Garden Railway Forum

Here is my latest model, Linda.
All printed in ABS with roller bearings and sprung axles.
I've tried to stick to as close Ffestiniog form as possible.
The tender is drawn and ready for a trial print.
I will update as I progress

Very nice!!!
Obviously gets the feline seal of approval as well

Rik

I know nothing about 3D printing - and probably at my age never will - but I was interested in the comment about roller bearings and sprung axles (hornblocks?) . Can you tell us more please - suppliers? scratchbuilt? photos?
As a recent convert to SM32 from P4 (and still modelling in the latter) I am used to sprung/compensated/CSB suspension systems and wondering about employing them in my locos but at the moment don't know where to start.
Thanks in anticipation.

Bryan

That is a lovely looking print. Cant wait to see it finished and running.
As Bryan says, the roller bearings and sprung hornblocks sound interesting as well, do fill us in, please. Are they really roller bearing or simply ball bearing races - I got caught by that description once myself spent ages looking for roller bearings only to eventually discover they were simply ball bearings.

BryanW wrote: Sat Jul 11, 2026 8:18 am I know nothing about 3D printing - and probably at my age never will - but I was interested in the comment about roller bearings and sprung axles (hornblocks?) . Can you tell us more please - suppliers? scratchbuilt? photos?
As a recent convert to SM32 from P4 (and still modelling in the latter) I am used to sprung/compensated/CSB suspension systems

Bryan,
I doubt that you are significantly older than many of the 3d printing fraternity on here, so don't let that put you off. Also good to see another P4 modeller embracing the dark side! I sometimes get ribbed about my "inner finescale modeller"

Thanks all.
I've got a fair bit to do yet, as I'm not happy with the print of the main frames, and the springs are a bit stiff, so i need to add a bit more depth to the spring holes in the frames.
The bearings came from a Chinese online website and had the description 3mm roller bearings. They run nice and smoothly so I'm happy.
I've just left a 10mm slot in the frames, the axle box is printed 0.2mm smaller so that it slides up and down easily. It took a few prints to get the clearance just right, and ive found that tollerances are different on my new bambu printer to my old ender3.
I will post some photos of the set up this week.
I only tried the sprung arrangement as I found the bits online and it worked well on my precious model, the Cheese-06.
Not convinced it brings much advantage in an 0-4-0.
Neil.

Looks good Neil.

It might not be strictly necessary to spring the axle boxes, but it surely can't do any harm!

Trevor