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.

That almost reminds me of my Mechanical Drawing Final; a V8 crankshaft, in Isometric view. I aced it 50 years ago, doubt I could now!(https://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-undecided.gif)

Suh-weet, Devon!!

Very nice Devon. I should use my extra home time to get back into Sketch-Up; or some other 3D CAD. I was doing well with it when I ran into a road block and quit. That seems to been my M.O. the last few years with modeling projects.

Will you give permission to Mike to scale your designs up to 7/8 scale?

Jon Radder said:

Very nice Devon. I should use my extra home time to get back into Sketch-Up; or some other 3D CAD. I was doing well with it when I ran into a road block and quit. That seems to been my M.O. the last few years with modeling projects.

If you want to get into 3D printing give up on sketch up and go to Autodesk Fusion 360. You can get a free version for personal use. I was trying sketch up and it does not play all that nice when converting to .stl for printing. I have had too many issues. Fusion 360 is more or less the same time program and is much easier to convert to .stl files and even has a meshing tool that looks for unseen mistakes that will prevent printing. If you can make sketch up do what you want then the learning curve for Fusion is easy enough. It does take some learning but like sketch up there are all sorts of tutorials and Dan is also excellent at helping guide me through it and if you ask nice I am sure he will help you also.

John Bouck said:

Will you give permission to Mike to scale your designs up to 7/8 scale?

Mike has my permission to print any of MY designs for our club members and people on LSC for whatever price he chooses to charge in whatever scale he wants to print it. My intellectual property is free to use for those i know as far as I am concerned. My only ask is that he does not provide the files without my okaying it. You never know when I might want to try and make a buck or two. I want to be able to reserve that right. He does have designs from others that I have permission to print for me. He will need to work with the owners of those designs. He knows which ones are mine and which ones are others.

But to the point of these part I would love nothing more than to see them on your 7/8ths stuff. He and I have discussed this already and its easy to jump scales. He is going to print some in 1:48 most likely. I am going to work on a set of valves and pipe fittings that when done I will share also if interested.

Nice work, Devon. Be careful, 3D modeling is addictive and its a deep hole with no bottom. I look forward to seeing more designs.

Jon Radder said:

Very nice Devon. I should use my extra home time to get back into Sketch-Up; or some other 3D CAD. I was doing well with it when I ran into a road block and quit. That seems to been my M.O. the last few years with modeling projects.

Jon, as Devon noted, if you decide to get back into 3D modeling, give Fusion 360 a shot. I also started with Sketchup and there are several pics floating around here of work I’ve done in it. Sketchup was originally designed for the architectural market not mechanical modeling which is more in line with what we do are doing. Fusion 360 is relatively easy to learn if you are already comfortable with the 3D design process. If you decide to give it a try, I’ll be glad to provide any assistance I can.

Dan Hilyer said:

…if you are already comfortable with the 3D design process…

No, I’m not. I struggle to even think in 3D; which may sound odd coming from someone who takes flat designs and turns them into 3D signs. For many of my larger projects I build a scale or semi scale mock-up; especially to determine joinery.