For a number of years I have been trying to fill a void over the Chicago River with a street bridge. I made the mock-up below with foam core and original 1929 engineering drawings for the Clark Street Bridge. I sent the foam core mock-up to Russ Higginbotham at Red River Models several years ago but he became very ill and my have passed.
The Clark Street Bridge will be just behind the lift bridge at street level which you can see at the right with pedestrians and the front of a Yellow Cab.
The website chicagoloopbridges.com is a treasure trove of information including original engineering drawings for many of the Chicago River bridges. The drawings for the Clark Street bridge and the appurtenant Bridge Tender towers are below.
The gap is 17 inches and the end of the bridge will extend about two inches over the existing pavement at each end. The real bridge opens in the middle but I only want a non-operating model. That means that I need four identical bridge sides that are about 10 inches long each. Is that feasible with a home 3-D printer? I don't have the skill set to use one but I know that many of you do.
I have also considered having a number of bridge sides cut with a Silhouette cutter and then laminating 3-4 layers for each side piece. Then they would be wrapped with an Evergreen strip band and rivet decals applied to the band.
The Bridge Tender's towers would need to be 3-D printed. With the proximity of the lift bridge in front, I will probably only have room for one tower.
Bottom line, I seek the wisdom of RW members as to how I might pull this off. What say ye?
