Monday, April 14, 2014

Bennington State Bank, Bennington MN in HO scale, 3d printed

It has been a while since my last post.  Busy with work, and being sick for a week kind of cuts in to modeling time.

I ran across this old picture of a bank in Bennington Minnesota, and liked the look of it.  It also seemed to be sized for a model railroad.  I decided to draw the building and print a reasonable representation of the building.  

Here is the building drawing, exploded and oriented for printing on the Afinia 3d printer.  

 As you can see in this screen shot of the printer software, the building takes up almost all of the printer table, easily the largest item I have printed.  The walls alone took 6 hours and 39 minutes, and if you look closely, the one I printed does not have the bracing that is in the drawing above.  After I did the initial print, I added bracing to the drawing to add strength to the walls, so next time I print it, it will take even longer to print.

 The basic structure, primed.  At this point I realized the walls were too flimsy, and so I added styrene strip bracing.  

An in progress paint shot.  The front wall top pieces have also been added.  The section with the dental mould was printed separately, and inverted, to eliminate the need for support material in the 3d printing process.   

Mortar and weathering added.   

 Several compromises were made to be able to accommodate the requirements of the 3d printer, but I feel it still captures the general look of the building.  

 I still need to add guttering to the back, and a chimney.  


4 comments:

  1. Hello Kent , I am wondering about the drawing for your printing .
    I have a nearly completed printer that I built and I am ready to start to learn
    the process of the drawings for printing I am familiar with sketchup .
    Q; do you have to draw every brick and detail or did you use the photo for details?

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  2. For a texture to print as texture, it has to be drawn and embossed in the drawing. Send me your email address, and I will send you the SKP file of a block building, they you can see how I did it. BUT, simply put, yes I draw each brick. Certainly, you really only have to draw it once, then just copy. Let me know if that answers your question.

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  3. Can you post this on Thingiverse ( http://www.thingiverse.com/ )? I'd like to try to print in in N 1:160

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  4. I sell the printed items or the stl files for one time use. For N scale, unless you have an SLA printer, the resolution of my drawings would be too fine. The brick faces would only be .0125" (less than .32mm) in height in N scale. I have tried bricks and N scale and never had them come out satisfactory with an FDM printer.

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