Printing Modern Wagons in N - JHA, MWA, IPA, JGA

[njee20]

I started a thread on the N Gauge Forum a while ago, but thought I may as well replicate here, in the absence of much modelling activity (more on that below)...

Back story: I flirted with 3D printing for a while, but I wanted to be able to actually design stuff to print, to make it worthwhile, rather than be limited to geometric shapes and things I could download from Thingiverse. I spent a fallow period at work teaching myself Fusion 360, and bought an Anycubic Photon back in August. Still firmly an amateur, and making loads of mistakes, but churning out some acceptable (to me) items.

I'm a modern day N gauge modeller, with an interest in the WCML, although I'm a bit more liberal with freight stock, extending that to include things I just like, even if not totally geographically appropriate.

 

The driver for creating the thread now is that I moved house last month, which meant dismantling (permanently) the layout, and putting the printers (I acquired an Elegoo Mars too back in February) in  boxes. So I presently have time to do CAD stuff, and talk about modelling but nothing is actually getting printed, so expect a flurry of activity now, and then not a lot of any real interest until I'm up and running again!

 

So... here's a whilstlestop tour of progress so far.

 

I started off with a Powell Duffryn JHA, with LTF-25 bogies, the bogies ended up being grossly simplified as much of the detail was lost, but it captures the general look of the inside frames, which will suffice until I revisit them having learned a bit more. I think I probably need to start again. These are fitted with Fox Valley Models wheels with the pinpoints simply filed off. Did a quick paint job on this one, and it's still awaiting most decals.

 

Untitled by njee20, on Flickr

 

Pair of outer wagons:

 

Untitled by njee20, on Flickr

 

Underside of hastily assembled bogies, clearly B2Bs need checking on this one!

 

Untitled by njee20, on Flickr

 

 

Edited April 16, 2022 by njee20

[njee20]

Next off the rank was the Drax biomass IIAs. I've never even seen these in the flesh, but they look interesting!

 

Early CAD:

 

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Quick print showing the massive overhang and the need for a separate coupler mount:

 

 

TF-25 bogies in CAD:

 

Version 592 (it felt like) to check ride height against a 66:

 

 

Obviously the artwork is a really key feature of these wagons. I spoke extensively to a supplier, but getting a good colour match was painful, and they were going to be expensive due to the size of the decals that would be needed. So I thought I'd have a go at printing myself.

 

Artwork in Vectr:

 

Had to adjust the colours a few times, but the end result was acceptable (to me):

 

 

I added all of the data panels, painstakingly, most of which are totally illegible! Decal closeup:

 

Untitled by njee20, on Flickr

 

Testing for fit, still some slight tweaks to be made! Cutting out the bodyside holes in the decal is a pain, and took a few attempts to get right!

 

Untitled by njee20, on Flickr

 

More to follow...

Edited April 28, 2020 by njee20

[njee20]

Quickly moving into "what's coming next", I designed the double-deck IPA car carrier. With Bachmann showing no signs of shrinking their OO gauge ones (and actually saying that they wouldn't due to cost) I designed these. They're complicated by the sidescreens, which I'll print in a clear resin, to make this a two piece build.

 

CAD of the outer wagons showing the screens:

 

IPA CAD by njee20, on Flickr

 

I did an early print of the body, which shows some distortion; I need to find support settings that will hold the upper deck, but not mark the ribbed deck too much.

 

 

Need to revisit this once everything else is off the workbench, as I'd like a rake of the quad-sets to go with the Revolution single-deck sets (albeit not in a mixed rake, as that'll show up the deficiencies in my offerings!

[njee20]

And the other project that's on the go presently is the Nacco/Imerys JIA wagons. Again, there's a OO gauge offering from Kernow, but no sign of them being downsized! I thought these would be a quick one, but there's actually a plethora of detail on them, which made them quite complex! Hoping to get a print off on these once I've got the printers set up again, and in time will modify them to cover the similar potash wagons. After some useful feedback I have flattened the 'bulge' on the top doors since this image was taken.

