3D Printed Model Railway Locomotive

In this video I continue my journey to recreate an SECR E1 class locomotive to display at the model of Bexhill West. After some encouragement from the viewers I 3d print my initial design but experience problems.
I discuss these problems, present my revised design idea and make a couple more prints as I work to perfect the process.
Thanks for watching everyone.
Things I use:
Elegoo Mars 3d Printer: amzn.to/2QyOJr7
Elegoo Photocuring Resin: amzn.to/3ishuS2
Digital Caliper: amzn.to/34qev7H
Super Glue (Everbuild HV50): amzn.to/3cT01B0
Plaster cloth amzn.to/2Sl25bz
Surform tool: amzn.to/2EWITO4
My lighting setup: amzn.to/3jtUnaP
Rail cutters: amzn.to/34lcOIt

[@paullancaster297]

I clean my models using a 3 bath process - firstly the dirty bath, IPA and a brush, second bath IPA(for standard resin, water for Eco resin) in a Sistema Pickle container, shaken well, and lastly with either the Anycubic Wash n Cure with IPA, or using an Ultrasonic cleaner with Tesco's lemon (flourescent yellow/green) multisuface cleaner as the solvent. Models with large internal areas - like locomotive bodies, will get the Ultrasonic bath treatment, it's amazing watching the resin coming out of what you thought was a clean model. I have seen video's - not tried it myself yet - of models being cured in side jars filled with water. The theory is two fold, the UV light will defract in the water giving a more even cure, and also the water will stop the model over heating. For supports lots of fine supports in Chitubox I'm running my Auto supports at 80% density, visible areas light supports, hidden medium, then manually add Heavy supports to nail it all down. To help minimise warping I make up a Union Jack shaped support from 1mm diameter cylinders, with the top and bottom cylinders protruding 1mm beyond the verticles. The supports added to the model, and once printed can be easily cut out. Paul

[@JohnSmith-gm4fj]

I've had that happen to me as well. Now I cure the inside with a little uv bulb on a wire to prevent that issue. Seems to work pretty well.

[@philnewman1110]

Two things here, the first was when i started watching your channel i had you down as an engineer having worked in engineering all my life, and a good engineer to boot! Then i now realise you are a teacher, my immediate thought was why didn't we have teachers like this when i was at school, i would have loved to have learned the skillsets you are teaching. Again a thoroughly enjoyable video James! Well done indeed, have a great Christmas and look forward to the next video.

[@BexhillWest]

Thank you Phil, that's a lovely complement. I have some engineering experience, more on the practical side and very much enjoy machining work. At some point I will introduce the channel to my lathe and we might even have a look at a couple of live steam locos which I have on the go. Until then, thanks so much for watching and for your positive feedback. I'm really pleased you have been enjoying the videos. Best wishes, James

[@eddyweller4503]

Thank you James, its wonderful to see and for you to explain the problems you've had and the thinking to correct the problems. When you get your locomotive and your doing one of your photo sessions I've no doubt that you will delighted. Loved the tour of Bexhill west, its brilliant to see it grow keep going with all your projects its fascinating. Look after yourself in these times, see you on the next one Eddy xx

[@BexhillWest]

Thank you Eddy, I'm pleased you enjoyed the video. Take care, James

[@dialwright]

Well, I certainly did enjoy this. Never mind the 'greening' of the model, I'm turning brighter and brighter green with envy! Thank you once again, James. Mike.

[@BexhillWest]

Thank you Mike, nice to hear from you. I'm getting there slowly, there will be an update video on the model coming this weekend which I hope you will enjoy too. All the best, James

[@dinmorejunctionmodelrailway]

It's wonderful to see the birth of your locomotive James. The layout has made some excellent progress. 🚂🚃🚃🚃

[@BexhillWest]

Thank you so much, I'm pleased you enjoyed the video. Take care, James

[@kelizabethjackson1299]

Another enjoyable video. Can’t wait to see more of the model - the grass looks so real!

[@BexhillWest]

Thank you very much. There will be a model update video next weekend with some more grass for you to enjoy. :)

[@paulofbramleyjunction4270]

That 3D model is brilliant James.

[@BexhillWest]

Thank you Paul, it's still a work in progress but I'm pleased with it so far. All the best, James

[@jolliemark6294]

Looking good. Just remember to like in the real world to supports are needed too....thanks for sharing Jack 👍👍👍

[@BexhillWest]

Thanks Jack :)

[@chazzyb8660]

I continue to be impressed by your multiple skills, I guess it's all a matter of patience, and perseverance? I also have to express my admiration for the quality of the Bexhill sheep herd, admirably well trained in keeping down that grass crop around the old station.

