Anybody try shapeways printing in metals?

[randgust]

There's been some pretty neat steam locomotive attempts out there, but FUD is light as a feather.

Has anybody tried to do at least the boilers out of metal yet?  Brass?  There was an announcement out this week that 'raw' and 'polished' bronze was available (this is heavy stuff) so one begins to wonder...

http://www.shapeways.com/blog/archives/2296-3D-Printing-Enters-the-Bronze-Age-at-Shapeways.html/?ca=email&ct=101013&cr=t02

If you could even do boilers in this stuff with the details in FUD....?

[TiVoPrince]

Wondering
if this process could provide an improved weight chassis for existing diesels too?  Chances of a unusual model I desire, like a SD45X or SDP45 go up if a custom frame/body/handrail combination option was available...

[bbussey]

I've printed in stainless steel.  It will work for engine frames, but it would cost around $90 for the frame, and you would have to experiment to determine the proper shrinkage factor.

[peteski]

I have not tried using metals. But I suspect that they are either powdered metal suspended in resin, or sintered metal. This means that they will be lighter than if they were made from solid metal.

The other (larger) obstacle would be that none of the metal materials have printed resolution even close to FUD. And even FUD is often too course for find details.  I suspect that the layering effect woudl be unacceptable for N scale shells. But the metallic materials might be very useful for printing custom frames.

[Chris333]

Yeah to me it would all be about the surface texture before I even tried it.

[jimmo]

Yeah to me it would all be about the surface texture before I even tried it.

+1

[bbussey]

The weight is good but the surface texture is very rough.  That's why they would work for engine frames, which are not visible once the body and trucks are mounted.

[ljudice]

Any rough idea what a freight car frame would cost?

The thought being a way to lower existing models easily...

- Lou

[robert3985]

Okay, to solve the question, just go to the Shapeways site and read their "materials" section.

I read my Shapeways bulletin yesterday and because I've got a frame-alteration project in mind (Athearn Big Boys and Challengers) I wanted to see if their new brass/bronze material they're advertising would do the job.

Well, whaddya know!!...They don't print in brass.  What they do is print in wax, invest the wax and then cast the brass part.  They're investment casting brass in other words, using your 3D model, their print (in wax) and then investing the wax master, burning it out and casting your part in brass.

I'm okay with that and the details and surface quality they're able to achieve is perfectly okay for something like an engine chassis (+/-.125mm)  There might be some final filing, drilling, milling and tapping to do.

Cost is pretty expensive...a $10 handing fee then starting at $16.00 per cc (as opposed to FUD's $2.39 cost per cc and $5.00 handing fee).

Soooo...I'm probably going to just mill my frames out of brass stock.  Those of you who don't have a mill and lathe should definitely consider Shapeways for assistance in any chassis job you're thinking about.

As for other parts, I have a local jewelry shop who casts up stuff for me when I bring down a wax master to them.  I also supply the brass, which is on-hand since I used to produce HO scale lost-wax investment cast parts for several customers in my own little brass foundry.  I haven't set all of it up since I moved ten years ago and it's a lot easier to just pay my jewelry shop $25 bucks to cast up my Styrene or wax masters when I have the need. 

You might consider something similar in your locale if you don't want to learn how to do 3D modeling.  For one-offs, just build the master out of Styrene, or for multiples of the same part, make your master out of brass, have your buddies at the local jewelry shop make a vulcanized rubber mold of your part, make your wax masters for you, tree 'em up, then invest and cast 'em.  However, that'll cost you more than 25 bucks a throw.

For freight car chassis, Shapeways would be cost-prohibitive.  However, if you have hundreds (or more) of a certain type of underbody you want to cast up, the way to do it is to do all of the above, have half a dozen brass underbodies cast up, then take them to your local soft-metal spin caster's shop.  He'll make a disk for you and the individual cost per underbody would then be greatly lowered.  Total expenditure would still be expensive however.  Remember you'll have to compensate for shrinkage when making your master.

You could also then sell them to your train buddies who want easily lowered cars.  Hmmmm...there might actually be a market for that product...but not through Shapeways.

[bbussey]

They print in stainless steel, which both conducts electricity and provides the necessary mass.  Good for mechanism frames for diesels and electrics, due to the complex cavities to hold the motor and drive shafts/gears.  Regarding steam engine frames and freight car underbodies, it does make more sense to mill them out of brass.

[randgust]

Oh, I can see the possibilities and I've read the site.  What I'm wondering, is if anybody here has done it...or is designing to it.   Unless somebody steps up I'm still seeing theorists.   But it's also overwhelmed with designs and a second-rate search engine.

I haven't seen anything out there that I would consider to be 'composite' design; either a frame or a boiler of a metal design, followed by FUD for either a 'shell' or attached details to a rough boiler.

But considering the layering problem of a small boiler in FUD, either doing them in powdered metal, cast brass, or whatever, and then adding the FUD goodies like cabs, cylinders,....   A good example is the guy that's done the bitty shays and Climaxes.  That kind of thing.  We aren't talking 4-8-4's here.  The cost issue falls in relationship to the small size.   

You might get good enough resolution to do a replacement loco frame and drop Atlas parts in it?

[bbussey]

No.  The finish is too rough, akin to a sand-painted surface.  It works as a frame that would be totally obscured by a plastic (or resin) body, but not as a basic visible surface that would accept add-on detail parts.

Here's an example.

[robert3985]

Since lost-wax brass detail castings are widely used in the model railroad industry, Shapeways brass and bronze materials (even though they are expensive) would work very well for a precision brass or bronze part.  The surface quality is excellent and the detail is also excellent, although not quite as good as FUD, it's plenty good for visible chassis components and more precise chassis components than is available with the Stainless printed material, which frankly I wouldn't accept as a component for any of my model railroading endeavors.

The only drawback I can see with brass/bronze Shapeways stuff is the price and the limitations of the printed wax master.  I am going to assume that the master they print would be oriented correctly to minimize layer lines, but that's up to them.  They are charging twice as much for handling, so once again I'm assuming one of those reasons is to do QA on the master and treeing it up before investing it.

There are also limitations as to the design or type of part, such as no interlocking and no combining of parts.  I further assume they would allow a tree of very small parts, such as N-scale switch stands or something similar, but maybe not more than one freight car chassis at a time.

As usual, a phone call to Shapeways will answer the questions when and if anybody decides to use the brass/bronze material for their project.

[Chris333]

Look up a place called Searails and you will see many RP parts that have been burned out and cast in brass. I have one steam loco boiler at home made this way, it is worthless to me because the detail is horrible.