Micro-Engineering Bridge Flex

[ednadolski]

A fruit that grows all through Florida and California. Used to make Tang.   

Heh, well I did ask... just like a straight man for Carnac the Magnificent....





Thanks too for the info

Ed

[Sokramiketes]

I am actually doing ALL of my designs in 2D using Adobe Illustrator. Here is an even more complicated design, the Canyon Diablo bridge:

Ah, seeing the foreshortened end view threw me off.  Seemed like a lot of detail just to check a clearance so I presumed you were showing a 3D model! 

I use AutoCad in 2D but was just looking at the sheet metal options in Solidworks and wondering if fold-up kits might be easier or quicker to design there. 

[Sokramiketes]

May I ask, what is your color convention?   Looks like white = full thickness, red = half-etch front, blue = half-etch back... but what is the orange?

Thanks,
Ed

If you think of the process as making a front and back mask you can get away with two colors at the least.  Three if your etcher likes a different color/layer for the tags (PPD does).

In AutoCad I'll set up 5 layers:

1) Front Outline (Red)
2) Front Fill (Red)
3) Back Outline (blue)
4) Back Fill (blue)
5) Tags (green)

I draw all the parts in outline, and then hatch (fill) on separate layers.  That way I can turn off the outlines when all the filling is completed via hatch, and the line thickness doesn't come into play. 

[TrainCat2]

Not sure Mike. Designing in 2D does give me the ease to adjust each shape size to compensate for the bends and the loss from undercutting. I have to adjust each exterior shape face by 25% of the metal thickness due to undercutting. The best thing is tabs and slots, design tabs and copy to slots. Gotta love it. Keep me in the loop on your trials with SW.

Ed, 99% of my shapes do not have lines, just fills. However, I do use lines as bend guides and details such as flathead rivets, panel lines, etc. The exception comes into play for windows where the edges will be raised (full metal over half-etched) and no fill in the center. The four colors allow me to place shapes in front of, or in back of, other shapes to create the 5 detail layers I etch to. Examples:



In the end, since I create my own artwork and etch my own photo-tools, I developed this method to meet my goals. If I were using a commercial etcher like PPD, I might do things differently.

[robert3985]

Bob,
I have never found craft beads small enough or have a shape good enough to be useful in N scale (for insulators or for the glass spheres on barn lightning rods).

How about this: Tint some Microscale Crystal Klear (or acrylic gloss medium) with a mixture of green and blue food coloring then use that instead of Elmers glue. It will dry crystal clear.

Peteski,

I'm not sure if these will work either, but they are the finest I've been able to find.  They're .014" in diameter and possibly a bit taller, which is pretty close to the scale dimensions of the glass insulators I've collected along the U.P. mainline in Weber and Echo Canyons.  They obviously will be roughly cylindrical, instead of conical (sort of), but I'm hoping they'll look better than the blobs of dyed Elmer's I've been using in the past.

I've tried other solutions also, including "thick" acrylic gloss medium, and Water Effects from WS.  Only trouble was I couldn't get the blobs to cooperate and be the same size!

I've got a permanent, consistent solution in the works.  The N-scale world NEEDS a better telegraph pole!

Cheers!
Bob Gilmore