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Saturday 14 November 2015

3D Print Experiments - Track Bases (BH rail)

Printing the bullhead rail track base was more problematical than the flat bottom rail base due to the oak key that protrudes from the rail chair on one side. It initially printed all over the place. The solution was in the the design rather than printer setup this time. It is too esoteric to go into details suffice to say it was a question of examining how and what was printed and then adjusting the design for simplicity of form to help the printer do its job.

In this photo I show the track base with a C&L chair (brown) for comparison. The C&L chair, being injection, moulded is finer and a more consistent form that is not easy to achieve for small parts in 3D printing where the plastic is extruded and layered.in free air.

We can see the variation that can result. The leftmost chair is quite acceptable but the one next door has lost a bit of form in the key. I wonder if extending the key might help but then I'll start seeing droop. Still scope for more experimenting but I may stick with this, providing batches are no worse, as it is barely visible at normal viewing distance.

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