 

 

Currently playing with an FKA intermodal flat, and cheating by omitting much of the deck detail, and only ever using them with a container!

[Steadfast]

Hi!

A very interesting thread, I'm loving what you're doing with the modern wagons! The Hanson LTF hoppers and Imerys JIAs are right up my street. The Hansons are a perfect match for the Revolution Mendip HOAs. 

I'll be keeping an eye your work here.

 

Jo

[njee20]

Thanks Jo, I've always like the JHAs, even in ARC days. I'm not sure anything I'm producing holds a candle to Revolution's efforts, but nice to fill in some gaps at least!

I'm trialling getting some bogies printed by I.Materialise, they're way cheaper than Shapeways, and the failure rate can be quite high when printing them in resin. I'll lose a bit of resolution, but hopefully end up with a slightly more flexible material.

 

The bogies for the JIA are done by the NGS, which solves that issue, and also avoids having to print NEM sockets, which are far from standard!

 

Nick

[lyneux]

Nick,

 

Just found this thread. Awesome work on the JHAs (even if they are the wrong colour.... haha!). They look really good. I didn't even realise that they were 2mm at first!

 

My LTF-25s printed ok on the Photon but not as good as FUD. I've since tinkered with the settings and can probably do a better print so I might have another go at these. Not sure they would scale to 2mm though (otherwise I'd offer to have a go for you).

 

I've just got a Silouette Cameo cutter and am back in the saddle with my aggregate wagons again.

 

Guy

Edited May 4, 2020 by lyneux

[njee20]

Thanks Guy, I used a number of your photos on both the JHA and the LTF-25, they were very useful!

 

I will probably revisit the LTF-25 in due course, it was a very early design of mine, and a lot of the detail just ended up being too fragile. I took off the brake shoes in the end, as they were either grossly overscale, or really fragile. My CAD skills have come on significantly, so I suspect I may be able to do a better job in future! They're such a distinctive part of the JHA I needed something though.

 

The Silhouette looks really interesting, will watch your progress with interest on that.

[Steadfast]

No no no Guy, ARC is the wrong colour, it's before my time ;-)

Nick, are there any plans to make the wagons available to purchase at any point? The Hanson wagons are a type I've spent a lot of time working around if there's anything you want checking or asking about.

 

Jo

[njee20]

Yes, absolutely Jo - drop me a PM.

I do really like the ARC livery I must say, until they ruined it with the revised version in the late 90s, which looked awful, but Hanson really suits them too, nice and plain, I'm glad they didn't try and shoehorn in some orange!

 

The bit I'm least happy with is the inside - I found photos like this which showed the small ribs supporting the upper bodyside:

 

 

But I wasn't sure what there was by way of internal dividers (if any). I ended up doing something similar to the HHAs, with two internal bulkheads between the sets of hopper doors.

 

 

[njee20]

Got the printers out again over the weekend.

 

Thought I'd run a print of the JIA china clay tanks off, as the CAD had come together quite nicely, and I was intrigued to see how the printer handled some of the more complex shapes. The answer, it turns out, was pretty well...

 

Untitled by njee20, on Flickr

 

Untitled by njee20, on Flickr

 

They're a bit overscale, which is fine, it's in all dimensions, so I can handily just reduce them by 5-10% (I've not yet measured). It's a massive pain if they're overscale in one dimension, as you distort everything by shrinking differently in different dimensions.

 

The discharge hoppers need some work, they didn't print all that well (which is fine, I didn't support them enough), and the shape isn't quite right, so a bit more revision needed there. @scoobyra has been really helpful with pictures and measurements from a OO gauge model to get the proportions right.

