PRR MS Tower Corry PA (in resin)

I know 3d will enter my future.

I'm thoroughly impressed.

As an experiment - it is very well done! 

This technology is really festinating and I just may try it out for myself.

I'm certain some PRR modelers wouldn't mind taking it off you hand!

Very promising, Norm!  I think the end result was wonderful and the process enlightening. 

George

I'd like thinner frame windows. Thinking of getting this:

https://www.longer3d.com/produ...B2SwlChoCnqcQAvD_BwE

I could think of many other parts I could make with it.

So far, my experiments have been a lot of fun.

It came out great looking, Norm. You should be very happy.

Tom

Thanks Tom! I am going through the Scherb books and seeing what else I want to make. There's a couple shacks I have my eye on. Right now I have an octagonal shack working.

Also want to perfect these for use on my layout:

If you have any fairly nice rejects of the Pennsy fencing we need some here!

Keep up the excellent work.

Tom

Nice work Norm.

Thanks Jim!

Would anyone know when that tower was removed? I know it survived into the Conrail era.

Great work. I was actually in the real tower a few times during the late 1980’s. Your creativity really brings back some great memories.

Tom

@Norm Charbonneau posted:

Please excuse the quickie paint and weathering job!

Norm, your "quckie" paint/weathering is better than most people's FINISHED paint. This looks excellent!

FYI, I recently bought the blu-ray of your layouts from TM, it was very interesting.

Thanks man!

I finally got a successful octagonal print —

Don’t know if I’ll use either of these, just wanted to see if I could get them all the way through!

@Norm Charbonneau posted:

It was always a challenge to come up with a way of making proper outside brick corners when scratchbuilding. It always bugged me then I just remembered a few days ago that Tinkercad had a shape generator that I had yet to check out and decided to see if they had a brick wall available. Sure enough, there was one I could play around with. Once I figured out how to interlock them into a corner I thought about a good test. I have both volumes of Jeff Scherb’s PRR plans and it had all of the side elevation views of the long gone Corry PA interlocking tower that served the PRR and Erie’s crossing. I thought it would be a great way to see if the Tinkercad to Elegoo resin printer pipeline was a viable way to make small structures like this.

Here’s what I came up with after some trial and error. Please excuse the quickie paint and weathering job! It is still an experiment. I wasn't sure if I'd be completely happy with everything but at this point the whole project is very promising.

Each side is different. Jeff Scherb's excellent drawings were instrumental in getting everything very close. His drawings even showed the lower Dutch course which I was able to doodle in with Tinkercad.

Here was the first shell attempt in clear green washable resin. This was done straight to the platen and I got a bit of distortion on the bottom corners. At this point I thought I would print this as a shell and then assemble it separately printed windows:

Here is the first shell with a quick shot of primer. The brick shape from the Tinkercad shape generator wasn't perfect but very workable. I may attempt to make my own next time:

The roof was done on my FDM Creality Ender. 3D printing is great for making shapes like this. There were a few points in this project where I had both of my printers going at the same time! I bombed it flat black for demo purposes but it will get proper asphalt shingles at some point.

This is the last successful print where I figured out all my issues and got the shell printed with the windows and door as one unit. This is in black water washable resin. Layer height is .05mm. I printed the foundation on this version and tilted the whole thing off the platen in the X and Z directions.

Fitting up a failed window and door assembly. I wanted to make the windows as thin as possible. I eventually settled for a 1mmX1mm thickness for the final effort. Kinda thick but not overly objectionable.

This was second to the last print. The front window was printed too thinly and fell apart. The resin printer will print whatever garbage .stl you throw at it!

I have these shells in various levels of success/failure. I may try to rescue them at some point. My next tech purchase may be a laser cutter so I can make my own thin parts like industrial windows. That tech, like 3D printing has been dropping in price too!

I'm not sure I even have a use for this building. I just wanted to see if it was going to work. I learned a lot!

This is awesome! Well done Norm!

Norm,  Yo

Could us add supports exterior to the model to support the window mullions?  You would need to do more clean up.

Jan

@Norm Charbonneau posted:

Here’s what I came up with after some trial and error. Please excuse the quickie paint and weathering job! It is still an experiment. I wasn't sure if I'd be completely happy with everything but at this point the whole project is very promising.

Looks great, Norm! Speaking of the paint and weathering, what color did you use for the brick and what did you use for the mortar?

@Norm Charbonneau posted:

It was always a challenge to come up with a way of making proper outside brick corners when scratchbuilding. It always bugged me then I just remembered a few days ago that Tinkercad had a shape generator that I had yet to check out and decided to see if they had a brick wall available. Sure enough, there was one I could play around with. Once I figured out how to interlock them into a corner I thought about a good test. I have both volumes of Jeff Scherb’s PRR plans and it had all of the side elevation views of the long gone Corry PA interlocking tower that served the PRR and Erie’s crossing. I thought it would be a great way to see if the Tinkercad to Elegoo resin printer pipeline was a viable way to make small structures like this.

Here’s what I came up with after some trial and error. Please excuse the quickie paint and weathering job! It is still an experiment. I wasn't sure if I'd be completely happy with everything but at this point the whole project is very promising.

Each side is different. Jeff Scherb's excellent drawings were instrumental in getting everything very close. His drawings even showed the lower Dutch course which I was able to doodle in with Tinkercad.

Here was the first shell attempt in clear green washable resin. This was done straight to the platen and I got a bit of distortion on the bottom corners. At this point I thought I would print this as a shell and then assemble it separately printed windows:

Here is the first shell with a quick shot of primer. The brick shape from the Tinkercad shape generator wasn't perfect but very workable. I may attempt to make my own next time:

The roof was done on my FDM Creality Ender. 3D printing is great for making shapes like this. There were a few points in this project where I had both of my printers going at the same time! I bombed it flat black for demo purposes but it will get proper asphalt shingles at some point.

This is the last successful print where I figured out all my issues and got the shell printed with the windows and door as one unit. This is in black water washable resin. Layer height is .05mm. I printed the foundation on this version and tilted the whole thing off the platen in the X and Z directions.

Fitting up a failed window and door assembly. I wanted to make the windows as thin as possible. I eventually settled for a 1mmX1mm thickness for the final effort. Kinda thick but not overly objectionable.

This was second to the last print. The front window was printed too thinly and fell apart. The resin printer will print whatever garbage .stl you throw at it!

I have these shells in various levels of success/failure. I may try to rescue them at some point. My next tech purchase may be a laser cutter so I can make my own thin parts like industrial windows. That tech, like 3D printing has been dropping in price too!

I'm not sure I even have a use for this building. I just wanted to see if it was going to work. I learned a lot!

NICE! Now I see where Lionel's inspiration of the Train Order accessory came from!

@Norm Charbonneau posted:

Please excuse the quickie paint and weathering job! It is still an experiment. I wasn't sure if I'd be completely happy with everything but at this point the whole project is very promising.

Now that's funny! You're just showing off now! "Please excuse the quickie paint and weathering job" - heck, that's better than most of our best efforts!

Excellent work as always!

-Greg

@Harry's Trains posted:

Looks great, Norm! Speaking of the paint and weathering, what color did you use for the brick and what did you use for the mortar?

Here’s what I used. Not a big fan of that 2X stuff anymore but the clear is ok when used sparingly. I apply clear over the brick color, then clear again after the mortar. Not shown is the cheap spackle I used for the mortar.

All in all, I think this is a very viable method of producing small structures or even small car bodies like a caboose. I really like being able to make a proper outside brick corner with correctly interlocked bricks. Now that laser cutting is getting cheap enough, I might be able to start making thin industrial grid windows.