Vic,
IMHO hard to do a what if drive design as there are generally too many variables. design for available space and desired ratio as a starting point is needed. ( I did machine design all my life) Stock Drive products is a good source for commercial gears. a couple of years ago i identified the axle gear from the Bachman C-19, and purchased a spare gearbox and cover for future use.
Al P.
Vic,
Metal parts can be printed, however i have found different shrink rates in different axis. for example i did main rods for a C-18. the length of the part initially was either to long or short i cannot remember (look up my thread on C-18 conversion from C-19) ultimately had to run another set after calculating the shrink rate in the long direction. this part was too long to run in brass as that would have been my first choice. i have not attempted wheels. another thing, this material is not friendly to rework i.e. drilling (with carbide) tapping is a no go at least in smaller sizes.
Al P.
I will be the first say that I have never personally used one, but every thing that I have seen printed is not what I would use. Now I have no idea what they were printed with or any of the technical specs AND have no idea what their printers cost. So I might really be way behind the times on this.
Peter,
Slaters is a company I really need to try out. You have mentioned them several times in regard to finding a suitable driver for the project I was working for the CR&N #4. Though Kevin was never sold on them because they didnât have the right driver for that project, they do have plenty of nice drivers and I had completely forgotten about them. Certainly for making generic blocks to build projects off of they are more than adequate. Thanks for reminding me of them.
Vic,
I am very intrigues with the 3D metal printing. I know very little about it, but from what I gather it is not âmetalâ in the sense of a solid piece of metal. Its metal impregnated resin. And last I checked is very very expensive. But that was admittedly quite some time ago. And when I say expensive, I mean cost prohibitive type expensive. A few motor blocks and you could buy a CNC machine kind of expensive. But that was long enough ago and the technology changes so fast that this could very well be a viable option.
Metal sintering is fusing metal powder with a laser, so it is, indeed, solid metal.
Sheâs been making metal sintered sculpture for a long time now, its fascinating.
First let me apologize if that came of as condescending and rude. After your response even I thought I sounded rude. But I certainly didnât mean it that way. So if I gave that impression I apologize.
What I was more properly trying to say is that both the technology and the materials have changed radically in just the very short few years I have been into it. I had the very same concerns as you. And wasnât going to buy into it for exactly the reasons you mention. But we all know how fast things change in todayâs world. Not so long ago a cell phone came in a bag and looked like a brick. Not something I would use or carry. Now, if I desire, I can wear a stylish cell phone on my wrist and it will not only make a phone call but tell me how many steps I took and how many calories I burned.
My point is donât look at what was printed 10, 5, even 2 years ago and lock yourself into the idea that is what it looks like today. If, and that is a giant IF, this is at all something you are interested in, or you have a need for a one off part that you canât get, I highly recommend you give 3D printing another look. I am willing to bet You would change your opinion.
I just printed this. Its a test print. It needs revision. But this is the second time I printed the engine, and the first print for the belt pulley and saw. No build lines, fine detail, dang near production. Can you honestly tell me that is not something you would use. If it isnât you are far more picky than me. And with some revision, Mainly in orientation for printing, what few blemishes I do have wonât show up in round two. And a bit of sanding and all the little pimples from the supports are gone.
I know I sound like a broken record and a salesmen for 3D printing. But I assure you I am coming from this from a totally different perspective that that. I am not a CAD draftsman. I had no idea how to do it. I am not a tech nerd who has to have the latest and greatest gadget (Unless its for cooking, then I admit it). My roots are in scratch building and kit building. I have worked with models all of my life in one for or fashion. When a kit wasnât available for the thing I wanted, I started gluing up wood and styrene. And I was an amendment detractor of this technology and very vocal about it.
But then I saw that people were producing some pretty cool stuff, albeit kinda ugly with their nasty build lines and the materiels were kinda hard to deal with. Then my close friend got into this new thing called resin printing. Everything changed. Now that I have learned CAD and can pretty much sit down and design what ever my heart contents, and machines are available to the hobbyist to produce them. a world has opened up to me that would have never been possible before.
