Rob R

A lot of Irish wagons had just one wheel braked right up to the end, like wise others were rebuild to be slightly more up to date. HMRS drawing of a similar MGWR van with just one wheel braked.

Not very long at all. It took about 20 minutes to add the supports/drink tea etc, then it was a 1hr 50min ish print. Your slicer/printer will have default settings and you won't have to move too far from them to get a decent print. Please invest in a bigger bin for the print room, you will use it all eventually The sides of my print have bowed in slightly, hopefully fixed on the next one with a few extra supports but it might nèed a brace or two across the width as part of the file. It's the little tweaks (nearly there but note quite) that fill that bin........ Have fun Rob

First 4mm MGWR resin print. Elegoo Mars 2 pro using Elegoo water washable transclucent grey resin with a quick squirt if red primer.

Don't bother with the 45 deg lark. Flat to the build plate, probably upside down so you don't need supports on the louvres. A ring of medium supports to the deck with a smattering of heavy supports to make sure it stays put and then light supports on anything overhanging although most of it should be ok without. I'll let you know how I get on at my end. Have fun. Rob Edit. I am resisting the Sligo Tank (for now......)

Your file is capable of a much sharper print. I will fire up my resin printer tomorrow and have a go and do one on the FDM printer at 0.04mm layer height to get a comparison. Don't get me wrong, your print is "OK" but I would have expected better from a commercial printer. Rob

A bit more percieved wisdom picked up from various sources. Print a groove around the outside of the rim and fit into the rim with a smear of epoxy. Apparently some loctites can react to the 3dp plus shrinkage issues.

Your plan sounds good. From experience within the uk S scale community, centres need glueing into the rims,no matter how good a fit the print is, it will eventually shrink a little and become loose. Same with the axles, a drop of loctite works wonders and don't make it too tight a fit, too much stress and the centre will crack at the hub. Rob

Fair enufski but I would say the hall was more tropical than sub.......

You could have said hello.......

Not clever. Just another one of the Dark Arts.....

David, This probably belongs on the other 3d thread but here will do. Once you have drawn the CAD and saved it, usually as an .stl file but others are available, you have to run it through a "slicer" program. This does what it says on the tin and slices your .stl into the individual layers and writes that in G -code, a fairly universal machine control code, so that the printer knows what to do and where. This is the same for resin printing as well as FDM . It is the Slicer that lets us, the human bit, have control of the process. You can set (or tweek the pre-set) the thousand and one parameters that can make or break the final print, speed, temperature, line width etc and part of that is the generation of supports, either auto or manual. Why do we need supports? You can't print in thin air so any overhangs, etc will need a sacrificial support structure printing as part of the process. Pictured below is a screen shot of the sliced file for the 7mm MGWR open that is printing right now. The green is the support, here mostly for the projecting ironwork, the S scale version doesn't need as many supports. All good fun.

After 12 hours you end up with a square lump. and after removing the supports (a bit like shelling a prawn) we have a 7mm 7 ton van. This was done at 0.08mm layer, anything finer would have taken far to long.

Probably not. A lot of the CAD is "copy and paste", it is the compromise between drawing it dead scale and reliably printable that takes the time, that and getting the prototype info in the first place. Ideally flat sides need doing in a material that can be glued with MEK or similar (PETG), easly done but just another stretch on the learning curve.

Printing flat with FDM printing (the hot glue gun type) doesn't always make it quicker for the whole "kit" as the volume of filament to be extruded is very much the same. It is possible to get a better quality print but as the face sat on the build plate will not have any detail it is best suited for vans and coaches. My current fiddlings are to see if the technique can produce consistent prints of suitable quality for open wagons, I know I can with resin printing but there are potential issues with H&S side of things and the smell isn't always domestically acceptable. It is a "hobby within a hobby" and I appreciate it is not every ones cup of tea but it has the potential to allow more modelers to wander off the beaten rtr track and explore new projects including just about everything steam era in Ireland.

Good Luck