Great deal for 25' Taconite Ore Cars from Shapeways

Found a deal online from "Shapeways" who have a set of 6 ~25scale ft. taconite ore cars, designed by Story Smith, for ~$12. These cars are produced by 3D printing process, are white opaque in colour and have amazing detail. Even with a Rustoleum flat black primer spray, the detail still shows. Trucks are included, but no wheel sets. I used MTL axels to pop into the trucks OK (did break a couple, but see next). Cars have non-functional couplers, which will work together as "unit train" type. I sliced off the printed couplers on a couple of cars that I broke trucks on and installed MTL truck mounted couplers (they just install with no reworking) so they run with the rest of my cars. Very light in weight so took 20 BB's from my "Red "Rider" BB gun to get to 8gms.
Now have to create some decals and Bob's your uncle. How can you beat 12 bucks for 6 detailed Z scale hoppers? There are also a number of other 220 scale items. I purchased a couple of speeders (will have to find really small wheel sets if I want to run them), and siding bumpers that will fit into MTL track.
Looking at track spacing templates and will probably order some.
Hope this is of some use to others
LarryVO

 

Going DCC with that?

 

Would love to be able to, but have not been able to find a power unit that will fit into a 1/4" body. Guess I'll have to build a Doodlebug.
LarryO

 

OOPs ore cars were designed by "Stony Smith" not Story Smith
LarryO

 

See Searails.com for PowerMax! or Rokuhan for their equivalent 2 axle power units.

 

Jeff,

Does Rokuhan have a 2 axle power unit available that's on the market right now?

Thanks,

-Jon

 

Rokuhan does not have a 2 axle power unit. There are other manufacturers in japan that do have 2 axle power units

 

Garth, I'm very interested in 2 axle z scale power chassis. The only companies I have found so far have been PowerMax and the LG Thek power chassis. Do you know of or have any links to any other z scale 2 axle power chassis?

Thanks,

-Jon

 

http://searails.com/

 

Jon,
I prefer the LG Thek chassis, but I also have one from craft-s.com which is even tinier, but not cheap.
JamesTraction

 

Thanks James. Any place I can get dimensional info and find price and availability in English?

Thanks,

-Jon

 

Jon,
I had to use translate.google.com to read his pages, so see if you can get the info that way. I'll try to location my chassis and digital calipers to get some measurements this weekend.
James

 

Thanks James, I really appreciate that! I'll see what I can do with google translator.

Thanks,

-Jon