Using a 3D printer to Scratchbuild (Santa Fe Freight House}

[Mike the Trainman]

I have been using a 3D printer in awhile now. I first started using it to print details. I first started with things I found on internet then started making my own. About a year ago I started making background buildings. Here is a photo of the first three that I made. The first two are done and the third one is still under construction. I use Microsoft 3D builder to make files. I took the first building and modified for the Freight house that I'm building for this thread.

[Mike the Trainman]

I Used the first building for freight house. I changed the first floor so that it has two set of doors. I next duplicated the building and sliced off the left end to the windows. After printing the first section and the second section I bolted them together. Here are the first two sections bolted together. Altogether their are five sections to the freight house. It is 26" long.

Note to the monitors if this belongs somewhere else move it.

[Rick]

Mike, you're making great use of the printer.
They all look very good.

[Philip]

Welcome aboard from the old RLF!

Nice project!

[Mike the Trainman]

Thanks Rick I found that there are a lot of things you can do with it.

[Mike the Trainman]

Thanks Philip. I've been here awhile just haven't posted in awhile.

[Mike the Trainman]

Here is a better photo of the building I used to build the freight house from.

[Mike the Trainman]

I have printed and added sections to the freight house. The last photo shows the full freight house and the first section of foundation and loading dock.

[craftsmankits]

Very nice.  How hard is it to add woodgrain to the doors, windows?  I'm not familiar with the programs used and wondered if there were shortcuts for such things.  Mark

[Mike the Trainman]

Thanks Mark that is the one thing I have not had much luck with finding. The main program I use won't do textures.
I guess there are programs out there that will but most cost heavy $$.   I need to rework that door to have lines where the boards come together. We tend to put wood grain on our models but in the smaller scales HO and smaller it really won't show.

[Mike the Trainman]

This building Is being build for a friend who also models the Santa Fe. He has a space 3" wide behind his main Classification yard. We decided to put a freight house and ice house in that space. I seem to spend more time building stuff for my friends than for my layout.  

Here are some photos of the loading dock. I did the wall section and loading dock as separate pieces to make it easier to paint and it takes less time to print.