Hey Kids,

Are you looking for a specific prototype that's not commercially available.

Here's the answer to your prayers.

I found the link to this website on the Monorail Society's Yahoo! Group

Quote:Monorail models

Just found a website about 3d printing. They have one railroad train set and could prob. build any other, they need a pic to go by.

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its in german {Actually Dutch} and I am no help there sorry! I have seen the youtube vids where they have moving gears as well.

Quote:These are N scale bodies for Dutch train models.

The comment says: "Please note these models often need to be sanded, since surplus material is present on the surface. Our apologies"

One could design a monorail model using Sketchup or Rhino or a slew of other CAD programs and upload it to Shapeways to have it printed.

Quite amazing.

Totally amazing!!!

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That's neat! Reminds me of when they made the voicebox of a raptor on one of the Jurassic Parks.

TrainNut Wrote:That's neat! Reminds me of when they made the voicebox of a raptor on one of the Jurassic Parks.

Or a star trek food replicator. Kind of takes the fun out of things when all you need to do is say "computer...make me a ..."

nachoman Wrote:Kind of takes the fun out of things when all you need to do is say "computer...make me a ..."

Whoa !! That imparts a whole new meaning, and consequence, to the phrase " Be careful what you wish for".

Think about it.....you're standing there saying "computer...make me a..." as a mosquito bites you and you mistakenly say "dratted mosquito !!"...................and never complete the move to squash it, as you flit away.

Hi all, look at Makerbot's 3D printer it has a small "print" build area but is an open source both hardware and software wise DIY CNC/3D printer uses ABS as the material to build/pint with.


http://www.makerbot.com/

Makerbot's machine is an amusing concept at most. The resolution is MISERABLE, and cannot even be considered for model railroad use. Even the machine Shapeways uses leaves a lot to be desired. If you want "ready to paint" parts, you will need to output on a Viper or other high resolution machine.

But solid modeling and rapid prototyping are definitely cool. Almost every commercial model available is made on the computer now, and the injection molding dies are then cut on CNC equipment.

Chris

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I've seen some freelance rapid prototyping which has the sufficient balance of resolution and cost that they ought to be good sources for HO and O scale trucks of odd prototypes. In fact, they'd be comparable to...or cheaper than...the existing commercial trucks in the case of O scale.

I expect that rapid prototyping/3d printing will eventually dominate the craftsman kit market...for it is already competitive with the labor costs of resin kits in some cases.

Having followed the progress on the forums where these dutch prototype models were (and are being) developed and built I can only agree that this is quite cool, but the surfaces really, really need a lot of work before they come even close to acceptable levels of graininess. The technique seems to be useful for odd-shapes (organic forms, round forms, that seem to be in vogue on modern rolling stock) as those are quite difficult to do (consistently) using brass or styrene, but for smooth surfaces traditional techniques still seem to be better. Eventually we'll probably get fully painted models out of the replicator, which will take a lot of fun of scratchbuilding with it..