[@BexhillWest]

The sheep are very well trained. Sadly the next job is to layer-up the grass and make it look a little less neat. Leg of lamb anyone? :) James

[@gregoryhale2202]

As far as the 3D printing of the Loco remember is concerned, remember "Rome was not built in a day" so persistence will win out. Very much enjoyed the full video. Cheers & Merry Christmas Greg

[@bionicgeekgrrl]

Good progress with the e1. The footage shows your point rodding nicely, I'm sure others might be interested in it. Talking about rodding. There is a layout in p4 called minories, based upon Holborn viaduct. It features working point rodding and an interlocking lever frame. There's footage of it i think in one of my scaleforum videos on KZbin. A great layout that shows what can be done, even in 4mm p4 gauge with working etched point rodding.

[@medwaypeninsulaMR]

Hi James - As always an interesting video and great to see an overview of Bexhill West..................Cheers Kev

[@BexhillWest]

Thank you Kev, always nice to hear from you. Hope you are well.

[@TheDaf95xf]

Evening James. Hope you ok? Absolutely fantastic video on 3D printing. More than I could ever do but really interesting. You make fantastic videos that are easy to follow. Until the next time cheers Stevie 😎

[@BexhillWest]

Thanks Stevie, as ever I appreciate the support. Thanks for watching, James

[@shaunsandiford9048]

Wow fantastic job 👍👍🇬🇧

[@BexhillWest]

Thank you so much. Really pleased you enjoyed the video. Best Wishes, James

[@paul-ww7zl]

Excellent work, thumbs up for persevering with your experiments,but as you suggest going for a brass boiler barrel & 3d print the rest may be the best solution,especially with mating surfaces in the smokebox & firebox to align the barrel.Cannot wait to see the finished item- in the raw & fully decked out!

[@BexhillWest]

Hi Paul, I have now got this to print very successfully as a one piece print. Expect to see it again on the channel very soon. Best wishes, James

[@davidorf3921]

Hi James, suggest leaving those solid boilers up to a week, some people have issues with thick solid parts and splitting post cure, especially with water washable resin. Use hot water (just hot enough to not scald your hands) when doing the initial clean up this will soften the resin and give a much neater finish when removing the sprues, I find they just pop off using my thumb right after coming out of warm water, then do a second wash with a soft toothbrush to scrub away the last of the uncured resin, that you could not get to with sprues attached. I add just a drop or two of washing up liquid to my water. Even post cure you can soften the resin in hot water, if you get some distortion post cure, you may find sticking in hot water will make the walls soft enough that you can fix distortions. Personally I'd break the body into several sections for printing that way I would be able to mount in such a way that the build sprue attachment points would be in places where I could sand with no risk of removing fine surface detail. In your case I'd split into maybe 4 parts, boiler, smoke box, fire box and cab. You may want to test print a cube to ensure that your X, Y and Z axis is accurate, many printers need calibration (usually the stl to printer software can handle this) typically most people don't notice the errors, but printing a cylindrical or spherical object can highlight any errors giving you oval or egg shapes rather than perfectly round ones. One last thing, if you have a UV box for curing, think about sticking the parts in a glass of CLEAN cold water, the water refracts the light into recesses that it may otherwise not reach, you still need to flip the parts once during the cure though to ensure even coverage, a little overexposure is fine on any resin except clear, where it will cause yellowing. Best wishes - David

[@BexhillWest]

Hi David, Sorry for the delayed reply - it's been a very busy week! I am curing these very slowly, and with quite a strict regime to ensure an even cure. As for washing the parts, on this occasion I was rushing and not following my usual methods - hence the disappointment. But thank you for your suggestions, all of which will be very helpful to those reading these comments. I agree that printing in sections would produce 'cleaner' prints, and you may recall from my previous video that I planned to do just that. However, curiosity got the better of me and so I thought I'd try a one piece print. My first attempt was with my original drawing which had been designed for thin walled brass tube, and to be honest I think is just too thin a section to print reliably. I think that it was this and some older resin which led to the initial failure. In my second attempt, I'd minimised the support and the tiny supports couldn't hold the weight of the solid boiler and smokebox which caused them to part company. Thus the unconstrained end of the print tended to 'flap' during the print process, and this is what led to the deformation at the smokebox, rather than a machine issue. A case of a poor print strategy. The glass of water trick is a great idea, and I will certainly try that out. I hadn't heard of it before, but it makes sense. Thanks for the tips, James

[@davidorf3921]

@@BexhillWest Hey James, we are al learning as we go along, for instance it can be better to use more supports of a smaller size to gain stability and reduce surface damage because smaller contact points are easier to remove but having more of them reduces the chance of objects peeling off the support structure due to suction/gravity

[@yinglyca1]

That is not a fail! Just rust it up and place it by the tracks as a wreck.

