Hmm... Sounds like a machining process might be in order on any surfaces with critical dimensions, but on the plus side, a lot of detail that is difficult to produce by machining could either be printed in or printed in plastic and then attached.
Just to keep you up to date on this thread. No items requested in metal print were ever printed. After many tries, and their refunds and declines, I settled on the smoothest plastic print. I still want that metal print BTW!! I ordered the car, trucks and a separate transformer load, again in smoothest plastic print. I got all 3 items from the last order. The Transformer is great! Looks the part for sure. The trucks and jacking pads are good too (required for this car). The car, well, arrived like it was over loaded for years. A sway backed nag. I didn't take pictures, but should have. Anyways, was advised to clamp the car to a straight bar and lay it in direct sunlight for a day and let the plastic cure from the suns UV rays. I let it set for 3 days in direct sunlight, and while it did do a LOT of good, it still went a bit sway backed after un-clamped a couple hours. I contact Shapeways (SW), and they told me to put it in 125F water and clamp where desired and it would be fine. Well I went and bought a good cooking thermometer then heated to 125F, 130F, 140F water and no changes. After un-clamping it reverts right back to the sway back nag after a few hours. Tonight I heated to 150F, let it sit for 5 minutes, then turned off the fire and let it set in the water till room temp, (a bit over an hour). Gonna leave it clamped till tomorrow and see if it will stay as intended. I gotta say, I have had a couple guys over, and they told me it wasn't that bad, but I am a jerk about this being right I guess, but when loaded and the load is gonna be 5oz. I just want it to be right, and not dragging, hitting the rails. Using this info https://rigid.ink/blogs/news/how-to-anneal-your-3d-prints-for-strength as a guide to help fix this and make the plastic harder and re form-able. I am at the upper limits of the temps here, a few more degrees F and it might end up melting the whole thing into a blob. But if that happens, so be it, I want it to be right, it needs to have a bit of a crown. Will let you know in a few days how the 150F water cooking went LOL. The trucks are beyond great! I gotta say. Also, when Mr. Trainiac said to me it should be within an inch of the correct coupler height, you can't imagine how happy and surprised I was to see the coupler height was exactly right on. I am so impressed with the design, just wish the printers were as good as the designer.
Just a note on annealing your 3D prints - those methods are for FDM style prints, not UV cured like the ProJet print you got from Shapeways. Hot water is definitely the way to go for your Shapeways print. Although being as large as it is, there's probably a lot of plastic in there so getting the heat down to the core (without melting into a blob) could be the challenge you're experiencing. Be sure to get a commitment out of Shapeways on either a refund or reprint if this doesn't sort out within 10 days of when you got the model. A customer of mine got a bad print but SW pulled a "Sorry, it's past 10 days since you received it, no reprint for you." Anyway, I hope your water cooking does the trick. Can't wait to see this thing! Mike
I have been working on this car for a while now, There were warping issues when the car arrived. You know the history on that. But over the last few days, there has been a lot of progress made. The car was painted with Tamiya white primer, then Model Masters Insignia yellow, gloss before and after the decals. The designer AKA "Mr. Trainiac" did a great job on this! The pre-started holes for the hand grabs all were in the right place and fit the wire grabs perfectly, after cleaning the holes with a #79 bit. The coupler height were exactly spot on, using 30" wheels and the GSI trucks he designed too. All I did was bend up the train line, HO scale "1 1/2", and bend up some cut bars, customized a couple Tichy stem winder brakes too. Talking with him to maybe make a couple minor changes too, to perhaps make the metal print a possibility.
Absolutely outstanding job! You have worked the warpage issue out quite well, as I see no evidence of it in the photos. Congratulations also to Mr. Trainiac on his superb design work.
Finally got some weathering done to this car, loaded-er up with a transformer and into service it goes. Used GE loco decals cut and diced to jazz up the load. Made the tie down clevises out of .040x.040 square stock with .015x.060 sides drilled out to .025 for the pins and .019 brass rod, to the 4 corners. Anyways this brings this a bit closer to conclusion. Frisco SW7 #300 takes the SL-SF 3900 to an out bound train. It ran great all evening, no hits, no runs no errors. other side of car. Thanks for all your comments, input, wisdom and encouragement.
gjslsffan the war between the QAP and my railroad (name withheld hehehehehehehe) will be heating up soon with serious competition
I’m pumped this turned out so well. I think it looks great. Looks like I will need to make some more cars for my Shapeways shop.
I still say one of those 6 axle DODX flats would be good. Nobody makes a reasonable one in HO. They look like Buckeye trucks to me. I was hoping your GSC trucks would have worked.
Here is the same car built by AT&SF shops. This is a very unique car, and was built in kit form by many different RR's. The AT&SF 90000 http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/atsf/atsf090000aga.jpg
A Conrail version Easily modified with thin Styrene strips here. Conrail had a few of these it appears. We can almost make out some hand brake details. http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/cr/cr766037gea.jpg another view http://www.rr-fallenflags.org/cr/cr766062akg.jpg
Someone messaged me on Shapeways with me some roster information and pointed out the differences in jacking pads. The original Frisco car has its style of pad, but look at that last Conrail car you posted. It has blocks with a bell-shaped hole, instead of the rectangular tube. The first Conrail car doesn't even have jacking pads. Look at the trucks on the second car too. It has converted solid bearing trucks with a different style spring pocket and snubbers too. It also has an extended draft gear. He mentioned them, but this is the first time I have seen photos of the other types. There are a lot of opportunities for variations. I might make a new version where all four jacking pads are separately printed, so the different ones could be added, or omitted altogether.