 

Untitled by njee20, on Flickr

 

The artwork on these needs consideration too, all the lettering is white on a base blue colour, which is the hardest to do, as I can't print white. I'm not sure how well it'll work if I print against a blue background, but I'll try it. The plan is to heavily weather them anyway, so I'm hopeful it'll work out.

Edited May 12, 2020 by njee20

[njee20]

Still badgering away at this, actually been finishing a few things lately!

 

Mike Buick's been helping with the JIAs, which is awesome, because he's got a great eye for detail, and is fastidious in his accuracy. It's also an absolute nightmare, because he's got a great eye for detail, and is fastidious in his accuracy! Think I'm about 20 iterations in now, but got them close enough that I was happy to slap some paint on them to see how they looked!
 

Also bought a laser printer and a Ghost white toner cartridge, so I could print white lettering. It's a bit more washed out than a 'proper' white decal from Fox/Railtec etc, but not too bad!

 

IIAs:

Untitled by njee20, on Flickr

 

Pristine JIA. The usual cruel close up highlighting dodgy decal application, the silvering is far less visible in real life:

Untitled by njee20, on Flickr

 

My attempts at a weathered JIA, a little on the heavy side, even for these!:

Untitled by njee20, on Flickr

 

Mike's far better attempts at it!

Untitled by njee20, on Flickr

[Mike Harvey]

I think your Imerys weathering is about right. Remind me a bit of the first generation of Cleveland Potash covered bogie hoppers which seemed like they relied on the corrosion to hold them together in their final years.That was one maintenance contract I was happy not to have.

[njee20]

Yes, I was trying to keep the legibility of the decals, particularly the Imerys and Nacco lettering. It looks a bit more tempered in the flesh.

 

I think the potash ones are the same basic wagon, without the raised walkways at one end, I plan to do those too, as it shouldn't be too hard. they certianly seem to suffer markedly with corrosion! 

[njee20]

With EFE/Bachmann announcing the JIA, and Revolution doing the IPA, I’ve finished off the IPA double-deck car carriers, which will probably spur Bachmann on to shrink theirs (although they only did the less common pairs, so I may be safe!). 
 

 

A few small tweaks needed, the “Wincar” lettering on the screens is too small, and the inter-set couplers are too long, but hopefully look the part with a few sets!

Edited October 22, 2022 by njee20

[Mike Harvey]

Very neat result, Nick.  Looks like it will match well with the Revolution ones and the various continental style 3 axle units.

[tstageman92]

They are really nice, in fact your wagons are amazing quality, from the photos you could consider them as engineering samples from the big manufacturers! 

 

Reading through your earlier posts, I think my next major move with 3D printing is going to be teaching myself how to make objects that aren't 'basic' shapes. There are a number of multiple units I would like to explore designing however when it comes to things like curved fronts, I get totally swamped by my lack of skill in the drawing department. I have always used DesignSpark but maybe I'll have to give Fusion360 a go, a lot of people seem to use it and say good things about it.

[porkie]

Superb work. Really do like what you have done so far. 

Keep the updates coming fella 

[njee20]

Thanks! I use Fusion 360, having tried many other free CAD packages - TinkerCAD, Shapr,  Sketch Up etc. I liked Lars Christiensen’s videos, but it took several false starts before it all clicked for me. I’ve got no background in design or anything, in fact I’m terrible at drawing, so it doesn’t need an artistic streak! 
 

Choose something that’s an easy starting point. The very first thing I drew was a signal head with route feathers - there are really clear drawings on the Dorman website, and that taught me a practical application of many of the functions like extrusions, offsets and fillets. I always found that I could follow a tutorial, but applying the learnings to something I wanted was hard!

 

I’ve often thought that a lot of older stock is much easier - lots of angles and square shapes. I still get flummoxed by compound curves!

 

To that end I’ve been wrestling with a JGA cement tanker, I was quite pleased with the shape from the initial test print below, but it’s far too narrow, and simply scaling in that plane makes it look very ‘chubby’!