[@hamiltonsullivan6563]

To be honest the one with the gash in it (mark 1) would make a grain boiler explosion model

[@BexhillWest]

The thought had occurred to me too. :) Thanks for watching, James

[@nicholasthon973]

You didn’t put vent holes in the engine so it created a vacuum in the cavity.

[@HamStrains]

Break the model down into multiple parts, less and less chance of issues this way and a more even curing of all parts. We like to think "oh yeah just print out a loco as per how a rtr one comes" but this is not great thinking as the design of something for injection moulding will never be that great to print and the design of something to print will never be that great to transfer to injection moulding either. Takes a few goes to realise that you're not making the best of the technology you have but once you start to think how to get the best of it it becomes quite good. Breaking down to multiple sub assemblies also allows you to use other materials where they may be much better suited, example being cabs, wall thickness on injection moulding and 3d printing at really quite clunky which can make an otherwise fantastically detailed model look a bit off. So where possible its good to break the cab off from the rest and do it in brass if you have the skills to cut it out with the jewlers saw and bend it up and attach to the running plate and to the boiler, the boiler barrel and fire box print well as one normally, but a separate chimney and dome are always good, the running plate again can look a lot better in brass, other small details can also be much better as separate parts the valve chest detail under the smoke box for example. A whole loco is something that has many parts that are best printed in many orientations so doing it all at once qill always be a trade off of best orientation for all but ideal for none with heaps of support thrown in to make finishing up a nightmare.

[@DavidSmith-lk3yf]

Whilst you may not use DCC it would be a good idea for future proofing to include a cavity in the boiler for a DCC chip.

[@BexhillWest]

Good thinking David. I have a plan for DCC and loudspeaker fitting which I will cover in a future episode. I hope to get the sounds of the real loco built into the model. Fingers crossed. :)

[@steveNCB7754]

Very interesting subject, and one I have a future project in mind, myself. Following on from Michael Warren’s question/point about resin printing the various locomotive superstructure elements as separate items. Is there any mileage in the point that as separate items (at least whilst developing a prototype), any fault corrections in a particular area: a) Don’t require the continual printing of areas each time, that are already OK or fixed; b) Individual parts might print better as individuals anyway and c) Individual parts make production of class variants easier?

[@wamgoc]

Nice detail on the layout James. Coming along nicely. How long did the loco body take to print? I thought you would have problems with the large mass to thin wall of the fire box walls? Surprisingly not! I know when you’re moulding a piece like this you could get a sagging effect on the firebox walls. A very interesting video to while away the early hours.

[@BexhillWest]

Thank you very much. This was a 5 hour print. I had anticipated failure in that area too, so I made sure to evenly fillet-in the join between these two areas. Wherever possible I have used a fillet radius where faces meet at 90 degrees to minimise the chances of cracks spreading. I've got this piece into paint now and the outcome is amazing - so it'll be back to the drawing board now to add more rivet detail and complete the backhead. As ever thanks for watching, and I'm pleased you enjoyed the video. Best wishes, James

[@dialwright]

James, had you thought of printing the various sections of the superstructure separately ? ie. cab; footplate; firebox; boiler with smokebox. This might obviate distortions. Mike.

[@BexhillWest]

HI Michael, I'm sorry I missed your comment, hence the late reply. Yes, I had thought to do so. That was my original intention. This video was my experiment in doing it in one piece, which has many advantages if I can get the printing strategy right. Best wishes, James

[@gartsherriejunction4643]

Morning James. Check your email asking a question about libreCAD. As an aside, your layout from what I see is looking good. What are the dimensions? How are you "curing" the finished model? I note that other modellers use UV Nail lamps and they range in price but average out at £15. If the failure to your own creation is this final process, it might help cure your creations more evenly and hopefully resolve this. Will drop you another line, short one, later. Mike

[@BexhillWest]

Hi Mike, I'm curing the model with a UV lightbox, taking it very slow and steady. I think the first failure was down to me using the dregs in an older bottle of resin, and hence the initial lamination failure. The part was also very thin, as you may recall from the video that the boiler barrel was designed to me made from a brass tube originally. The second failure was I think due to excessive weight hanging from supports which I had made too small. I was experimenting, and trying to minimise the support. But I got there in the end! I've checked my email and sent a reply. All the very best, James

