Re: Another Shapeways report
Bob McCarthy
Rob,
Please contact me off list. Have questions about your parts that do not belong on this list. Thanks, Bob McCarthy ________________________________ From: Rob Kirkham <rdkirkham@live.ca> To: STMFC@yahoogroups.com Sent: Sunday, October 14, 2012 8:02 PM Subject: Re: [STMFC] Another Shapeways report I see the photos of my latest projects have been approved now. They are at: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/STMFC/photos/album/219763914/pic/list?order=ordinal> Rob Kirkham Sent: Saturday, October 13, 2012 5:35 PM To: <STMFC@yahoogroups.com> Subject: [STMFC] Another Shapeways report I've posted a number of photos of my own recent experiments with 3d printing (waiting for them to be approved). These were done by ADC (Advanced Design Concepts) - but as far as I know they use the same machine and substance as Shapeways. Overall I am quite happy with the parts I received. The first photos show tank car underframes for CPR 389xxx series tank cars. The cars looked a lot like the Athearn single dome tank (and also like an SP prototype Tony Thompson has written about modelling). I've been muddling my way through this project for a number of years, but this is the closest I've come to an acceptable frame model. At this point the issues are in my design errors - not the material or process used by ADC. that said, I can see some grain in the part that may show through the paint. And the particles that are fused to make the part do produce some "noise" when under magnification. But for frame parts that will be largely hidden beneath running boards and the tank itself, I think this is acceptable quality for now. The other part is an inverted Murphy end used on the CPR's 2975xx series single sheathed automobile boxcars. The rest of the model is still in process. Again one can see some waviness in the flat surfaces, and some imperfections in the corrugations, but overall I think it is a satisfactory starting point for the model. My photography isn't good enough to show the rivets along the edges, but they are there too. I've been using Bestine rubber cement thinner to clean the waxy stuff of the parts with success so far. A few minutes in that stuff cleans them and changes the parts from translucent to opaque white and cleans some of the wax away. One thing about ADC - they focus on your job so the parts are oriented as you would like. The auto-box end was modelled laying on the interior side of the model. Interesting that the view of the back shows more of the printing texture. I assume that is the wax support - and "yes" it is far more grainy than any other surface of the model. By the way this ties into the other thread re the UP boxcars - as, for example, I believe this process allows one to build the ends without hacking up Tichy parts. Of course some of you are skilled enough that you don't hack, but for those of us who do . . . . Rob Kirkham [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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