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Every now and then this hobby of model railways throws up a pleasant surprise. one such was a delivery the other days from Holland. inside the package from shapeways, inside a drawstring black cloth printed bag (Nice touch!), was a 3D printed GE-Ingersoll Rand boxcab diesel switcher. From a design by Walt-SouthernNscale it is an exquisite representation of the early loco purchased by the New Jersey Central which still survives today in preservation. there are some layer lines visible but the amount of detail is self evident It is designed to fit the Rokuhan shorty chassis. I found that the locating lugs on the chassis, if used in the holes in the body ends, meant it sat far too high. so a simple mod was done to drop the height down. There is loads of room in the body to fit a decoder or lighting board. The extra weight certainly aids performance I don't have the heart to paint it yet it looks so good. I'm going to run it as it is at this year's shows to show everybody how much 3D printing has come on How-to video here cheers Kev

Hi all The Rokuhan Shorty chassis has caused a lot of interest recently amongst the Z gauge community, as well as the Nm and H0f guys. but one of the easiest conversions can be done with stonysmiths 'open window' switcher on Shapeways 3d printing site I needed a couple of generic industrial diesel locos to run on Republic Steel which would not look out of place if I was running it in American or British guise. I decided to stick with the ABS printed shell rather than the 3d printed Brass one. They are never going to be pulling more than 2 or 3 ladle cars or torpedo on the layout so haulage weight shouldn't be an issue. The basic chassis straight out of the package The basic shell as delivered and fresh out of the Ultrasonic cleaning bath of warm soapy water The shell is very close to a GE 70 tonner and is a perfect fir on the Shorty. The first thin coat of primer was used to reveal the areas needed the layer lines cleaning up, not much, just some round the nose end and the cab This was one was per the print with the addition of handrails from a Marklin caboose. Exhaust stack was brass tube Now in my efforts to add detail I decided to drill out the headlamp on the other one, pushing a sharp scriber into the centre of it to give the drill bit a centre to work with I managed to punch a hole in it as the material is so thin. Some choice Anglo-Saxon swearing followed and once I calmed down I decided to add a radiator grill from Scalelink etched mesh to hide the hole. Yo be honest I actually preferred the look in this shot you can see the original couplers get in the way and can push the truck down. They are the usual Rokuhan push fit and are easily removed more in a mo Kev