A few months of progress ... Pt 2

A photo to start things off ...

But, back to the 3D printing...

As I mentioned in the previous post, I made a design for the more modernized doors with the oval windows.

I was able to recess the windows that would match the recessed gasket that holds in the windows as in the prototype.

HOWEVER ...in trying to add some variety, I decided to model the upgraded doors that still maintained the recessed panels on the lower half (in the same manner as the doors of the 4000's at the Illinois Railway Museum (apologies for the use of flash ... the barns, even at mid day, are TOUGH places for photography) ...

At IRM:

And at Howard:

So, the adjustments were made and a sprue assembly of doors was created:

As with the other doors, due to the recessed panel, I had to add a "bump out" on the back of the doors. So, looking at these doors, they make almost a concave shape ...

Which, upon printing, caused an extreme amount of warping. The doors basically turned out like Pringles potato chips. The received door sprue assembly is show below:

And, once cut from the sprues, the parts warped even more. No photos of those, but trust me, they warped like dried out leaves. The doors basically curled in upon themselves. I tried to add styrene stiffening to straighten out the doors, but the doors are warped in both directions ... both horizontally and vertically. 

I'm pretty certain that the warpage was caused by the design of the doors, especially the recessed panel and bump out in the back. In addition, the windows are recessed. I do have another set of modernized doors that were printed without the recessed panel and the window wasn't recessed. The gasket around the window, instead of being recessed, protruded out a scale 1/2". Those doors had minimal warpage.

So, I may remove the recessed panel and add some stiffening ribs along the back to minimize warping.

Back to the drawing board on these doors.

And one more photo ...

Stay tuned for part 3 ... still lots happening!