 

 

[njee20]

Still playing about with this.

 

The JGA above has been shelved pending a re-drawing; it’s just not well proportioned, too narrow annoyingly, but looks all wrong if I just stretch it! I think i was too focused on the complex rounded shapes. 
 

Decided to do something a bit quicker and simpler, so I’ve done an HRA and a ‘shorty’ HYA. I’m hoping to get Railtec to shrink the OO gauge decals for the HRA, but I’ve done a quick test of the HYA to measure up. I’m a very visual person, I find it difficult to look at a model on screen and work out if it’s ‘right’ regardless of dimensions! Hence I end up printing out and roughly finishing models before they’re really finished, a few tweaks still to come on these, plus all the smaller decals and data labels!

 

 

HYA seen here alongside an early test print of the HRA - itself needing a few mods, but not far off!

A friend has painted some JHAs in ARC livery - ‘before my time’, but always a livery I’ve liked!

Getting worryingly close to building a layout in the meantime, so the printers may be redeployed to build turnout bases, buildings, signals and OHLE equipment. All good fun!

 

Edit: deleting random spurious photo that crept in upside down!

Edited October 22, 2022 by njee20

[Bedders]

Hi I spotted your post with the O gauge wagon on another thread and wonder if you could elaborate on how you joined the sections together? Both the part design for alignment and the material finish would be interesting

 

[njee20]

I literally took my N gauge CAD and cut it into thirds in Fusion, no concessions to how to join it!

It was a little bit of a proof of concept, as I'd really like a Heljan 60 and Dapol 66, but they'll need something to haul, so I thought I'd try scaling up some of my designs.

I hollowed each piece in Chitubox, then added the largest hole I could into the 'hidden' face, which still left a nice flat area to glue. The joins are a bit rough (hence the poorly focused photo ) I literally just glued it together, I can't honestly remember what with, possibly Roket plastic cement, but I then tried a few different things as filler. I usually use a little bit of resin, dabbed on and then cured with a UV lamp (or the sun), plus some model filler, filler primer etc.

This better shows how it looks at the moment. 

 

O Gauge IIA by njee20, on Flickr

 

I'll plough ahead with it and do decals etc (I've already printed bogies), then I need to send it to someone who actually has some O gauge track and stock, to test it for size and performance. When I do it properly I intend to add a lip between the three sections to keep them lined up when joining. My only concern is whether the shrinkage may affect that, I may try and join them before curing, although then need to cure the inside.

 

Assuming it works out I plan to scale up some of my other designs, to the extent I was looking at an Epax printer that could do one without cutting them up!

[Carl]

I'm looking for a larger printer, settled on the Elegoo Saturn, but they are like hen's teeth.

 

That is a tidy join though, if I saw that on a model, I'd assume it was a weld line.  Perhaps it's possible to divide the print up along the prototype weld lines?

[njee20]

Saturns are coming up about once a week at the moment - join the Facebook group for about a million notifications when they do!

I was lucky enough to get one in the first batch, so I’ve had it about 6 months. I’d have had to chop the O gauge wagon into about 10 parts to fit in a Mars/Photon! It also means I can print up to 10 n gauge wagons at once! 
 

 

I purposely split the IIA at the discharge bays on the bottom, to minimise the seam, given there’s nothing keeping it aligned i think it’s good enough. If I decide it’s viable I’ll add some more  surface detail for the ‘final’ thing, and as you say, try and disguise the join with one of the raised panel lines. I’d love to scale up more of my designs, but most of them present a problem like wheel availability or just being too intricate that I think they’d need a total redesign to work in O! The HYA could be a goer, mind…

Edited October 22, 2022 by njee20

[Carl]

That print makes me very jealous.  I managed two 20’ containers on my Photon this evening!  I’ll join the Facebook group, thanks.

 

Are you open to sharing your 3D models, or are you offering them commercially?

 

Thanks,

Carl.