3D printed Code 40 Wood Ties Strips - Quick Pics

[peteski]

Pliobond also comes in a bottle with a brush-cap (like other brands of contact cement). My hardware store carries it. While I have not tried either version I suspect the bottle version mught be less viscous than what's in the tube.

[Jim Costello]

As Chris333 has outlined, I have used this method on all my hand laid turnouts I have made. Easy to use, good control of the flow of glue
and rarely any cleanup. I purchased mine years ago from Walthers, I think they were marketed as 'Micro Tips' back then .
The good thing is to allow the glue in the tip to dry and it peels out easily with a pin or small flat bladed screwdriver.

[Lemosteam]

I wonder how well UV resin glue would work here. I have never used pliobond.

Testors used to use that same applicator tip with their squeeze tube styrene cement.

[Chris333]

Testors used to use that same applicator tip with their squeeze tube styrene cement.

I think that is it: Testors 8805MT  Don't know if they still make them, but they are for sale all over on ebay and Amazon.

[ednadolski]

Is this low VOC version any good, or is it just yet another product where they took out the stuff that made it work?

https://www.amazon.com/W-J-Ruscoe-P-612-LV-Multi-Purpose/dp/B004JOYXR4/ref=sr_1_5?crid=13EJ6V0TITOOH&keywords=liquid+pliobond&qid=1675741025&sprefix=liquid+pliobond%2Caps%2C156&sr=8-5

Ed

[dandopinski]

The trick with pliobond is to let it dry on the rail, then use a soldering iron to heat the rail as it sits on the ties. You can hear a frying sound as it attaches to the ties. It makes an extremely solid connection. There is an article in a 1977 issue (June?) of MRR about hand laying code 40.

[timwatson]

I have a have some wood grain on Tinkercad. If interested.
https://www.tinkercad.com/things/g5ifjBwAmsW-various-wood-grains

I do personally think it’s pretty satisfying printed. Hon30 bridge.

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[ednadolski]

Thanks @timwatson ... I have put this together and I'll try printing it out soon.




Cheers,
Ed

[ednadolski]

The above grain pattern is barely perceptible on the 8k printer.  I will probably re-draw this to try to enhance the depth.

One other change in this revision was increasing the thickness of the tieplates to help them show up against the top face of the wood ties.  I do notice some aliasing on the tieplates but I probably won't do anything about it since it is impossible to see when the tieplates are painted.

Here are some pics, taken at angles to try to catch the grain pattern in a cross-light.  I put on a primer coat of Tamiya primer, trying to keep it very thin so as not to fill in or obscure the detail.  Note, you might want to click/zoom on the pics to view them larger, esp if you are viewing on a small screen.

The painted sample is with some #50 ballast, tho the finer tieplate detail IMHO makes that look a bit oversized.
















Cheers,
Ed

[kiwi_bnsf]

Whoa! That's looking pretty damn impressive 

I really like this approach to allow customisation for Code 40 in branch/industrial/yard trackage.

[ednadolski]

Thanks @kiwi_bnsf .  I do need to get better at achieving the look of actual wood (the thought of driving in thousands of tiny (semi-)scale spikes individually and manually positioning tieplates isn't too appealing):







Ed

[timwatson]

Loving the texture of the ties you can scale down those a bit and increase the height to make it "deeper" and more detailed.
It's looking good.

You have to over blow the texture a bit in the modeling to get them to print properly. When you get them all painted up it starts to look pretty real.

[ednadolski]

Here are the latest samples, I have increased the depth of the grain and made a few other tweaks.  This is N scale with Code 40 rail. I perhaps could try to do a bit more with the paint to bring out the grain pattern, as it seems to be getting a bit lost in the pics.  (The bench top lighting doesn't seem to be doing this any favors here either.)












And just for grins, this is the same file printed in HO scale with Code 70 rail:










Many thanks to @timwatson for the wood grain files!   I have no idea how I could have come up with something like that on my own.


Cheers,
Ed

[dem34]

Quite possibly the best looking track I've ever seen. 

[glenng6]

All I can say is WOW! I agree that it is the best looking model track I have ever seen. It is amazing how much it looks like real track. Glenn