For the HO modeler, a lack of a good, cheap selection of figures, vehicles, and aircraft come to mind. (20+ bucks for a couple HO cars or a set of painted figures is way too much IMO). HO scale aircraft for me has always been a dream. There are no kits for anything modern in the way of small private jets or similar aircraft for the modeling of a regional airport. And most definitely nothing made for bigger 1/87 passenger aircraft. I could see plenty of demand for the former. The latter we’ll save for minituar wunderland, which is the whole inspiration behind my quest for HO scale commercial aircraft. And now…
I have a resin 3d printer I can do it with. Below is a proof of concept. Its a learjet 75 at 1:186 scale, measuring in at 95mm for length.
(sorry the link has to be copy and pasted and I couldn’t get the image posted directly, wanted to make the post quickly and didn’t want to fight with the post editor)
This printed perfectly, the reason the wings look like the deicer failed was because the wings were still a bit fragile at this scale when trying to remove supports. The point here is now that I printed this test model of a small commercial jet, I’ll break up the parts, scale it to HO, and print it again. The model I found free online, I can try to find the link if ya’ll want it. But to be able to circumvent shapeways pricing and scratchbuilding to get these modern vehicle and aircraft models we some of us would really like to have I think is a huge step foward. I don’t know
Bah, private group. I don’t feel like joining right now, maybe later.
I been keeping an eye out on the cool stuff that Luke Towan (Boulder Creek) and Martin (Marklin Of Sweden), among others. Resin 3Ds are looking better and better on both quality and more importantly the cost ratio front particularly on items you will design once and make dozens of (e.g. dumpsters, wall sections, benches and the like). Martin is fond of pointing this out.
So, I will eventually break down and buy a 3-D printer and the required accessories…as likely will many others. Hmm, RPM International, all those 3-D printed parts will need to be primed and painted…may be agood time to bring back Pollyscale and Model Master, don’t you think…
No doubt 3D printing has made great strides and will go even further. A few years ago I would have predicted that every modeler who really liked to build stuff would have his or her own laser cutter but that does not seem to be happening – and my prediction is modified to now refer to 3D printers. Indeed I think the popularity will extend way beyond modelers and tinkerers. Kids toys and kitchen gadgets for example would make many more people want to have one. But I do think the number of people who actually dream up and create the underlying part or piece will always be small compared to those who seek just to push a button and “print out.”
I assume there will always be super-duper wonderful 3D printers that are beyond the reach of all but a few modelers, but maybe not beyond the reach of a really well equipped hobby shop or other retail outlet. They offer the possibility of both an much bigger swath of knowledgeable modelers who create the drawings or programs to make really accurate stuff – a larger swath than we have now – and a new kind of retailing which does not rely on shipping or inventory or warehousing. A sort of “just-in-time” dream.
Already one begins to see model railroad manufacturers offering lines of stuff which are 3D and do not involve the tool and die work and plastic injection machinery that has tended to move production overseas. In other respects these manufacturers are similar to the small dedicated “basement manufacturers” the hobby has always benefited from, with the difference that we used to forgive a certain level of crudeness or inaccuracy to otherwise get the model or part that we wanted. The demands for accuracy and quality will be high.
One caveat however. I have not looked deeply into this but it seems like there are a lot of “free” files floating around there, where someone put in a tremendous amount of work and is willing to just make it available to all wh
I think we’ve just scratched the surface on what is possible with 3D printing. In my case, my layout in 90% complete and I have no plans to start a new one so buying a 3D printer seems like a needless expense. I have started to buy small 3D items being sold on ebay and Amazon. I’ve recently purchased some passenger car interiors that are reasonably well done. I chose unpainted versions which are less than half of what the same vendor was charging for painted ones. One thing that took me by surprise was how strong the resin is. I needed to drill some holes in one of the interiors and it required a good deal of force and at least 5 seconds to drill through about 1/8" of a floorboard. I also needed to cut some notchess into the sides to get them to fit and I ended up using my big table saw because the hand tools just wouldn’t cut it.
I think the future will have files being bought, sold, or traded at very nominal costs, much like music files are now sold. Nobody is going to get rich from them.
While I’m impressed by some of the 3D printed stuff I’ve seen, I have no interest in buying the equipment for it or for learning how to use it.
Pretty-well everything I need for my layout can be either purchased or made by myself, using simple materials and methods. I’m not saying that it will be as good as well-done 3D printing, but it will meet my requirements and re-assure me that I’m still competent enough to do it.
I was a mainframe programmer for most of my working life and I well remember something a former IBMer once said to me. A computer is a great tool for doing one thing a million times. It is a very inefficient tool for doing a million things once. That’s because the work involves programming the computer and testing it thoroughly to make sure it is right. Once it is, it can repeat the same task flawlessly a limitless amount of times. If you are only going to do something once, you’ll spend a lot less time doing it manually than you would programming a machine to do it.
For 3D printing to become an important part of the hobby, the files people develop need to be shared or traded with others. It you are only going to produce things on a one-and-done basis, there are a lot more efficient ways to do that. Having never tried to create a 3D print file, I have to make a guess here. I’m going to guess that individual components can be replicated numerous times within the same file. That would make it a bit more efficient. I’ve done that producing 2D print files for floors and walls for structure interiors and also for decals so it seems probable that is how it would be done for 3D structures.
