediately took them off because they looked silly. Now after dredging up some prototype pics, I wasn't actually that far off so will re-add them. I also need to do something about glazing the guards ducket. Or replacing it with the modern pressed steel pattern.
-----The next day:
I pulled out some Microtrains and Peco couplers to fit the cars with, but with the bogies having cross pieces at the ends that I didn't want to fiddle with, couplers would have to stick out a long way to clear these.
So I started playing with the 'sprue' of the MMW parts, cutting an L out of the corner and putting a slot in the end of it. This was three small holes joined up with the help of a knife and some files.
Battery boxes were re-added - these had to be very thin styrene because the truss rods are so far outboard. Painting everything 'weathered black' helps disguise the inaccuracies.
And as a final touch, the circular number and class plates were also carefully painted weathered black. These are quite prominent on most of the pictures I've seen, so I painted little yellow 2s to signify second class. This was done with yellow that had a touch of dark included. Then to further lower the contrast, a blob of Tamiya 'smoke' was placed on top. Another blob may yet be applied...
You can see how far the Microtrains couplers had to stick out on the ends to clear the bogie frames, but my homemade couplers give a really nice 'close coupling' effect between the cars.
I don't know much about carriages, but I assume these are 47-6 ones. Not even sure if they operated on the Coast or on the Waimate Branch, but most importantly, they are red, so will look the part behind a DJ or a tank engine or at the end of a mixed train. When viewed from the rigorously-enforced mandatory minimal viewing distances.
3 comments:
From memory these were earlier prints on my 4K printer(s), so yes unfortunately it is a case of technology improving substantially. Much like the early Shapeways prints I now have that are leeching some kind of oil and flaking their paint off all over town. Sigh.
That said I have a returns policy of re-printing if people aren't happy with the end result, so if you'd like me to redo these I'm more than happy to oblibge.
I won't in this case, but that's perfect customer service.
The ZA I think may be because I wasn't curing prints long enough, I'm now going for 90mins on the curing turntable
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