Adventures in 3D Printing

 For the last year or so my friend Jeff Kracker has been subttly dropping hints that I should consider trying 3D printing. He casually mentioned this summer that Anycubic was having a sale on their Photon Mono X, which would be the perfect printer for a beginner and large enough to print O scale narrow gauge cars, and oh, what a great price. Well, I finally jumped in.................

And I've been using it to print very important items........well, my some found these and really enjoys 3D printing also!

After learning more about where to find things and how to use a "slicer" program, I started some hobby items that turned out really cool. These are models developed by Chris Shmuck and published on Thingaverse. The stl files are for Hon30 but were easily scaled up to O scale. Here is a Mt. Sicker and Lenor RR hopper car with some of his trucks from another posted project. 

After a few email and Zoom calls with Jeff to learn more about print settings, cleaning, supports, etc. (almost like a new hobby), I tried some more complex designs by Chris. Here is a Kennebec Central boxcar in On2. The detail scaled up amazingly well from HO to O scale. I'm greatful to Jeff and Chris for their assistance and sharing files. Learning AutoCad 3D, well, someday........

So, ultimately, this does relate to my On30 and On2 modeling. I won't mention the exciting secret project yet.....3D printing is really cool but another aspect with all kinds of learning and patience required!