PiperguyUMD What the word on the PRR H9?

[Altoona]

What is the word on the PRR H9? Noticed that you have the tender and the cab on Shapeways but not the boiler, have you given up on the project?
What about the PRR N6b that is on Shapeways is that going to be produced?

[Dave V]

Although I'm no longer in the market for the H9 shell (bought a casting from Superturbine) I was following this with interest.

I wonder if the way to do this en masse is to do a Shapeways boiler sans piping and rivets that's dimensionally correct to fit a Bachmann chassis, sand/fill all the raster artifacts, then add piping, Archer rivets, and brass details from Republic Locomtive Works that you could then make a mold and castings from.

It would take more work than just doing it all in Shapeways but should produce a superior product minus all that stepping.  It would also eliminate the concerns over orientation at Shapeways.

That might be a way-ahead for a good M1 conversion for the Bachmann heavy 4-8-2.

[towl1996]

Aww man, I forgot all about the H9 shells. I hope Jason has some more left.   Yeah, I wish someone would jump on the M1 wagon.

I bought the tender, the stepping wasn't too bad, a thick coat of primer and a heavy dose of weathering should hide most of sins, thankfully tenders got dirty. However, the rear step and a marker lamp broke off during shipping.

[PiperguyUMD]

I went as far as getting a test print.  Here's what I learned

1.  Even though the driver size, spacing and wheel base of the spectrum 2-8-0 are very close (cylinders too!) the boiler and cab are way too small to mount on this mechanism. The motor hang out of the back of the cab by several scale feet - I have a pic somewhere 

2.  I'm not sure that I'm the guy to tackle the belpare firebox. It was close enough for me (a WM guy) but I'm not sure that the Pennsy fans would ever be satisfied 

3.  I would be all for doing boilers without details, in fact I'm considering this for my next WM 2-8-0.  Since FUD is a porous material I don't think that it would be possible to make an adequate casting from a 3D printed object

4.  With a little care, and some very fine sandpaper, the stepping and textured surfaces an be taken care of.  That coupled with brass and etched details can make for a very stunning model.  I have done this treatment on my diesel conversions and am very happy with the results

5.  I wanted to try the M1, I really did, but see lesson #2. I have a few more projects I want to do, maybe if my skills improve  I'll look back into the Pennsy projects

The N6b will be available shortly, I'm waiting on test prints so that I can fine tune the coupler height.

[pjm20]

3.  I would be all for doing boilers without details, in fact I'm considering this for my next WM 2-8-0.  Since FUD is a porous material I don't think that it would be possible to make an adequate casting from a 3D printed object

I think this would be a better option. Also, how about a blank tender? I sure Shapeways does not do rivets well either. It would be simple enough to use the diagram of the WM H9 tender in MR with Archer rivets.

[Dave V]

Thanks for the lessons learned!  Valuable experience and good data points...!

[Altoona]

Piperguy
 Are you going to produce the N6b in a centered copula version also?