Garden Railway Forum

Today I got fed up with having to modify or make my own buffers out of ali, brass etc, so I sat down with Tinkercad and designed a little buffer to suit my needs. These are a few pictures of it. I just wind in a long bolt and then chop off the head, file it a bit and attach to loco, wagon etc with a washer and nut.

If anyone would like the stl file for this I have put it on Thingiverse for everyone. https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4567219

I have also done some various grills as well.

If anyone wants any of these and does not have access to a 3D printer then just let me know and I will print them and post them out to you at cost plus a couple of quid for printer time, lol.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:4568137

They look good, Steve.

Rik

ge_rik wrote: ↑Thu Aug 13, 2020 9:08 am They look good, Steve.

Rik

Thanks Rik

These CAD programs do take a while to get your head around, working in 3D is very different to anything else I must admit. I have done some wheels, locos, milk churns, oil drums, keeping very busy, the printer hasn't been turned off for nearly 2 months since I got it.

-steves- wrote: ↑Thu Aug 13, 2020 3:48 pm keeping very busy, the printer hasn't been turned off for nearly 2 months since I got it.

I was like that at first but I've now got to the stage where it does about a week or so printing every 4 or 5 weeks.

Mine prints intermittently, dependent on need. Hard to put a figure in it. At the moment, it's printing virtually every hour I can find time for it - churning out nearly 60 parts for the beam engine intended for the boneworks engine house. Some parts are tiny and take a couple of minutes to print, but the base for the beam engine has taken in excess of 12 hours to print - the flywheel has taken 8 hours. It looks like it's going to take around two weeks just to print out the parts.

I do like drawing my own parts as well. So far, my bits have been fairly uniform but your buffers have tempted me to have a go at something a bit more elaborate. TinkerCAD is such good fun to play around with. The team who developed it need to be given a medal for services to model making.

I know there are some who are deeply sceptical about 3D printers - but I reckon the skills and knowledge needed to produce decent 3D drawings are every bit as demanding as working with raw materials. There are no magic buttons that do the drawing for you.

Rik

ge_rik wrote: ↑Fri Aug 14, 2020 8:18 pm I reckon the skills and knowledge needed to produce decent 3D drawings are every bit as demanding as working with raw materials. There are no magic buttons that do the drawing for you.

Rik

Rik couldn't agree, as with most software there is skill to using it correctly, and once you have learnt, you mush continue to use otherwise the skill fades (not like riding a bike )

I have added a 16,, Milk Churn and a 16mm barrel to the collection on Thingiverse if anyone wants them.

They look good. Looks like I'll now need to build a dairy ......

Rik

Brilliant!

Someone else making effective use of technology!

Trevor