Printing the chopper's fuel tank

My good friend managed to print the fuel tank for the chopper bike project and it turned out pretty good. He has a home built version of Prusa printer and he's using my project to calibrate the fine tune the printer.

The CAD part was split in half to assist the printing process. There is still some finishing to do on the parts, using filler putty and sanding all the printing lines.

For those who don't remember what is the part for, here is a reminder of the project.

And the printed parts as received from the 3D printer.

Back on track

As my left hand is healing nicely, I can now focus again on my scale modeling projects. In this post I am showing the progress on the Harley Davidson custom chopper project. As you know already, this is going to be scratch built, with only the rubber tires taken from a Revell 1:12 motorcycle kit.

As the central piece of any chopper is the engine, the first thing I want to clear from the table is making the engine parts. Luckily, one of my friend has just build a Prusa 3D printer and he was kind enough to do a test print for me. Since we're both beginners in this area, we tried to print the engine as one part. Unfortunately the results are not satisfactory, mainly due to parts orientation. So for the next test print we will take each part and print them separately. There are 8 main printable parts on the motor.

Below pictures show the first printed motor.

Eventually, the cylinder heads will be printed using a commercial printing service, as it would require a different technology like SLS to achieve the right quality.

A little distraction from motorcycle modelling

As I mentioned briefly in my previous post, I have fancied entering the scale model trains hobby. I am trying to resist the temptation as it will detract me from the current projects, but as a scale modeler, building a locomotive from scratch is an irresistible challenge. I am looking into non-running, HO scale trains.

After searching the web for some locomotive plans I found an excellent 3D model of LBSC Ayesha II. It was modeled in 61 mm gauge, while I am looking to build it in 16.5 mm gauge (HO scale). I know that the real locomotive only existed as a garden train (used in fun train parks in UK), but due to 3D plans availability, it is an ideal beginner's project.

As I normally do, I started with the 3D design in Inventor. The scale model will be a static one, without motors or working boiler. The challenge of the design process is that you cannot simply scale each part down to HO scale, but need to redesign each relevant part from scratch, in order to adapt it to the manufacturing tools I have available (mainly Sherline lathe and mill).

I spent two days to get to the current stage you see below. Pretty good progress if you ask me.

This is a non-committing project for me, as I will only work on it as time permits. 

A break from modelling

Hi,

In the last 3 months I was away from modelling due to a motorcycle accident I had in mid Feb. Luckily I got rid with only a broken hand which is currently healing nicely. I am planning to get back to modelling and have some updates to post soon.

In the meantime I was contemplating the idea of 3D designing and building a static HO locomotive. I am trying to resist the urge because I need to focus on the bike projects (Yamaha Roadstart and the custom cruiser).

Thanks for your patience