TT scale trains and models

http://images1.sw-cdn.net/model/picture ... 203978.jpg saw this on shapeways site.

And here the model and the price

MacG wrote:And here the model and the price

So I guess Shapeways is doing plastic injection now ;)


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if you choose white strong flexible the price is 48$. still a lot of money and I don't know how strong it would be.

$48 is WAY too much. Just think how much my models were selling for.

think the range has been taken over from the canadian guy who had problems with a lot of people in TT, by an english guy. trouble is, i don't know what he's doing, whether it's material thickness or what, but his models are way more expensive than they ought to be.

scaro wrote:think the range has been taken over from the canadian guy who had problems with a lot of people in TT,

Shaun Thierle

scaro wrote:by an english guy.

I hadn't heard this... Remember I ended-up with some of his NAFTA Models stuff.
(I'm in California... sometimes!)

scaro wrote:trouble is, i don't know what he's doing, whether it's material thickness or what, but his models are way more expensive than they ought to be.

Profit... bigger Profit.. and whacking great Profit... ???

At this price... no-one would WANT to buy... so profit is probably zero.

i think it might be inattention to the thicknesses.

previously, i asked the guy who has the range now to for a quote on what it might cost to upsize a Z scale B&O wagontop boxcar.

another of the hypothetical TT freight yard's 'exceptions' ... in the absence of common prototypes i see TT layouts being full of oddities like wet rock cars, hauled by things like DD40xs and KMs (!) unless you're modelling canada in which case your garden variety needs are far better catered for! anyway, another topic.

the guy went ahead and upsized the car, but as i recall it was going to cost c. 40 euro. i'd only asked for a quote on what it might cost to do it rather than doing the work ... although i don't know that there was a whole lot of work involved. in any event he didn't seem grumpy that i didn't buy it. i imagine the z scale thickness was just inflated to TT and it used far too much material.

shapeways has potential for flat sides, ends for composite boxcars, hoppers and gons ... the roughness of their idiosyncratic -read slapdash- printing process would be better at rendering wood texture rather better than steel sheet. in the UK at the moment, shapeways is starting to hit the hobby mainstream, but a lot of the designers are kind of witless ... in love with an RTR dream that's never going to happen via the even-a-stopped-clock's-right-twice-a-day attitude of shapeways quality control. i saw an RS2 or 3 in N at a show recently done by their process; the guy selling it had the 'anything's possible, sky's the limit' kind of wild-eyed look about him as he showed it off, but frankly, on close inspection it looked like it had been carved out of pumice stone.

however, on composite sides ... think of how rough the accurail H0 composite boxcar is ... people think that's a great model, though the rough texture is out of all proportion to what a real car would have. i have no clue why ... perception of what wood ought to look like, i suppose?

scaro wrote:i think it might be inattention to the thicknesses.

...or a technical limitation on thickness/resolution.

I'm expecting a that we will soon see 3D service bureaus using Form1 technology (i.e. laser-fused liquid resin)
http://formlabs.com/products/our-printer
...and these will offer resolution which will enable the creation of masters for resin casting.

One can only hope!