In this week’s post I have another 3D printed part to share with you.  This time it’s a set of specially shaped bricks for a OO Scale signal box.

The Somerset & Dorset Railway’s terminus station at Bournemouth West had its own signal box, as most stations did.  Sadly the station and signal box are no longer there but a group from the local area are recreating the terminus in OO Scale.  I have already 3D printed an unusual chimney cap for the station building for them, which you can read about here.

The signal box was constructed with a brick base and wooden top which is common for the UK.  However, just to be different, this one had a brick castellated feature around its lower windows.  In the image below, captured from a video taken from a passing train,  you can just make out the feature.

This has proven a very difficult building to find images for, so below is a photo of Carterhouse Junction signal box, take on the 5th April 1988 by Harry Gardner.  It has a similar detail around the bricked up windows.

Luckily a fellow modeller, Frank, has painstakingly gathered enough information to 3D model the signal box and below are some screen shots from his 3D model.

Using measurements from Frank’s computer model the group will scratch build the signal box.  But although Frank’s model has provided them with the information needed to do the scratch build it’s not a suitable file for 3D printing, and to make their lives a bit easier they have asked me to 3D print the brick feature.  As you can see in the image above the bottom feature consists of two sloping sets of bricks.  The top feature has one sloping brick and one alternate brick rotated by 90 degrees to form the brick castellations.

This was a fairly easy geometric shape to draw for 3D printing and as you can see below the two parts will come in strips, each measuring 51mm in length.  Each brick, for 00 Scale, is 1mm wide so this can be 3D printed in Shapeways’ White Strong & Flexible material.

The WS&F will be ideal because the slightly grainy texture will help it look like brick, and this material also absorbs paints, leaving a matt finish, which again helps it to look like brick.

As with everything else I’ve ordered recently, these are still being printed but they are due to be shipped this week. So hopefully I’ll have them shortly and will be able to share them with you in next week’s post, along with the other parts.

As promised in last week’s post, this week I have a replacement part for a German steam engine to share with you.

The engine is a Class BR03 4-6-2 built for the DB (Deutsche Bahn – National Railway of Germany). The model is HO scale and made by Marklin.

As well as converting this loco to DCC it also needed a few repairs, including a replacement tender drawbar. The tender houses the motor which drives two of the four axles. The locomotive is free-rolling but has a very heavy weight in the boiler. This not only keeps it on the track at speed but also helps with power pickup as the tender wheels all have traction tires.

In order to keep the coupling between the locomotive and tender close but smooth Marklin have devised a drawbar which incorporates springs. Below you can see what is left of the original drawbar. The metal springs clip into the slots in the tails and a screw runs through the loop. This system absorbs any bounce, keeping the locomotive running smoothly, and allows great flexibility.

However, as you can see below, the drawbar has suffered a lot of damage, which is not fixable by simply gluing it back together as there are bits missing.

This is a perfect situation for a 3D printed part and that is exactly what I’m going to do. As this part needs to be strong but detailed, to get the slots on the right place, I’ll be using Shapeways’ Frosted Ultra Detail material, which has proved itself time and time again as being ideal for this sort of job. You may recall back in December of 2015 I used this material for a set of replacement gears in an O scale Rivarossi F9, which you can read about here. The gears needed to be precise and strong, as the forces passing through them had already cracked the original injection moulded gears. The FUD is a hard acrylic material which gives it its strength and as it’s printed to a 29 micron layer thickness, the detail is very precise.

As always it starts with a 3D drawing of the part. Great care was taken to capture all the lumps and bumps on the original so it’ll be a good fit.

To ensure the part is the right shape, as well as measuring it, I scanned the original on a photocopier and brought that image into my drawing package. I could then lay the new part over the top as a final check.

This drawbar is currently being printed by Shapeways, along with the steps from last week and several other new parts. They are due to arrive in the next two weeks, when they do I will share the fitting of the drawbar with you.

In the meantime next week I have another new 3D printed part to share; this time it’s for a OO scale English signal box.

Over the last few weeks I’ve been working my way through several of the projects which have been on my desk for a while; and as promised I’m sharing them with you.  This week’s project is a replacement set of steps for a Hornby OO Stanier 4MT 2-6-4T as shown below.

The model to be repaired is missing one of its steps from the front, just behind the buffer beam.  The part is a separate plastic piece which is normally glued into the locomotive frame.

As there was one still on the locomotive I was able to measure it and draw it up in 3D.

This part will be 3D printed in Shapeways Frosted Ultra Detail material because I wanted the steps to be thin, just like the original.  I also included the bolt detail and the locating nub on the top.  The new 3D printed step can then simply be fitted into the existing fixing.

Once I have test printed the part it will be available as a pair through my Shapeways shop.  It will also fit several other Hornby locomotives as well as being usable for scratch building.

Next week I have a replacement part for a German 4-6-2 to share with you.