A Quick Detail Project

I'm getting closer to opening the store, but I took a little time to solve a problem for a friend of mine. He is working on some Rock Island F-7s, and these units have an unusual cooling coil on the roof. See below.

Do you see it? How about now?

Turns out this is also on the B-units.

Athearn has it modeled on their Rock Island units, but it looks like they turned theirs 90 degrees.

So, there is no N-scale part available, although obviously there are some in HO. Found these images of the HO part.

So, my task was to try to build an N-scale part. A few sketches, and estimates of dimensions later, and here is what I came up with.

I made the pipes that enter the roof of the cab a bit longer than necessary, so that a pilot hole can be drilled allowing for the pipes to slip into the body of the cab. A few quick checks, and it turns out that this model also passes the initial Shapeways tests. I'm going to make them available in N-scale in FUD (Frosted Ultra Detail) and FXD (Frosted Extreme Detail). I think that the FXD will be the better choice - it has a 16 micron layer thickness, as opposed to 29 microns for FUD, and the price difference is minimal. I'm also going to see how they look in Z-scale and HO. The plan is to offer them as a 2-pack. 

All told, about 3 hours, including uploading and testing the part with Shapeways. Could have been a little faster if I had better measurements, but I think it looks good from the eyeball test. Parts like this are one of the places where I think 3D printing shines - little custom detail parts. I'm going to be excited to see them available, and installed on the models. So, I got a few more files to finish and upload, but I hope to open the shop within days.

Watch here for that news!