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3D Printed N Gauge Pendolino and On Track Plant


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Interesting seeing that MPV project, would like to see a finished one.

 

I think once this train arrives in the UK and is photographed more, there will be enough for me to go on to have a stab at it.

 

David

Are you going to be at TINGS? I am one of the people test building one, will be bringing it along on Sunday. I am bulding the log carrying units.

 

Best wishes

Simon

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Hi David!

Will the Pendolino be part of the modern image models range? Only it looks very nice and am sure it will sell well!

Also a suggestion for you, could you do a 57/3 with correct dellner coupling unlike the current Grafar one?

Edited by Swifty11
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That looks superb. I wonder if I can find an excuse to run one of set on Banbury with a VirginThunderbird on the front!

Theyve sent the pretendolino through Banbury with 57315 and 57308 TnT along with a 15 car voyager. Think a pendolino has made it there once?

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The 390 will be upgraded and released next year. It will be extremely expensive unfortunately due to the minimum 9 car length. The Farish 57s are being released with the delner couplings and other minor tooling upgrades too. Hopefully this includes NEM couplings

 

David

Edited by bmthtrains - David
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http://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/index.php?topic=10303.0

 

and

 

http://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/index.php?topic=434.0

 

 

has a thread including scratch building a Dellner for 57315

Thanks very much, I'm a bit of a 57 boffin so it would have to be correct. Not a bad job done at all

 

The 390 will be upgraded and released next year. It will be extremely expensive unfortunately due to the minimum 9 car length. The Farish 57s are being released with the delner couplings and other minor tooling upgrades too. Hopefully this includes NEM couplings

David

How expensive? As in £200+? You could release it as a 4 car then you buy extra coaches? Like Hornby do? Give them a standard cass coach (not named) and a pantograph coach, they buy which named coach they want?

Thanks for the heads up on the 57/3

*considers N gauge layout*

Edited by Swifty11
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Probably closer to £300 looking at the printing costs. I'd only be making it because I want one myself, I doubt it would have many other buyers, but I'd certainly make it available for anyone else who wants one, though probably at zero profit margin as even adding a 10% markup would make it far too expensive.

 

David

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Probably closer to £300 looking at the printing costs. I'd only be making it because I want one myself, I doubt it would have many other buyers, but I'd certainly make it available for anyone else who wants one, though probably at zero profit margin as even adding a 10% markup would make it far too expensive.

David

Eeeeek! Is this a ready built model painted and motorised or just the bare essentials?

Surely shape ways would do you a multi buy discount? Or at least some movement on price?

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Probably closer to £300 looking at the printing costs. I'd only be making it because I want one myself, I doubt it would have many other buyers, but I'd certainly make it available for anyone else who wants one, though probably at zero profit margin as even adding a 10% markup would make it far too expensive.

 

David

Perhaps one way around this would be to offer shorter rakes for some buyers. Rather than offering it as a fixed rake perhaps it could be made available on a vehicle by vehicle basis so buyers can build up their rake gradually (which would make sense as it will take some people some time to make each vehicle up). 

 

Also, with Virgin looking to procure some Mini Pendolinos in the future for some of their services then, assuming the design is the same, you could do a 5 car set rake which presumably would make it a lot more affordable? 

 

When I was looking at 3D printing for some of my fleet I was told that resin casting is a cheaper way to mass produce some items that are expensive to print up. Personally I did not find it a viable option due to the constraints of the model I wanted to produce but it might be an option on a model like this which is bound to be popular! 

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No, that's the material cost. I don't produce RTR models, just the 3D printed bodyshells.

David

£300!!! Just for the bodyshells? How can it be that much?? Surely it can't cost that much... Why don't you send Dave a message and find out who he uses for his models to be cast? Could be cheaper?

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That's how much it costs I'm afraid.

 

3D printing isn't a magic modelling panacea - it is an expensive process that can produce extremely detailed models of prototypes that are uneconomic to offer in mass production. Dapol might have had to invest about £100,000 to design and tool a 390, so you'd have to sell a heck of a lot to cover the cost, and a RTR version would probably have cost about £220 going on the prices of HST sets. Lets go on a 50% markup, and they'd have to sell 900 units just to break even...no wonder they dropped plans for it.

 

So to make the unit yourself, £300 for the bodyshells is £30 for each car, and given how challenging it would be to construct by hand, 3D printing offers a way to own a train you can't buy. The economics are very different to mass-production, and at the moment at least, it will remain a niche market. I really want a 390, hence I've designed and printed one. There won't be that many people who will want one enough to pay for it, and don't forget that cost is just the printing cost and doesn't include any profit margin to cover the time and effort out into it.

 

Of course you could get the master print cast in resin for example, but a) you'd lose a lot of surface detail, and b ) you are only doing so to mass-produce an item that doesn't warrant it. Thus you might as well just leave it at the 3D printed stage you started with.

 

Some things will always remain expensive, and a Pendolino (or APT) in N gauge, however you produce it, if you want it to look good, is one of those things. The market is simply too small for either a RTR or mass-produced kit offering.

 

David

Edited by bmthtrains - David
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Hmmm... Valid points there.

Would you ever do RTR models? Only I'm not a skilled model maker. And painting It would be a for me? You could sell the models as 4 coaches (drive, coach, pan coach, drive) like Hornby do? As I don't think there are many people who can afford £300 at once?

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If you want it RTR then you can probably double the price! You then need to cover the cost of the hours spent making it. There's a reason why CJM charge £400 for a loco. RTR is something I plan to avoid.

 

Bottom line really is if you want a model that doesn't exist, you have to either make it yourself or pay someone to do it for you. Either way it's expensive. It's why I taught myself to make these designs - I wanted them but could never have made them from scratch.

 

Likewise, if painting is your downfall, I'd say rather than pay someone to paint it for you, use that same amount of cash to pay someone to teach you how to paint - then you've gained a skill that can be used over and over again. (And its cheaper the next time you want a model painting!)

 

Once I've completed my degree my day job will effectively be being paid to make things that other people want but can't do themselves. There is a massive demand for those skills, but it takes an inordinate amount of time to make almost anything, so the only way to really save costs is to learn to do it yourself. Or handover a big wad of cash to someone else :)

 

David

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