I agree with your comment, especially about it becoming an important part of a large part of the home model railroader.
At the same time, I assume that for people who are model railroading and also using 3D printing, the enjoyment of the hobby is partially in the programming. My son-in-law will spend hours programming his printer to make an object, while he could have downloaded a similar program in a few seconds. His enjoyment comes from the doing.
I could see some might have the satisfaction of weeks of programming to make one building.
They could have bought a kit, or they could have built it out of styrene, but they will get more enjoyment from the creating and running the program.
3D printers are very good for copying something either exactly or a scaled version if you have the laser reader to create the image in 3D.
I’m getting the impression model locomotive makers are using laser imaging from full sized prototypes to create the moulds for current models. For example, Athearn Genesis newly released SD70 shows the edge of the frame with what appear to be grinding marks or perhaps cutting marks indicative of actual manufacture of the steel frame in prototype. There are other tiny details that indicate a laser imaging device was used to create the mould.
To just write a file for something would be a whole other process.
Luke Towan is the main reason I got a resin 3d printer, and decided to specifically go with the Elfin 2. Haven’t looked back. I cannot recommend him enough to anyone wanting to know more about resin 3d printing or considering it, or those who have one and want ideas for what they can do with it. Luke Towan, if you ever read this, thank you for your superb work and tutorials on your projects.
I also agree with the comments on file availability. I do not think it is fair for the minority who have the time, equipment, and skills to demand premium prices for their work, unless they had to invest several months and a lot of money into the model. Shapeways is a classic example of charging much more than the product would cost to ship and print with profit. I personally plan to share all my small and medium HO models for free to anyone interested as I get them finished and printer ready. The 48" well car I’ve been talking about for a long time is
A building is easy. What is this programming you are all talking about. You draw it up quickly in CAD and hit print. After you draw it up you can print it off in pieces and glue it together like any kit. There are a lot of things we all want in this hobby that are not produced. You can draw up your childhood home and hit print.
The thing that attracts me to 3-D printing is being able to produce copious quantities of things like pallets, crates, or furniture for building interiors. I never cared about the cost of most things in this hobby, but paying $20.00 for five cows or five people is one thing that rubs me the wrong way. Learning CAD is easy, I bought an architect program years ago as we were going to build our own house, it was easy to learn.
That FB page I posted about shows the host creating all sorts of great MRR stuff. He has been creating rolling stock and steam locos and I believe he is currently working on a Selkirk.
The people designing the models and/or printing are taking advantage of those who have less technical experience. If people actually charged the prices that their small models are worth I doubt many would care to continue to selling and designing them. Remember, I’ve physically designed my own HO models from scratch. I was thinking of selling my 3d printed well cars (based as accurately as possible with the resources I had on BNSF’s 48’ well cars) as $15 - $20 undecorated kits complete with printed trucks and couplers on HO swap. I think this is a very fair price for time spent on the model design and actual cost of print + what you get.
This CHASSIS of a similar model, with 0 extra parts or any decent semblence to actual existing railcar prototype, is selling for a minimum of $32 on shapeways! And the pictures show its being printed with a standard 3d printer, not the much more precise resin kind that I print with.
And this $10 HO TV satellite dish?!?! Thats a 15 minute sketchup project and is worth less than 10 cents of resin. Exactly the kind of thing I would personally offer to my fellow modelers as a file free of charge.
At this point I’ve phased out buying kits and just gone to printing everything. I agree that finding modern vehicles is really annoying, if not impossible.
A friend and I have shared our work and have amassed quite a collection of custom builds in each of our basements and have considered selling fully assembled kits that are detailed but easy to mass produce.
We gave up on the idea after deciding we would have to sell a model 20 to 30 times the cost to make. Why is that?
Because we need space, insurance, time away from friends and family on evenings or weekends since we have day jobs. Time is valuable and there needs to be an incentive to make stuff if it goes beyond fun. That’s why a high price makes sense, and people will pay it
I’ve considered releasing the .stl files for free of all the past stuff I’ve built. But I’ve been there before. People want it warrantied, modified, they complain if there’s slight errors. No one is ever satisfied for the efforts you put in, even if it’s given away for free. Finally, there’s the outright theft where people just repost your copyrighted files on other websites and charge for it.
Oh jeez I wasn’t planning on turning my work into an enterprise level operation.[(-D]. I suspect most people trying to make money off 3d printed HO models aren’t looking to do so as a full job or career…
I’m not sure if you’ve had it with people and sharing your .stl files, but as a fellow designer struggling to make files from online actually printable or designing my own for models I want, I would certianly be grateful if you had anything for modern RR equipment that you would still be willing to share. I also completely understand the issues with reselling and/theft if you choose to not to…
An unfortunate potential downside of being generous…[sigh]
I was more reacting to your comment below. I don’t mean to sound greedy. To anyone who has the free time and space to share and help grow the community, you are to be commended for it. But please don’t be critical of people looking to make a business out of it . Sometimes there really is another side of a business not well understood by many. 3d printing can technically be unsafe in a residential settings depending on level of operation and feedstock, so someone who makes stuff commercially available even in a small setting, is going to pay a lot to have a proper room and ventillation. They may rent a space or retrofit a basement. And then there’s the cost of insurance and licensing to sell stuff.