3D Printing Modern Wagons in O

[njee20]

Thought I had a thread on these, but couldn’t find it, so here’s one!
 

I’ve always been an N gauge modeller, but Dapol’s 66 announcement and a re-run of the Heljan 60 finally tipped me over the edge into trying O. But what point if they have nothing to haul!? I’ve been dabbling in 3D printing for a few years, and have built up quite a repertoire of N gauge wagons; so a while back I thought I’d try and upscale one to O and see if it worked. Turns out it does…

 

I started with the Drax IIA biomass wagons. I printed this in 3 parts, part one here alongside its 2mm brother!

 

 

 

All 3 parts glued together, with a OO and N gauge one for comparison!

 

 

TF25 bogies fitted with Lowmac wheels; the dampers on these need adjusting to be more vertical; I used a dodgy photo with some parallax error for the CADs!

 

Here painted with basic decals applied:

 

And finally this week I got some track and the 60 to go with it!

 

 

And it turns out it’s a bit small! And the buffers are too close together, and marginally too high. And I forgot to add a recess to fit the couplings. Plus I’ve literally just scaled up the N gauge CAD on this, so I now need to add in all the extra detail that wouldn’t print in N, like panel lines. But it’s a start. I love the idea of 20 of them behind the 60 in the garden. Just need to convince the wife… more to follow! 

[Simond]

Very impressive!  
 

not my era at all, but I’m familiar with the wagons from trips to Liverpool, they seem to store them at Edge Hill.

 

im sure there are other modellers experimenting with these techniques.  I am working with a pal to print a tank wagon st present - I do the CAD and he’s kindly doing the printing - and it’s proving a tad frustrating, but I’m sure we’ll get there.  
 

I’ll post some pix when we do!

[njee20]

Do! Always good to see. It certainly brings with it some frustrations! To that end…

 

My second attempted wagon was the shortened HYA aggregate hoppers, this has thus far proven slightly less successful! Being shorter than the IIA I was able to split this one clean in half and print it vertically. This has the advantage of a nice clean, flat split to join. I didn’t do anything much to thin the walls on this, which meant it used a lot of resin; about £15 worth for a single print.
 

I went and checked on it 11.5 hours into the print, and was rather pleased to see that it looked alright!

 

 

except it wasn’t. The astute among you will notice that there’s no resin left in the vat. Bit annoying! 
 

Problem number two arose when I tried to get it off the build plate, where it was quite happy! I admit given it was a failure ultimately destined for the bin I resorted to brute force, which broke a few bits off! However, the detail looked alright:

 

 

So I thought I’d forge ahead and mess about with it, as I can guarantee that it’ll probably have some similar dimensional issues to the IIA!  
 

I joined the two halves together, having various bits missing made this slightly more challenging, but I think it’s got potential!

 

 

I don’t know why I keep posing them alongside N gauge ones, I think the size difference still amuses me. Simple things…

 

Ive now spent a bit of time on the CAD for this to thin the walls down, roughly halving the amount of resin it uses! There are a few other, obvious changes to make and I’ll try for a reprint. Hopefully it’ll come out better than this!

 

Other wagons in the arsenal are the IPA double deck car wagons, JIA “Imerys” china clay wagons, HRA ‘shorty’ aggregate hoppers, ARC/Hanson JHA hoppers, JGA cement tankers and MWA-B box wagons. I’d like to scale everything up in the fullness of time. There are a few other things I’m interested in, a friend has suggested JJA Autoballasters, which I could be tempted to do; it seems to be a bit of a gap in modern O. Heljan IWAs aside there’s not much from the last 20 years that I’ve found. 

Edited December 17, 2021 by njee20

[D6775]

All looking good. I have an HRA in mind from a Skytex kit and Skog Work's has draw up a Cad for 3D printing. The JGA Cement Tankers sound interesting.

 

There is definitely an appetite for modern wagons out there now though a lot of people seem to want the RTR off the shelf  at a cheap price. As much as there is a bigger market than there used to be, not sure it could withstand the costs of some of the more unique modern wagons. 3D printing and casting seems to be a way forward.