I wasnât going to let the cat out of the back quite yet. I was going to make this a âsurpriseâ when it was done. But it illustrates everything I have come to love about 3D printing. But I wanted to model a very specific caboose. An ex Milwaukee rib side caboose. NO ONE comes close to making anything like this in Large Scale. Right down to the trucks. Sure I could probably invest a great deal of time, energy, and materials to scratch build it. But that would likely mean it would never get done. But with 3D printing, especially both formats (resin and filament), I will have a completed model very soon. The test print for the ends is on the printer as we speak.
This is EXACTLY why I fully believe this is where the future of the hobby will rest. There are so many options. You can design and do it yourself. You can pay for someone to design it and you can print it yourself. You can design it yourself and pay someone to print it. Or you can, or soon, will be able to by a kit that comes in a box or a fully assembled ready to roll model.
And that is from the consumer end. We havenât discussed the retail end. 3D printing will be the way of the now and future because it allows the manufacturer to offer a product that they need not stock on a shelf or make a production run of a couple hundred and have that investment sitting there hoping it sells. They âstoreâ the file on a computer, they buy some resin, and if and when an order comes in they print it and ship it. Way low overhead in a niche market that no one can predict what or when something will sell.
I just think it unwise to continue to raise our noses at a technology that EVERYONE knows is where the world is going. I am a fan of Big Block gas guzzling 500HP gas burning muscle cars. But I know that they are dead and I will be driving a Prius like everyone else. We just have to accept the inevitable or pray our passing comes soon.
Bob,
What did I ever do to you to make you hate me? I have no idea what this voodoo is that you speak of but it sounds like I have an expensive new toy in my future.
I love spending other peopleâs money.
No need to apologize as I was not offended. I am actually technically adept as I have a software company and have been dealing with technology back to punch cards. I considered getting a âtoyâ but seeing the samples I decided it was not prime time just yet. But I may reconsider in next couple years.
As an example on fast technology is changing on resin printers hereâs an example of a replacement part.
My printer uses a 2k screen. When I got the printer 4 years ago I never bought a replacement screens as it was $150, but I looked now as Iâll need one soon and they are now $50-80. The reason for that is 4k and even 8k printers have surpassed 2k printers.
Iâm not a big fan of whole print jobs but rather using resin to print details but I also understand the appeal and why some parts are better printed resin vs FDM vs scratch built. Take Devonâs caboose for example, Iâd still build the core structure out for styrene but the ribside parts Iâd print. Meanwhile heâs okay with printing the whole thing.
Devon, a quick search of metal printing , shows a machine that can print in a variety of metals, from âstainless steel to copperâ , their words. A powder/ Filament mix.
A good metal printer starts at 25-30K then you need the post process sintering oven. i never went as far as pricing out that piece of the puzzle. if you want to find out if your part can be printed in metal, open a shapeways account and upload your models. they will tell you what processes they can perform. not all models work with all materials. for example the main rod i spoke of earlier could not be done in lost wax due to its length, so my only choice was to do in the sintered stainless/bronze. and like i said this stuff is tough to do any post process machining on.
Al P.
I do a lot of tabletop gaming, and I occasionally buy 3d resin printed models. Theyâre nearly impossible to tell from injection molded figures. Its amazing.
Way back in prehistoric times (mid 70âs) I had a temporary job at a company that did sinetering. This was long before CNC was a mainstream thing. I operated a press that would fill a die with powdered metal, then use high pressure to make a fairly solid part from the powder. It was then run through an oven that fused the powder together into a solid part. Being a troublemaker, I wanted to see what would happen if I double loaded the die before pressing. Broke the machine 
Fast forward to present day. We buy custom made internally lit metal sign letters from a company in China. I have no clue what metal they use, but it extremely hard to drill. Seems harder than stainless. I wonder if they are 3D printing these âcansâ and sintering them. That would explain how they can make them so fast and so cheap.
This makes me feel much better about what I said. Not only that you didnât take my meaning wrong but also that you are not one of these people locked in a dungeon stuck in 1940. It lends much more to your argument since you are fully aware of the tech and how fast tech changes. I better understand that you have at least a pretty good sense or at least nose for it.
