Postmarks Letters to the Editor Send your Comments to:
spriest@rrmodelcraftsman.com
3D Printing I want to congratulate you folks
for showing the 21st Century tool of the future. The 3D printer will not make model manufacturers obsolete. Like television did to the movies, 3D printing will make model railroading all the stronger. I am saddened that your great
article did not stress the advan- tages of 3D printing. To begin, those of us who model in off-the- beaten-path scales, like On30 and On19, are out of luck on many tracks. We can buy body shells from Bachmann, but the com- pany does not offer On19 trucks for its short cars. On19 is O scale on HoN3 track, just like On30 is O scale running on HO track. I have some older HO/HOn3 scale turnouts on which I want to run trains. I will lay the track and await the mechanisms from fel- low modelers. I can see a T-Boil- er Shay running on On30 scale track, pulling a string of Bach- mann short freight cars with their On19 trucks and wheels on dual gauge track. There are underserved seg-
ments of the model railroading world. Not everyone runs the Y6bs and SD60 monsters on ul- tra wide curves. Space restric- tions drive many of us to the odd, underserved scales. I can see my On30 T-Boiler
Shay pulling a string of On19 scale shorty Bachmann cars up a steep grade to the mine where a bevy of On19 scale 0-4-0s will pull the cars apart and take the dump cars to the loading facility where they will drop down to the lower level dock facility and be pulled out as empties, while the loads will ride up to the mine area to be pulled from the loading fa- cility full. My loads in and empties out
scheme will require me to buy a ton of Bachmann shorty cars. 3D printing will allow me to print
sideframes and bolsters that are not available on the market. Again, thank you for a wonder-
ful start. WALLY EASTMAN It was a pleasure to read Mr.
Todd’s description of the road he took to the 3D printing of his log- ging cars. His careful description of assembling and compiling his car data and creating the printer input was complemented by his list of some of the pluses (e.g: ex- treme detail in one step) and mi- nuses (e.g.: each printing can have a different result!) of 3D printing. It puts us on notice that high- quality 3D printing is a reality. This article underscores your
RMC editorial style and efforts. Hopefully more folks will write up their work, so you can keep these craftsman articles coming. VIN GALLOGLY
Open Houses I know exactly what it’s like
to host an open house. I myself have had around a dozen open houses and I can tell you it’s a lot of work to get a layout ready for public viewing. Not only does one need to get the layout ready and the room presentable, but there are some other aspects I would like to point out. Some of us are not lucky enough to have walk-out basements or separate buildings to house our empires, and they are built in spare bed- rooms or basements with only one entrance, which is the case of my layout. There are a few other chores I go through before I put on an open house. I always try to see if the open
house works with my wife’s busy schedule, so she can attend to the front door and greet all visitors. This way, while I am downstairs entertaining guests, I don’t have to worry about people roaming through the house looking for the
layout. You sure don’t want any guest commenting that they had a hard time finding the basement steps but they sure admired your bedroom!
Always keep an eye on the lo-
cal weather forecast. If any bad weather is predicted, I put down rugs all the way to the basement steps. After the open house, it doesn’t look like a dirt road went through the house. I try to put out in the adver-
tisement that there are 14 steps to ascend to get to the basement. There is nothing worse than being handicapped and doing a layout tour and then finding out that you can’t get to it. Out in my front yard, I place
a railroad crossbuck that I built with a sign under it that says “Model Railroad Layout Tour.” I know GPS is a great thing to have when doing a layout tour, but sometimes it can place you in an area that has several houses with no addresses or a mailbox. There are other small items
that I also do, like have train vid- eos playing in the lounge and re- freshments, but one of the most important things I never forget to do is put out a guest book for signing. At the end of the open house, I can check and see how many guests I have had and any comments that they left. You would be surprised after checking your guest book on how far some people have traveled to see your layout. I have even had guests as far as Australia come to my open houses. In perspective, I hope you can
use some of these few suggestions for your open houses. Remem- ber to smile when those famous two questions are asked when the guest are viewing your layout: How much did it cost to build this train garden? And, do you take it down after Christmas? DALE RIDGEWAY
NOVEMBER 2015 11
HEAD END
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