 

I need to add some of Paul Rolley's newer kits, Skog's list of 3D prints and Dave Lowery's RTR wagons to this list at some point but this might be of use to you to at least see what's out there: https://www.modernimageogauge.co.uk/rollingstocklist.html

[njee20]

Yeah I’ve got the N gauge CAD for the HRA (it’s not a million miles off the HYA), so just need to upscale that. It’s surprisingly straightforward to do really, like I say the big thing is adding some of the smaller details, but a lot of them I add anyway, they just don’t print in N, plus silly things like reverting the accommodations you have to make for oversized flanges. Thanks for the MIOG list, had seen that before, perhaps unsurprisingly there are lots of 2-axle or smaller bogie wagons. Dave Lowery’s models are stunning, but I’m not paying £500 a wagon! :-D 

 

Skog Works look interesting, without being harsh they look fairly crude; looks like they’re FDM printed, not resin. Drop me a line if you’re interested in an HRA, I will make all of my models available if there’s interest. I’ve no doubt that printing is great for more limited run items and those things the RTR market will likely never see!
 

This the N gauge HRA CAD (sorry it’s green, messing about with shades for the “freight belongs on rail” one!)

 

 

There are a few variants of the JGA, I’ve done the Ermewa ones and the Tarmac/BLI ones. My concern with these is that the shape on the ends isn’t quite right, and I think that’ll be exacerbated in O! I shall be discovering in due course…!

 

[D6775]

10 hours ago, njee20 said:

Yeah I’ve got the N gauge CAD for the HRA (it’s not a million miles off the HYA), so just need to upscale that. It’s surprisingly straightforward to do really, like I say the big thing is adding some of the smaller details, but a lot of them I add anyway, they just don’t print in N, plus silly things like reverting the accommodations you have to make for oversized flanges. Thanks for the MIOG list, had seen that before, perhaps unsurprisingly there are lots of 2-axle or smaller bogie wagons. Dave Lowery’s models are stunning, but I’m not paying £500 a wagon! :-D 

 

Skog Works look interesting, without being harsh they look fairly crude; looks like they’re FDM printed, not resin. Drop me a line if you’re interested in an HRA, I will make all of my models available if there’s interest. I’ve no doubt that printing is great for more limited run items and those things the RTR market will likely never see!
 

This the N gauge HRA CAD (sorry it’s green, messing about with shades for the “freight belongs on rail” one!)

 

Yes Dave stuff is lovely and worth the money but like you my budget doesn't stretch to those prices and to be honest I enjoy building stuff myself!

 

Yes some of Rob (Skog's) stuff is quite crude and like you say he doesn't use resin. I treat them more of a scratch aid than a full blown kit replacing some parts and improving others, I made a decent Shark out of one of his kits and got a VGA on the go at the moment.

 

I have actually got one of the Skytrex HTA's on its way (had hoped it would be here by now!) so will see how that comes out, plan is to do the Freight Belongs on Rail one. Just fancied giving it a go! Will drop you a PM on the colour.

[47606odin]

Cracking effort and definitely something outside my skill set. 
 

 

[njee20]

Thanks! The only thing that’s complex is the CAD really.  I’m entirely self taught, my designs are technically horrendous I’m sure, but they seem to work!
 

I spent the last couple of evenings sorting the CAD for the HYA; it wasn’t quite right dimensionally, I went to print it last night, but there’s a hole in the membrane at the bottom of the resin tank. So together with the wasted resin from the failed print that’s cost about £30. Mildly irritating!

[Steadfast]

On 17/12/2021 at 00:23, njee20 said:

I started with the Drax IIA biomass wagons. I printed this in 3 parts, part one here alongside its 2mm brother!

That looks almost comical! Like a new baby IIA alongside an adult!

 

This is the best drawing we've found of the TF25 (scroll down to the drawing with the two bogies side by side, under 

"Already in 1999 Powell Duffryn announced advanced versions of TF25:

- "TF25 m" (m = moule) with casted siedframe

- TF 25 m (UIC) with 920 mm wheel diameter, 2000 mm bearing center distance and integrated brake system"

 

http://www.innobogies.de/en/axiom ln 25 en.html

 

Note how the holes vary between the drawings, best thing I'd say is work from a photo to gauge what looks right. Also, the UK version runs on 840mm wheels, so the angle on the arms linking the axle box to the centre of the bogie is shallower. Indeed when loaded, this lower edge is pretty much horizontal.

 

I've attached a couple of pics that may be of help, hopefully highlights how the springs fit into the main casting and also there a some small diameter holes, one of which is used for mounting the handbrake wheel on wagons that have it on the bogie.

 

It also confirms what you're saying about the end dampers being vertical.

 

Hope that's of interest, looking forward to seeing more wagons emerge of your printer!

 

Have a good Christmas

 

Jo

 

[njee20]

That’s Jo, as ever that’s extremely helpful! I actually did use the innobogies link, but I think I focused on some of the images the dampers look to be not vertical, probably just parallax error! Easily fixed. That’s really helpful to see the hole for the handbrake wheel, as they IIAs do have them so fitted, and my placement was a little random!