Every so often I do a search on Thingiverse on “N Scale” to see what comes up. Over the past several months I’ve come across quite a few interesting items to print for the layout.
The “N Scale Raised Platforms or Walkways” posted by akjochev in February 2011 caught my eye and I decided to print them out.
I ended up running several prints in order to get enough usable parts for the length I wanted. There was some experimentation to find which filament in my stash was the best option, I have a roll of Polymaker Terra Matte filament that I bought because it’s supposed to be good for painting and a roll of plain green Island filament. Ultimately I think the Polymer worked better, although with either filament I couldn’t get nearly as clean of a print as the original creator did. Once I get my settings dialed in so that most of the parts printed fairly cleanly (there were still some blobs and some of the smaller parts released from the print bed early) I struggled to get the prints to release from my print bed without damaging or bending them because of how thin they were.
The yellow acrylic paint I used on them didn’t go on cleanly, a problem I hadn’t run into before when painting prints, however it did give me the look I wanted – dirty beat up maintenance platforms in the yard.
The other thing that surprised me was that sitting on the workbench after painting I thought they were a little disappointing looking. However, when I dropped them into the yard, they looked right – they looked like the beat up maintenance platform you’d likely find in a yard, or at least what I envisioned in my yard…
I plan to add one more series of these platform to the East Yard, but before I do that I need to add more ground cover between the yard tracks. Right now the level is too low and the platform is too short to sit at the right high next to Unitrack, the additional ground cover will give me the height I need.