[@TheGodsrighthandman]

@@BexhillWest Get a solar-powered Lazy Susan and place it in your light box with the model on top during curing . . . Summat like this which I use if there's no direct sunlight: www.ebay.co.uk/itm/360-Rotating-Turntable-Jewelry-Display-Stand-Solar-or-AAA-Battery-Powered-UK/203216742621?hash=item2f50a968dd:g:lwUAAOSwvddf1Msx

[@lassunsschaun6859]

Maybe better not to print in one part, printed in assembly groups UV-light and washing brush would reach the insides better and if a part fails or you think "maybe it could be done better" you only would need to correct/change and reprint that part. As the real things metal surface is made/shaped in a horizontal, vertical or rotating process the viewers eye notices angled surface textures as wrong, could be that painting brings that out even more -> test paint your failings and watch them under a good light and with camera. Would guess a (hollow) cylinder printed vertical would not come out that much oval and with less/none of those (at least at this stage) ugly support-construction-dots on the lateral surface, too. Keep on moving/testing on, Bexhill West surely gona be a nice show piece at the end of the evolutions it´s parts are going through.

[@BexhillWest]

Thank you very much for your thoughts. It was certainly my intention to print the parts as separate pieces. This was more of an experiment to see whether the print would work in one piece. Once it had failed, I then relished the challenge of modifying the drawing and printing strategy to see if it would work. As for the surface texture, it looks worse on camera that it is in reality. I have since prepared this print and given it a coat of primer and the surface finish is really quite good. I did use some 600 grit abrasive paper to lightly prepare the surface first. You are right, a vertical cylinder would print much better. If I go down this route for the final model I think I would use a brass tube however, and take advantage of its thin-wall to allow more space within the structure for wiring etc. Once again, thank you for your thoughts. Reading your comment has got my mind racing again and thinking of alternative strategies for this part. Thank you for watching, James

[@lassunsschaun6859]

Brass for the long vertical cylinder sounds fin - will bring some wight, too. For smoke box cylinder brass or 3D-print? Especially smok box door and around attached to that cylinder is were I guess that the direction of a 3D-print and which parts in one piece would matter much. A other question is about smoke generator - yes, no, would one fit? For the cab consider brass sheets as a alternativ solution. With the abrasive paper you should got the surface pattern corrected - I gona watch that when you show (with or without test paint). About looking worser on the camera - you planned your station so that you could photograph it well, therefor when all is finished and you take pictures would you want to see something looking wrong on monitor? May your mind race on, but with some breaks for rest and to do other things, too.

[@darrenrees3284]

Put the model in hot water whe removing the supports, they just fall off.

[@TonySmith-cd7jo]

I am very new to 3d printing but I have to say I don't understand why you have had so much trouble. My first ever print came out perfect. What printer are you using?

[@BexhillWest]

Hi Tony, I didn't experience trouble as such, what you see me run through here is the challenges of preparing a design for 3d printing, and experimenting to find a strategy which would work. In the first example, the design was never intended to be 3d printed, the boiler barrel was going to be a thin-walled brass tube. I just tried to print it to see what would happen. As I knew this was an experimental print, I was using the dregs of an older bottle of resin, and I think this is what caused the delamination of the layers. In the second example, the failure occurred because I had reduced the support at the smoke box end to a point whereby it couldn't hold the weight of the print during the print process. In the third and final attempt, the model was angled once again, and the support reconfigured. This reduced the hanging weight on the support in that area and so the previous failure was eliminated. I'm using an Elegoo Mars printer, which is excellent and not the cause of the problems. I think that you too may find that as you advance with your 3d printing journey, and tackle more complex projects, there will often be an element of trial and error in determining the optimum printing strategy for a particular model. Things such as mass of model, centre of mass, minimising detail loss through support structure, resin type, condition of the FEP film, etc all factor into the success or otherwise of the print outcome. What you saw in this video was me working through these variables to optimise my design drawing for 3d printing, and also the strategy for the final print.

[@TonySmith-cd7jo]

@@BexhillWest Thanks for the reply, yes there are a lot of variables that go into making a good print. That is why I commented, I would wish to avoid too many failures in my own journey as they can be discouraging. Thanks for explaining.

[@gordanmilne7034]

Not failures, learning opportunities.

[@CornishCarper]

The loco was at the wrong angle, I have made many locos in resin and I have over 300 locos designed.