Trestle bents

[Cajonpassfan]

I'm going to need a bunch of Rio Grande Southern-inspired "single story" trestle bents, in HOn3, see pic. I do have access to an 8K printer, thanks to my son-in-law, but have no CAD design skills. Is there a source somewhere that makes stl files for something like this available?
Thanks,
Otto, on a fishing expedition...

[Wolf N Works]

Thingiverse has some, not sure if they are what you are looking for.

example https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:252368/files  or  https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:253271

if you have the measurements it would be a pretty quick draw up.

[Cajonpassfan]

Thanks for the links, Wolf, appreciate it, although that particular design is a bit clunky and lacks any kind of definition, like bolt and nut details, shown in the lovely John Coker watercolor below.
And yes, it maybe "a pretty quick draw" for someone with the right skills, which is something I don't have....
If there's anyone interested in helping me develop an stl file, I'd be happy to reimburse them for their trouble.

The diagram below isn't fully dimensioned so I'm inquiring on another thread in Narrow Gauge about the lumber dimensions. I only need the top story, with a mudsill on the bottom.
Otto

[draskouasshat]

fusion360 by autodesk. its free for the hobbyist and theres a ton of support as well as videos. bents will be easy to draw up and honestly would be great practice material.

drasko

[Cajonpassfan]

Thanks for the suggestion, Drasko, but I'm way too busy (and old) to take on yet another set of skills and associated learning curve, no matter how useful it may be. We all make personal decisions about how we want to spend the time we have available to us.

Fortunately, there are nice folks out there willing to help, some of whom are on this forum, like "that guy from Keystone Details"  (private joke).

The design is shown below, now I need to get my son-in-law to print it in some quantity...
Progress is getting made. Thank you, John!
Fun stuff, Otto

[Cajonpassfan]

A question for those with printing experience: how would you orient the bents to print in multiples and minimize layering?
There's bolt and nut detail on both sides, and each bent is about 2.25" high by maybe 2.6" wide along the bottom sill plate.
As noted in my OP, the printer is an 8K Anycubic so I'm not too worried about striations. Would a simple vertical orientation do?
Thanks, Otto

[John]

A question for those with printing experience: how would you orient the bents to print in multiples and minimize layering?
There's bolt and nut detail on both sides, and each bent is about 2.25" high by maybe 2.6" wide along the bottom sill plate.
As noted in my OP, the printer is an 8K Anycubic so I'm not too worried about striations. Would a simple vertical orientation do?
Thanks, Otto

This could probably print as is with proper supports .. but I always like to do 45/45 for stuff like this .. it take a little longer but works most of the time ..

This probably would work with some more supports added / adjusted .. I did a quick auto support ..

[Dave V]

I dunno... Once you build a jig, making bents is super fast and easy. And when you make them from wood, they look like wood. More power to ya if you can 3-D print them, but in the time you spend designing the template and shooting your test prints, you could have built half the trestles on the Ophir highline the old fashioned way. And they'll look like wood because they are.

[Chris333]

3D print a jig 

[John]

I dunno... Once you build a jig, making bents is super fast and easy. And when you make them from wood, they look like wood. More power to ya if you can 3-D print them, but in the time you spend designing the template and shooting your test prints, you could have built half the trestles on the Ophir highline the old fashioned way. And they'll look like wood because they are.

I agree -- It takes some time to get a 3D job to the point where I'm happy with it .. for example, the coaling tower I did for Ed - I probably printed 6 or 7 versions of all the bits and pieces before I got it dialed in to where I was happy ..  I've been working on a mill model for the layout - If I had just scratched it out of styrene N scale clapboard siding, it would be done now .. I would still print the windows though .. but it is a lot of fun

[Lemosteam]

I’d print this thing right on the build plate and duplicate as many as you can fit. The only pace I see a need for a small support is from under the upper horizontal stringer near the end down to the angled supports the just snip it away after printing.  If you get any elephants foot, it will be easy enough to file away. So as for Dave’s comment, you could print half of the bents in one printing.

[Cajonpassfan]

I dunno... Once you build a jig, making bents is super fast and easy. And when you make them from wood, they look like wood. More power to ya if you can 3-D print them, but in the time you spend designing the template and shooting your test prints, you could have built half the trestles on the Ophir highline the old fashioned way. And they'll look like wood because they are.

I dunno, Dave, we are building a 5,000sq.ft. layout, the pic below is less than a third of it, so frankly we do need to take shortcuts to make it happen in our lifetime. Wood grain is nice, but so is getting things done at this massive scale and we've only been at it for 32 months. There are lots of other bridges of various types. And besides, building sixty bents by hand, with bolt, nut and washer details on both sides, is not my idea of enjoyment.
To each his own...I do wish we could print few thousand trees
Otto

[Dave V]

Heh...  I didn't bother with NBWs. There's not visible on a lot of the RGS trestles...the RGS was famous for toenailing much of the trestle structure. The bridge in your photo above (46-E) shows them fairly prominently, but--for example--I can't find any good photos of 45-A (the big one below Ophir depot) where the NBWs are visible. Not sure if it's related, but 46-E and 46-F were replacement structures, so perhaps they were rebuilt with more NBWs compared to some of the original bridges.

I've been searching photos on the C&TS Dorman collection and I'm not seeing a lot of prominent NBWs except for the on the 46-series bridges, 44-A (Butterfly), and the side-bracing on 58-A (Meadow Creek). So, I mean...it's your call, of course! I didn't have nearly as many bridges to build.

Not for nuthin', but I found the long pole in the tent wasn't building the bents, but the assembly of the bents to the stringers and laying all the girts. On a curved trestle, every single girt ends up being a different length.

[samusi01]

3D print a jig 

This: went well enough that I went back and did more for the various NP standard plans.

Standard plan 8-1-1:
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Standard plan 8-1-2b:
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[Cajonpassfan]

They are in the mail. Very little effort on my part
Thank you John and Ian!
Otto