Filament of choice for printing wheels

[Paul_in_Ricky]

What filament do you choose for printing wheels ?
Self coloured and not bothered about the material ? Something strong like PET-G or PLA+ ? or just what happens to be on the machine ?

[philipy]

One of the things that always slightly bugs me with 3D printed wheels is that they are always all black (or white, brown or grey), whereas wheels that are in service always have shiny treads and at least some shine on the flanges. You can of course paint them, but the paint soon wears and also seems to attract all the track muck. Sooo, I bought some Sunlu "Silk PLA+" in silver and used that to print the wheels. It isn't perfect but to my mind looks a lot closer to the real thing.
As an aside, I used the wheel drawing to create a mask for painting the centres and backs, which worked really well. All I did was to put a 6mm thick 3D box around the wheel drawing and then delete the wheel, leaving a correct size and shape hole in the slab. This fits over the wheel and allows spraying from both sides without getting wobbly edges.

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If you look at my Quarry Hunslet thread, thats what I've used on that. https://gardenrails.org/forum/viewtopic ... 0&start=60

[Paul_in_Ricky]

whereas wheels that are in service always have shiny treads and at least some shine on the flanges.

I think that can only be said of standard gauge rolling stock in regular heavy use.

Narrow gauge and industrial stock rarely gets the sort of use that would polish the running surfaces of it's wheels. In actual use it often is much duller and can even be rusty for low mileage stock. Even the FR locos in intensive use don't have the sort of shine you see on mainline stock.
Looking back through my own 100s of photos of narrow gauge prototypes, it's actually quite rare to be able to see the running surfaces of wheels. Those that do suggest black or brown would be a more realistic colour to aim for.

I have tried black PLA metal, but it actually just looks black when used for wheels. As a complete tease Bambu supply a sample set with their printers that include a PLA Tough material that looks just like wheel steel, but they've discontinued it

[drewzero1]

I think my favorites that I've done were in grey PETG, which has a dull shine like unpolished metal. I might have to try Philip's silver material trick though; the mask idea is clever.

[Paul_in_Ricky]

grey PETG, which has a dull shine like unpolished metal

Can you remember which brand ? or is that a characteristic of PETG ?*

*I've only used PLA variants so far.

[drewzero1]

grey PETG, which has a dull shine like unpolished metal

Can you remember which brand ? or is that a characteristic of PETG ?*

*I've only used PLA variants so far.

I looked it up, it was JAYO, 'grey' color PETG. I mostly chose it because it was cheap and I wanted to try something other than PLA. It's pretty stringy but overall I was happy with it; for the most part, the layers adhere a lot better than any PLA I've used.

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[Paul_in_Ricky]

I looked it up, it was JAYO, 'grey' color PETG. I mostly chose it because it was cheap and I wanted to try something other than PLA. It's pretty stringy but overall I was happy with it; for the most part, the layers adhere a lot better than any PLA I've used.

Thanks for that.
I can't say I've had any layer adhesion issues so far with the various PLAs I've tried.
The only time parts have broken is when I've failed to consider layer direction when laying out parts on the bed. So novice engineer issue rather than printing failure

From what I've read PETG needs to be thoroughly dried before use to avoid stringing issues.