So thanks to Dan and Cliff and a guy in my local club I have decided to jump into the 3D printing game. It is finally at a price point and quality that I feel I need to give it a go. Resin printing is such great quality and prints some fine small detail and the machines are down under 300 and producing excellent results for small scale print jobs. Its a hard leap for me because I very much like creating stuff from unusual everyday things. And I enjoy resin casting and want to get into brass and aluminum casting. I won’t give any of that up but I can’t resist the urge any more. One thing I like about the technology is the ability to model in multiple scales with just a little resizing of the design. since I model in three scales 1:20.3, 1:24, and now 1:48 this makes sense to me. So Dan and Cliff’s help I am using Autodesk Fusion 360 for the CAD work and my friend Mike will do the slicing and printing until I get my own set up. But here is my first attempt to design parts in Fusion. I had used Sketchup so the Fusion learning curve was bearable. Still steep but I am managing. Anyway here is a sand dome, steam dome, and stack in 1:24 for a future loco project.
They are all hollow. The stack is completely hollow and will have a screen spark arrester on top. The steam and sand domes are hollow up into the dome and will be filled with epoxy and lead shot to add weight. They are not yet curved for the boiler and won’t be until after they are printed. I will sand them to fit perfectly on the boiler like I do with the PVC ones I made. I have to wait a bit on printing as my buddy is busy printing a large order of 7/8ths stuff right now. But this has been interesting.
