Author Topic: Help choosing Shapeways material please.  (Read 1328 times)

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craigolio1

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Help choosing Shapeways material please.
« on: December 27, 2016, 08:24:31 PM »
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Hello all. I want to build three of these passenger cars.  For each one you need a body:

http://www.shapeways.com/product/7ADYRP96K/n-scale-via-rail-panorama-car-1720?optionId=55965244

And an underframe:

http://www.shapeways.com/product/M42AGYHEM/n-scale-panorama-car-floor?optionId=55966069


They are offered in:

White (also black for the body) Strong Flexible for a combined price of about $38

White Acrylic combined $63

FUD combined $76

FXD combined $147

For three cars FUD and FXD are way out of my price range. I'm leaning towards the White / Black Strong Flexible simply because of the price. Honeslty with the amount of finish work I've had to do on other FUD models to get a smooth surface I don't see the value. This particular model is a smooth side passenger car. No rivets. Etc.

Can any one weigh in with experience on the strong flexible materials?

Thanks.

Craig


learmoia

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Re: Help choosing Shapeways material please.
« Reply #1 on: December 27, 2016, 09:25:54 PM »
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Kinda off topic.. but shouldn't there be windows?  Maybe it's the rendering as viewed in my phone bit it looks like a solid body..

~Ian
« Last Edit: December 29, 2016, 01:49:28 PM by learmoia »
~Ian

craigolio1

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Re: Help choosing Shapeways material please.
« Reply #2 on: December 27, 2016, 09:39:14 PM »
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There are windows. They are made of solid material and they are slightly recessed. The idea is to paint them black since they have very dark tint on the prototype and are flush mounted in the frames. If they were open the modeller would have to cut individual curved clear plastic inserts, and then tint them anyway and find a way to glue them in the frames. I'm considering cutting clear material to fit, painting the inside black and then two sided taping them in so I get the look of glass and they will sit flush.

Craig

peteski

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Re: Help choosing Shapeways material please.
« Reply #3 on: December 27, 2016, 09:47:59 PM »
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I have not worked with either of the 2 materials you want to use, but judging by the Shapeways description and by what I saw others (here) mention about them, I would not select them for sort of N scale car body.

1. the print resolution is too low
2. the material is much rougher than FUD or FXD
3. the material is very porous which further makes it unsuitable for any sort of finished model.

$76 for FUD prints doeesn't seem that high. I paid $50 for a N scale Vistacruiser bus in N scale (and it is much smaller than the car you want).  You are probably also paying some seller's markup.

. . . 42 . . .

Chris333

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Re: Help choosing Shapeways material please.
« Reply #4 on: December 27, 2016, 09:49:38 PM »
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The strong and flexible stuff looks like 150 grit sandpaper.

You could use it to sand down the others?  :P

C855B

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Re: Help choosing Shapeways material please.
« Reply #5 on: December 27, 2016, 10:14:30 PM »
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Yes - strong and flexible is too course and porous for rolling stock models. Might be OK for structures... especially if you want to model stucco. :D

craigolio1

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Re: Help choosing Shapeways material please.
« Reply #6 on: December 27, 2016, 11:51:34 PM »
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Good to know. Thanks. What about the Acrylic?  Any experience there?

Lemosteam

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Re: Help choosing Shapeways material please.
« Reply #7 on: December 29, 2016, 05:38:24 PM »
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All of the strong and flexible products are nylon based, and nearly impossible to sand and is very rough and dimensionally less stable for holes and such.

Anything that is requires a good finish I would choose FXD. For underbody stuff FUD is fine.

Just remember this. The SF materials require much thicker walls and that translates into more expense for FUD  and FXD that do not require it. 

If I were designing this I would have designed them for FXD and not even offered SF materials.

If you look on my site, there are some pics of BSF parts that I use to hold DPDT switches to Atlas turnouts.  There are some links there to instructions with more pics.

www.keystonedetails.com

craigolio1

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Re: Help choosing Shapeways material please.
« Reply #8 on: January 10, 2017, 11:50:36 PM »
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Thanks for the input. I had to pass. No money for these cars right now and lots of other projects on the bench I can finish with no investment. It's just fun to buy more passenger cars. I want to model them all.

bnsfdash8

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Re: Help choosing Shapeways material please.
« Reply #9 on: January 11, 2017, 07:31:50 PM »
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I did GECX 90 for someone using white strong and flexible for the under frame. It worked alright but definitely not my first choice for materials. It soaks up paint like a sponge and I ended up using some frame/chassis paint that I got to coat the underside of my truck. Shockingly it worked pretty well and left a fairly smooth surface behind.

(Ignore the messed up stripe, it was fixed)
Reese
Modeling Norfolk Southern one loco at a time.

craigolio1

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Re: Help choosing Shapeways material please.
« Reply #10 on: January 21, 2017, 10:04:22 PM »
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Something interesting happened the other day. I pulled out the box of passenger cars I had set aside a few years ago for my Rocky Mountaineer. Wouldn't you know that the two Ultradomes I got from Shapeways at the time are White Strong Flexible. I completely forgot.

That comment about them being like sandpaper is absolutely spot on and the material is difficult to sand. The sides of the prototypes are smooth so I skimmed Tamiya filler on and sanded down to 1000 grit. I sprayed them with four coats of Tamiya white spray bomb and only now do I have a smooth uniform white surface. They just kept soaking up the paint.

Now that I have a surface I feel I can work with I'll wet sand them and work on the finish coats but boy one thing is for sure, I'm never ordering anything that will be visible again. Except maybe a stucco house.

I think an automotive primer, as mentioned, might have been a good option but I was afraid my Polyscale paints wouldn't stick.

Craig