A 3D Printing Experiment
I was browsing the Rails of Sheffield website and was reeling at the eye-watering prices of the wagons when I began to wonder if I could 3D print a reasonably acceptable model.
A quick browse of Cults.com and Yeggi.com turned up quite a few OO scale 3D printed wagons.
An hour or so later I had a couple being printed out.
This is a “Gannet” Ballast Hopper Wagon that I found on Thingiverse, credit for the original 3D print design goes to “Ironmink”
Next, we have a LowMac also from “Ironmink” on Thingiverse.
This was also printed on the Photon M5s resin printer.
Here it is with the buffers added, yes, they were 3D printed on the resin printer. The camera is brutally honest when zoomed in this much.
I wanted a suitable “load” to put on the LowMacs. A quick trawl through the 3D Printing sites and I found this. It’s meant to be part of a transformer, but I suppose it could be storage tanks.
A quick spray of silver from the airbrush.
Finally, we have a 7 plank wagon that I found on Thingiverse, credit for the original 3D print design goes to “Ockey Mountain Railway”. I printed this on the Elegoo FDM printer.
Here it is during some painting and weathering.
Here is the top and the chassis. As you can see the buffers didn’t come out great on the filament printer. I will probably re-print those on the resin printer, but on the whole I think it came out pretty well.
It used the equivalent of about £1.60 of filament, so a rake of 10 is around £10.60 as opposed to £10.00 per wagon which is the cheapest I could find on Rails of Sheffield.
Filament vs Resin
It’s a given fact that Resin 3D printing gives more detailed results than filament, but I wanted to see just how much different they were.
I created my own version of a FGA Freightliner wagon.
..and sent the same file to my Elegoo filament 3D printer and my Photon Resin 3D printer.
It took 12 hours for the resin printer to finish.
…and 2 hours for the Filament 3D printer to finish.
The difference is huge. I added “supports” to the filament print and by the time I had taken those off, the rough edges were awful. It made the print unusable.
However, an earlier 3D print I did of an FGA Wagon on the filament printer came out well. The difference was the level of detail and the fact that I could print this one upside down, which meant no supports.
3D Printed Trucks/Bogies
3D printing the Bogies/Trucks has been a bugger.
This is a great example of a compromise between scale/prototype accuracy and the strength needed for 3D printing.
I printed a fantastically accurate bogie, but it was too delicate and snapped.
I’ve now purchased every 3D print bogie I could find on all the websites, (including the free ones) and I’m not happy with any of them.
OO Scale Coalfish Wagon 3D Print
As my journey into 3D printing OO scale wagons continues, using images and information online, I created my own version of a HMA “Coalfish” wagon.
4 hours later, my Anycubic resin 3D printer turned out this…
I’m trying out a new resin that is flexible. I’m really pleased with this as it makes installing the wheel sets much easier when there is a bit of “give” in the plastic. I ruined 2 chassis’ before I switched to the new resin.
The pictures below are a bit busy but you can see how the chassis and bodies came out after airbrushing and weathering. (the Lowmac in the foreground is also 3D printed.)
I know they aren’t as detailed as the £30 model, but that’s not the point of my exercise, which was, can I produce a reasonably accurate and visually pleasing model of an OO Scale 3D Printed Wagon?
Personally, I think the answer is YES.
I still need to tweak the weathering a little more and fit the buffers, brake levers etc. but I think they came out pretty well.
If I create other OO Scale 3D printed wagons, I’ll add them here.
Thanks for reading.