And with that, you are certainly entitled to your opinion as I am. At the end of the day its our hobby and we will work at it in our way that makes us happy.
And if at ever you want to test my theory let me know and I will make you something and send it to you so you can reevaluate.
Mike was just talking about this to me the other day. I am a neophyte when it comes to filament printing. And he said something about metal impregnated fiber. Now that might very will be a way to get it done. I believe the machine I just bought has the capability if I buy the head for it. If I can print even just the tires and the hub with metal and then the centers in PETG then we may have a real winner. And the beauty of fiber printing is the ability to have multiple fiber rolls on your machine or at the very least the ability to switch them out and continue the print job. So It still wouldnât be multiple pieces but rather one piece with multiple materials.
This has me a bit more than just curious. I think printed drivers would be awesome if they had at least some metal in them to reinforce them and ideally give them a raw metallic look.
It really is. I am just dumbfounded by it. Its trickery. How this liquid can have light blasted into it and have it only solidify a pinpoint of resin and not a blob around it is just amazing and then add that it does it layer after layer after layer at basically microscopic intervals tot hen create this highly detailed model is just crazy to me.
I was just emailing Dan H and I told him that it is almost a hobby in and of itself to design in CAD and print. Half of what I am doing anymore is to just see if I can. Not because I necessarily want the model. Thatâs just a bonus. The furnace blower is a prime example. I just want to see if I can do it.
And I am learning a whole gob of information on my problems with things being brittle, which is my chief complaint. The mix Mike uses I tried for the first time. And the parts are quite bendy and are damn near welded to the build plate. I can use a lot of force to pull them off and they are not breaking. After a quick discussion with him on post curing and why we HAVE to do it, I found out I am way way way over-curing my stuff and that is the main reason I am having trouble with things being brittle. In the last few print/cure cycles for my swing saw I have much more durable parts.
One of the things for me is how to get the item in design. Someone told me at one point that you can actually use an iPhone to take pics or video or something and it âscansâ it in. One of the reasons I was originally looking into it is I am restoring a â55 Willys wagon and the front armrests are plastic and now after 68 years theyâre cracked, broken, brittle, etc. They are impossible to find, let alone in usable condition so I was looking to see about printing them and then possibly trying to make a resin mold, etc. But getting the original, real shape in would be the issue to me.
My reading and from what I have heard from others is that the 3D scanning technology isnât there yet. Getting there, and closer all the time. That will be a serious game changer if and when it can accurately duplicate images. Iâm not sold yet.
Getting things to design is a whole other ball game. And frankly the most difficult piece of the puzzle. Learning CAD, when you have no drafting skill of any sort much less computer aided drafting skill and jumping in with both feet is a real hair pulling learning curve. Its funny we are hving these conversations, because I just also emailed Dan and told him I remember how frustrated I was trying to do the simplest designs. He gave me two sage pieces of wisdom. âStick with itâ, and âonce you master a few basic concepts the rest comes easy and is intuitiveâ. I almost cashed in and ran. I am not going to lie getting those basic concepts he referred to where causing me real stress. I look back on it now and its almost comical. I can do things almost without thinking. and when I do run into something I am not real sure how I am going to pull off, I surprise myself and it comes to me because I have the basic understanding of what âcan/shouldâ happen and how to at least begin to think about it.
I am doing that at this very moment with the caboose. I forgot to design the break gear (hand wheel, pawl and ratchet, and bottom bracket thingy). Its not an easy design as its one of those artsy type hand wheels with lots of compound curvy details. Two months ago I would have been able to do it. Dan taught me one of those basic concepts I hadnât picked up yet. And just having a simple concept allowed me to whip up a pretty decent hand wheel in just a short time.
And I am not doing this as a brag session on oh looky what I can do. My goal here is to show that even an old guy like me with a hole in his head can learn new tricks and keep up with todayâs changing hobby. If I can do it, anyone can.
And just for the record that maybe out of my wheel house for my offer.
