Nice work so far Seeing how good that tank car looks with the parts upgrade makes me want to try one.
It's a pretty fun project, and it's amazing what a difference the safety rails alone make. I think in a way the MDC tooling's lack of detail is part of the reason it's stuck around as long as it has. It's a perfect base for adding detail onto to match any of a dozen different road-specific tank cars, without having to shave off a whole carload of molded-on nonsense first.
I have only two questions. First, how did you do the corrugated roofing material? It looks AMAZING. And second, how much is the rent on the upper floor? It looks like an upgrade from my current living space
Rent is $1 night. The roof was done with corrugated material cut into squares and glued into a sheet of basswood. I first hit it with flat then airbrushed it with grey, red brown, brown and black. I cut a thin slice in paper as a mask and just went to town alternating stripes and colors. Finished it off with a toothpick to bring some shiny areas back and the hit it with flat again. After visiting the Franklin & S. Manchester I decided to really up my game on the layout and its structures.
Evergreen also offers a styrene sheet product that can be used to make corrugated buildings. I like to scribe lines in it to simulate individual sheets. Also, cutting back the drip edge on some of the sheets adds to the effect. I used it for the actual structure to create this grain elevator.
The stuff I used can also be corroded with circuit board etching fluid, but it’s difficult to find around here with the demise of radio shack. I opted for paint.
I moved my N scale log car build to my UP layout build (HERE). Added more info and images to it and build detail. Here is some of that ... ====================================================================== On the first print of just the end of the car the pocket for the coupler had no bottom, only sides, back and top. I tried to then hold the coupler in with a 00-90 screw through the coupler and into the body as shown above. I wasn't happy with that as the screw that came with the couple was too long and I had drilled the hole out to tap for the screw too large and had to CA the screw to the body to work with the coupler height. The screw also didn't have a lot of thread depth (even if I'd drilled the hole the right size). I did a redesign and added a bottom to the pocket so that the screw now doesn't have to hold the coupler up but just holds it from sliding out and is in double-shear. I reduced the size of the pocket so that it is hardly visible with the car on the track. I printed three of the cars (little over an hour print) with the $200 AnyCubic Photon M to get a feel for how they would look. I put couplers in one of the cars to check the pockets and how the screw would work. The trucks still hadn't arrived so what you see above is where I'm at now. Overall I'm happy but need to tweak some things. At this point ordered some Micro-Trains Z couplers to try and waiting on that order. Since the coupler pocket seems to work well I think I can move the Z couplers if they work or the 1015's up about .010” to .015” higher in the body and also narrow the body a bit more. I also remembered I had a $13 assortment of 00-90 screws so was able to use those instead of the screws that come with the couplers. I have the hole in the bottom of the pocket sized so that the screw goes through it and only threads into the body above the coupler. Also found out that I don't need to tap that hole, which is about impossible as it is so short, as the screw does a good job tapping the hole itself. It also doesn't have to hold the coupler up with the pocket also on the bottom of the coupler (see above). As far as the detail I designed, it prints but boy is it hard to see with the naked eye unless the car is very close to that eye. I keep seeing where people want more print resolution with resin printers. I find this $200 printer to give me all I'd care to have since the cars will be on the layout and not in my hand much right in from of my face. As long as I could find a printer that prints this good then the build volume becomes the desired feature for me. This printer is doing the job for most projects for me with the 163.9 x 102.4 x 180 mm (6.45” L x 4” W x 7” H) build volume. At some point I might consider a resin printer with a larger build volume but don't need it to have anymore print resolution. I still use the Ender3 Pro for projects and it has a much larger build volume. If you are new to printing I try and print most of my filament (Ender 3) prints flat on the table so the size that can be printed is determined more by the length of the X & Y planes on the printer. I hardly ever print a resin print on the build plate. They are usually suspended on supports and print better that way. Doing that with the current Photon M3 printer I can orient the print to take advantage of the 7” height and the 6.45” length and print items that are almost as large as I print with the filament printer. Both printers have their pro's and con's. Don't think you can't print N scale items with a filament printer as I have tons of N scale items ( HERE ) & ( HERE ) I've printer for the railroad with the filament printer, more than I've printed with the resin printer and those print files are up for anyone to use (non-commercial). The detail shown above is down to around .007”/ .178 mm or about 1 inch in N scale. I can't print down to .014”/.356 mm with the Ender 3 Pro filament printer, about 2 scale inches. In most cases at normal viewing distances one can not see much under 2 scale inches. Sumner
working on ATSF rail detector cars 9167/4...... 3D printed and primed..... boxcar only for size comparison...... other roads used almost similar sets..... drive is a very small/good TOMA MODEL WORKS (JAPAN) super slow drive...... more ATSF transition era models see WWW.ATSFNSCALEMODELS,COM next step is installing a ZIMO MX648 sound decoder and speaker in trailing car..... model can be rescaled/printed in Z, TT, H0 and S scale (Uniformation Gk2 printer, Sunlu ABS like black rsin)
Sorry but I've got to many projects of my own that I'll probably never get time to finish before ......... I generally spend time (a lot of time) sharing what I do but at this point in life not interested in taking on new pursuits that aren't related to what I need (a little selfish I suppose). There would be a lot more to scaling it down than say taking one of my building prints and enlarging it to HO or reducing it to Z. Anyone with a printer and slicer software can do that. Changing it to Nn3 would require leaving some of the dimensions the same and chaniging others. I use Fusion and if someone or you wants the .f3d files to modify it I'd be happy to pass them along. You need Fusion though to work with those files but you can download it free. @peteGSX on here uses Fusion and is doing a Nn3 layout. Might message him and see if logging cars might interest him. Sumner
Hi Alister, Good to hear grom you and your interest in these cars! After finishing these cars I will update my website and make them available.......... Speak to you soon!
Here is my latest conversion: Old n scale Kato/Atlas RS-3 converted from TCS CP-GN to ESU LokSound. I milled the frame with a Dremel milling bit in my drill press. Both ends are relieved. I drilled 4 holes and tapped 1-72 threads for power pickup from the frame sides. I soldered wires to the brush caps and relieved the frame (just visible in the pictures) to run the wires to the top opening. The brush area and motor were wrapped with Kapton to prevent shorts. I used an OWS 8x12mm speaker on one of my resin printed backcases. The pictures are up to the point of adding the LEDs. I used the teal wire as a "positive" feed with the normal blue common wire- easier to wire the LEDs. I will put 0402 white LEDs with a 2.2kOhm SMD resistor in parallel at each end. After milling and grinding a groove for the motor wire: Assembled the side frames, routing the motor wires to avoid a pinch in the frame: Added the speaker: Ready for the LEDs after initial testing:
After one very productive day with my spray booth back online I have PFE reefers in every stage of paint from 'lightly primed' to 'ready to weather'. This must be that reefer madness I was warned about years ago
But wait, it gets even madder! I'm attempting to 3D print mech reefer fuel tanks so I don't have to scratchbuild them for 2/3 of my reefer fleet. This batch (and the two before it) are unusable for various reasons, but printing a simple (mostly) foolproof box shape has really helped me figure out where I'm going wrong with my detail part prints. It's going to take a few more iterations, but it's honestly still easier than trying to scratchbuild something I need a dozen identical copies of, and I have enough not-quite-right styrene tank rejects in my styrene scrap container to prove it.
