Bracketed Tower Signals

this is the repurposed 450 signal bridge with SL signals, fencing and top walkway lasercut.

Very nice work Alan!

Alan,

Very nice indeed.  You make it look easy.

Mike

Excellent work as always, Alan.  Bracket signals are really interesting to me and I wasn't aware of their existence until recently.  I found a number of pictures of them and they appear to be mostly on eastern railroads which would explain why I wasn't aware of them.  Apparently they were created to save money by not installing signal bridges or where trackside real estate was not as available.  They also seem to be an alternative to cantilever signals which I also think are very cool.

Art

laser prints of Bracketed Tower Signals.

signal lens, LEDs and back not yet attached or wired.

Very nice job, Alan.  Looks really good.

Art

That's some pretty intricate printing Alan, very nice!  They should be fun to paint.

John, paint?  Glad you asked.

I laser cut these masks for painting the signal tree structure and signal heads.

The signal tree is inserted under the lower mask holes leaving only the signal heads exposed to paint the signal head fronts black;

then the signal heads are inserted into the upper mask slots so the backend can be painted silver. The inserting of the signal heads is such that the signal head edge is covered and not painted silver.

And that is borderline genius.  I wonder how many would think of this?

Art

Beautiful and ingenious.

We need to get these into the OGR 3D site! 

@AlanRail posted:

John, paint?  Glad you asked.

I laser cut these masks for painting the signal tree structure and signal heads.

The signal tree is inserted under the lower mask holes leaving only the signal heads exposed to paint the signal head fronts black;

then the signal heads are inserted into the upper mask slots so the backend can be painted silver. The inserting of the signal heads is such that the signal head edge is covered and not painted silver.

All I can say is WOW!  You truly are the master of 3D printing, and not bad at painting either!   What a great idea to simplify the task!

Rich

These signal parts are precision printed pieces, like the Fresnel lenses with the precise opening for the 3-color SMD LEDs; or the handrails that are .065" in diameter.

Thus, they can only be printed well with a high-quality resin printer like the American-Made MIT designed Formlabs 3+.

The Chinese resin printers like the ELEGOO Jupiter, that I have, not so much.

This is evident with the existing 3D printed signals that are currently being sold by others. These are nice, but the detailed quality is just not there.

I think it will just frustrate members trying to print something that their printer is incapable of printing.

Would it be possible to buy a couple of your bracket signals?

WM Dave

Dave

This is not the buy-sell forum.

We are not allowed to engage in any sales here.

That's the rule.

Email me.

@WM1400 posted:

Would it be possible to buy a couple of your bracket signals?

WM Dave

Dave,

Your options are to:

1.) Repost your request in the "Wanted to Buy" forum.

      and/or

2.) E-Mail Alan at the email address in his profile.

Mike

I can't say too many nice things about your latest design of the signal bracket tower.  These signals are such a rarity for model railroaders, especially in O gauge.   It hasn't been that long ago that I didn't even know they existed.  When David and I were going over real railroad signals for my layout, he talked about bracket signals and I wasn't aware of them.  So I started researching them and they were very common on real railroads, especially in the Eastern US.  But there were some in the Midwest on the railroads that I model.   Then I was hooked, I had to have one or more for my layout. 

Being the perfectionists that we all are I knew that you wouldn't be satisfied with just any signal.  It would have to as accurate as you could make it.  And you haven't let us down, but you also are very aware of the challenges that properly painting and assembling are to the finished product.  The tolerances that your American-Made MIT designed Formlabs 3+ printer can do is incredible!  The parts fit like a glove.  The painting masks make the painting so easy enough that even I can do it without screwing it up. 

I have to admit that I did not fully appreciate the quality that your printer was capable of.  I thought if we had a copy of your design, we could make our own.  You would be doing a dis-service to anyone if you shared a copy of your design and they tried to print it on lesser quality printer.  They wouldn't be happy with the result and might blame you for it.  That would be hard to take after all the work you have done to get it to this point and not fair to you.  You make it look so easy, but I was really surprised when I asked you about it and you told me you had made 22 modifications to the design since you started. 

Beautiful product and really nice job!

Art

if you are interested in these signal towers contact me by email or private message.

Just to give you an idea of how these turned out, I am posting a couple pictures of one installed on my layout.  It isn't lit up yet as we haven't built the Atlas signal board clusters to control them yet.  I think it looks really good!  Can't wait to see it lit and displaying changing aspects when it's in complete operation.

My hats off to Alan and my son Jim for making this look easy. 

Art

The bracket signal tower looks really good.

Yesterday we completed the Atlas signal board cluster that controls this signal and it was lit for the first time.  We think it really turned out well.  The next step will be activating it to show turnout directions and occupancy.  Love your work, Alan!  Jim, you made it happen, can't wait for our first operating sessions.

You can follow our progress with Alan and Jim's great work at my thread on the signal project:

https://ogrforum.com/...6#179510176880552116

Thanks for your interest.

Art