Even at Al's quoted price of $3,000 this seems like a very low barrier
to entry for would-be manufacturers who want to see their favorite
prototype cars produced. Amortizing over 300 kits is $10 each which
seems very, very reasonable to me. I think many people have the
data and photos, so if people like Jim King are offering their services
I hope we'll see more good stuff. The only risk is that attracting 300
buyers is more daunting than it should be -- I think Jon Cagle has
not sold nearly that number of his amazingly good Harriman cars.

Tim "wannabe resin kit entrepreneur" O.

Tim:



We use a figure of 100 kits for the SPH&TS annual car, we usually sell out
and it works out fine for us. 300 kits will take a long time to amortize
your investment.



Paul C. Koehler



_____

From: STMFC@... [mailto:STMFC@...] On Behalf Of
timboconnor@...
Sent: Friday, September 16, 2005 8:33 AM
To: STMFC@...
Subject: [STMFC] Re: pattern making



Even at Al's quoted price of $3,000 this seems like a very low barrier
to entry for would-be manufacturers who want to see their favorite
prototype cars produced. Amortizing over 300 kits is $10 each which
seems very, very reasonable to me. I think many people have the
data and photos, so if people like Jim King are offering their services
I hope we'll see more good stuff. The only risk is that attracting 300
buyers is more daunting than it should be -- I think Jon Cagle has
not sold nearly that number of his amazingly good Harriman cars.

Tim "wannabe resin kit entrepreneur" O.





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But Paul, that's an entirely different equation -- SPH&TS doesn't do custom
tooling, it just does custom paint. Many vendors will do this at very reasonable
prices. My club has raised thousands of dollars for itself selling Intermountain,
Accurail, Athearn and other cars with custom lettering -- and at low prices they
sell as many as 500 cars. This year we're doing the new Accurail 3-bay hopper.

I'm not interested in that stuff -- what I'd like is a 1950's SP TOFC train, and
no one is going to produce SP Clejans (two styles) and SP F-70-10 flat cars in
plastic, plus the trailers... And I'd really like SP G-50-25's (I think that is the
correct class), which was the gondola used for Kaiser ore before the delivery
of the 100 ton cars.

Resin also seems ideal for production of details like -- cushion underframes,
unique box car doors, scale draft gear, coil car hoods, and stuff like the passenger
car parts Tom mentioned. It may also be good for trucks that will never be done
in plastic, like the Chrysler trucks, the 2DF8's with coil-leaf-coil package, etc.

Tim O'Connor

Tim O'Connor wrote:

I'm not interested in that stuff -- what I'd like is a 1950's SP TOFC train, and
no one is going to produce SP Clejans (two styles) and SP F-70-10 flat cars in
plastic, plus the trailers... And I'd really like SP G-50-25's (I think that is the
correct class), which was the gondola used for Kaiser ore before the delivery
of the 100 ton cars.

Challenging goals, but interesting. And you're very, very close, Tim: I might even give you an A- on it: it was actually G-50-26. BTW, there are also photos of 1920s GS gons in the Kaiser trains.

Tony Thompson Editor, Signature Press, Berkeley, CA
2906 Forest Ave., Berkeley, CA 94705 www.signaturepress.com
(510) 540-6538; fax, (510) 540-1937; e-mail, thompson@...
Publishers of books on railroad history

I visited a freind last night that had attended the
Cinci NMRA convention. He saw a company that was
planning to sell software soon which would design CAD
patterns to do laser cutting. The modeler will use
the software to design the pattern for the laser cut
object at his home, e-mail that CAD file to the
company, and the company will send the laser cut
object to the customer. This was being developed with
strutures in mind, but I'd imagine there would be some
freight car possiblities.

Did anyone else see this?

What materials can be cut like this?

Is this any use for making resin patterns?

Regards,

Mike

__________________________________________________
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Mike,

I've seen the company's website, and I was very disappointed.
They require you to use their proprietary software, which is VERY
restrictive, and they will only cut wood.
Their software only supports certain designs of windows and doors
(for structures), and that's it.

I do not see any benefit to STMFC modeling from that company
(their name escapes me, too!)

Regards,

-Jeff

--
Jeff Aley jaley@...
DPG Chipsets Product Engineering
Intel Corporation, Folsom, CA
(916) 356-3533

Mike,
I had Chris Jesse, owner of King Mill, make me a Deck for a SN3 PBL flat
adn had him bore 168 holes so I could put Tichy rivets in to simulate
carriage bolts. Very nice.He claims that he can do 25 for about $4.00 each. I don't
remember his web site but I'll see him Saturday morning at the NMRA MER
James River Division meeting in Charllottesville Virginia.
Chuck Hladik

