What simple things does 3D printing help with?

I don't have a photo handy but I have used it for making tool organizers. I see a lot of people printing Kadee Coupler shims nowadays. That takes the guess work out of drilling, which is super helpful.

Any small plastic part that would be hard to find or, if you can find one, would mean shipping costs more than the part’s price and a few days’ wait. Durability used to be a downside, but the newer range of filaments and resins have gotten rid of many of those concerns.
Bigger projects are more fun, but the little stuff is more practical. Tool racks, trays, wheels, etc. are a good start.

I used to buy little detail items like beer kegs, pallets, boxes for loading docks, the list goes on and on. And like a previous post mentioned, these items had to be shipped for more money than they cost. You can find free stl files on the web to print a lot of stuff, almost anything. I have learned to use the free website tinkercad to design stil files for the stuff I can't find and for larger buildings, kit-bashing, custom items, etc. Everything can be a custom "one-off". Sure it takes some time, but for me it works. Neat to have items that nobody else has on my layout. I use a cheap $350 SLA printer. I print pretty much everything now. It's been a total change in how I model.

Mike

Here is my first 3D print design: a building cornice that fits all the MTH buildings with blinking signs.  Designed in TinkerCAD, and printed in PLA with a Bambu A1, painted with Rustoleum Camo.

I thought I was going to primarily print small details and functional parts as noted in above posts, but there is a lot more that can be done.  I have no training in CAD and I had played around with a typical complex extrusion based CAD program, Design Spark.  TinkerCAD is so much easier to use and after watching a few tutorials, I was off and running.  With TinkerCAD, you are simply re-sizing, adding or subtracting geometric shapes to form your design.  The Cornice was drawn only with cubes and cylinders.

Bob

Bob,

Very impressive.

Thanks for sharing

Charlie

I tried and tried to make some things for my scratch-built engines. Some details won't cast. A fan for example, has thin edges and bubbles in the casted part ruin it. Making it from scratch reveals every fault. So, I asked for help here and got it!

https://ogrforum.com/topic/som...-32-emd-sd80mac-fans

Go to bottom of post for pics. They are perfect to me.