I got the print files for ... 12 different single track tunnel portals you can print up on my thingiverse.com account. UP Style ( HERE ) Stepped Top ( HERE ) Stone Arch ( HERE ) Moffat Tunnel Portal ( HERE ) I'll probably use the Moffat style above some place on both ends of one tunnel. Other tunnels are changes from one scene to another. In fact only a couple tunnels with be through a mountain that you see both sides of but through the two backdrops/dividers. In these cases it would be perfectly fine to have different tunnel portals as the tunnel wouldn't of been bored through a mountain at the same time from two directions. Concrete Faced portals above. Random Stone facing above. 8 inch x 16 inch blocks shown above. 8 inch x 8 inch x 16 inch concrete and cinder blocks are a common building material in the U.S.. I don't know about other places and don't know if they are/were used to face tunnel portals but I'll probably use this style portal a couple places on the layout. I use this block pattern for some of my buildings and walls I've designed that one can print. See my thingiverse.com account ( HERE ) or my website ( HERE ) for more info and print files. The facing above is 1 ft. x 2 ft. blocks and for me represents stone blocks but could be concrete blocks. I'm still using a filament printer so can't really get a rough stone sculptured look but for N scale it would be hard to see any of that from a couple feet away or more. Hopefully at some point I will start using the resin printer I have and maybe come back to these designs. Sumner
Nice work. Eventually I'll have to figure out an easy way to do stone or concrete blocks in Fusion... my only attempt to date was far more work than it should be. A thought might be to create a basic arch interior that's about three or four inches long so that from most angles one can see tunnel interior and not benchwork or whatever.
Thanks I did have an extension designed and might still have the file but didn't like how long it took to print and and material it used so abandoned it for now. I'm using foam board for scenery and I think I can use it to hide the inside in most cases. Here are some simple examples that aren't finished as far as blending the joint between the portal and the rock behind it. I'm also hopefully going to get around to designing/printing some side wing walls also and maybe some short rear extensions to do what you are talking about. Look at the 'Pattern' command under 'Create' in Fusion for doing the blocks. I do a small wall with it and then copy and paste it into a much larger wall than I need and save that. Then later cut that wall down to the size I need for whatever I'm working on.... buildings, walls, etc.. There are some different ways to use the 'Pattern' command and sometimes I found them confusing but over all it works well. I used ..... ... it for for the bridge track at the bottom of the pit for the turntable shown above, but it would take me a while to figure out how I used it if I had to today , Sumner
Not to hijack this too badly, but here's what I've done thus far, for a local who is working on an NTrak module. Here's an image of the original: What I managed to generate in Fusion: Lastly, the printed version (printed on an Ultimaker, not yet fully cleaned up):