This is an interesting thread and, since it does bear on the possibilities
of bringing production and semi-production freight cars to market, I think
fairly relevant to this list.
A group of us have been working with Mark4 Designs (Mark Gasson). He is a
New Zealander who has just relocated home after retiring early from a career
with BP in the US and other places in the world. He has invested in a rapid
prototyping machine called a prefactory. It is capable of doing objects in
acrylic plastic. The machine is not as expensive as the ones quoted
previously in this thread but is far from the reach of casual hobbyists.
Right now because of the cost of amortizing the machine and the build time,
the highest and best use of this machine is in the creation of masters for
resin casting. Material costs are not so severe as to eliminate the
possibility of some parts being offered directly out of the machine... Mark4
sells replacement hoods, cabs, and noses to modify Atlas and other brand
locomotives.
We have not arrived at any final pieces yet (mainly due to Mark's
relocation) but are working on a N Scale Baldwin Centercab Transfer
locomotive, steel mill bottle cars, and a CB&Q SM16 stockcar. The test
shots have been outstanding and promise to be excellent pieces once final
parts are completed.
The resolution of the process is entirely sufficient for Model Railroad
purposes. Z Scale rivets are very crisp and correctly shaped. The "stair
stepping" of early stereolithography parts is not present... there is very
little evidence of the layers that the part is built up from and most of it
can be eliminated by building the part in the correct orientation. The
material is a light-cured acrylic plastic which has very good hardness and
other characterisics.
The prefactory is in many ways a magic machine. Any object that can be
drawn in a 3d program (Solidworks is one, Rhino is another) can be processed
into a solid object in any scale from Z to G (there are some size
limitations in the build area of currently available machines which tend to
favor Z, N and HO rolling stock and smaller detail parts only for larger
scales).
The advantage over hand building masters is not great in terms of time for
the first part. Railroad cars tend to be highly modular and use standard
assemblies and parts. The real advantage to the process comes to the fore
when you begin to assemble libraries of parts and can build variations of
previously rendered objects with literally a couple of keystrokes instead of
cutting apart previous submasters to hand build new versions.
The company that is offering the kitOmat design program for custom lasercut
buildings has, as far as I can determine, a rather simplistic program for
very basic building shapes. Design of laser cut parts is not a very
difficult process and it seems to me that laser cut wood is not an ideal
medium for freight cars (or even cabooses and other non-revenue or passenger
equipment) given that the process only can yield wood sides and windows and
doors and flat roof parts. Rapid prototyping can give you all the parts
necessary for any car with the exception of the wheel pairs and the couplers
of choice.
Rapid prototyping will come down in price to the point it will be within the
reach of casual manufacturers. The learning curve to know how to draw
objects in 3D that are usuable and the tricks necessary to get usable
finished parts out of the machine is not inconsequential.... and, depending
on the amortization period selected, the hourly cost of the machine is very
substantial.
There may be processes to use the output of a prefactory, either directly
using different mediums or indirectly using the prefactory to make mold
inserts and/or as an intermediate step in emerging technologies to get to
hard tooling. This opens up the possibility of many short production cars
that are limited to resin copies of hand built masters today.
We are living in the Golden Age of Model Railroading today, but even better
things are on the horizion for tomorrow!!
Charlie Vlk
Railroad Model Resources

Jeff,

The only thing that comes to mind after hearing this
is that one could potentially have custom flat car
decks and roof walks. It sounds like the technology
might allow that, but not the vender.

Thanks for the info.

Mike

--- jaley <jaley@...> wrote:

Mike,

I've seen the company's website, and I was very
disappointed.
They require you to use their proprietary software,
which is VERY
restrictive, and they will only cut wood.
Their software only supports certain designs of
windows and doors
(for structures), and that's it.

I do not see any benefit to STMFC modeling from
that company
(their name escapes me, too!)

Regards,

-Jeff


On Sep 16, 11:49am, Mike Aufderheide wrote:

Subject: Re: [STMFC] pattern making
I visited a freind last night that had attended

the

Cinci NMRA convention. He saw a company that was
planning to sell software soon which would design

CAD

patterns to do laser cutting. The modeler will

use

the software to design the pattern for the laser

cut

object at his home, e-mail that CAD file to the
company, and the company will send the laser cut
object to the customer. This was being developed

with

strutures in mind, but I'd imagine there would be

some

freight car possiblities.

Did anyone else see this?

What materials can be cut like this?

Is this any use for making resin patterns?

Regards,

Mike

--
Jeff Aley jaley@...
DPG Chipsets Product Engineering
Intel Corporation, Folsom, CA
(916) 356-3533

__________________________________
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Mike,

I didn't go to Cinnci but the name of the business is King Mill Enterprises. They have released a very nice kit of the N&W depot at Green Cove (made famous in an O. Winston Link photo) as a kit called Nella Country Store & Post Office. Both very nice kits. I'm sure freight cars were spotted at the Green Cove depot (mandatory content).

Jim Brewer
Glenwood MD

I've seen the company's website, and I was very disappointed.
They require you to use their proprietary software, which is VERY
restrictive, and they will only cut wood.
Their software only supports certain designs of windows and doors
(for structures), and that's it.

I do not see any benefit to STMFC modeling from that company
(their name escapes me, too!)

Regards,

-Jeff

Jeff et al:

King Mill Enterprises at
http://www.kingmill.com/shop/product_info.php?products_id=40

Jack Boren