3D printed Cement wagon
for garden model railway
by M. Neubauer

If you did not attend TCT in Birmingham you missed to see an unique printed model made by Michal Neubauer. He had prepared a special fully printed cement transport wagon with painted details. Let’s speak to him about more details of this project.



Hello Michal. We’ve been on TCT expo in Birmingham where you prepared something special for us…
Hello to everybody! I have a special surprise for you. It’s a freight wagon for a garden model railway to transport a cement. I draw a 3D model, it is not made from a scratch. I used the model on a smaller scale as a pattern. I’m glad I finished it before TCT start.



Which scale did you use?
The wagon will be on a garden scale. The default scale is 1:22,5. However, from time to time it is better to change the scale a little bit accordingly to the ratio of size between locomotive and wagon respectively.

This is not the first time you have printed something. How did you find this hobby?
I started with a garden model railway 5 years ago. I prepared for my dad a big gift for his 50’s. It was the garden railroad in our garden with one locomotive and one wagon. After dad’s 50’s birthday, I had an idea to create and print the wagon on the 3D printer. It is a service car. It can be partly used for mail transport too.

So do you expect that the project will grow in the future?
Yes. My idea is to become a manufacturer of unique small wagon series, which none of the garden railway manufacturers offer. In the coming winter time, I would like to design more new accessories, wagons and even a locomotive, and hopefully, a 4-wagon unit. So stay tuned.

Which kind of printer and material did you use for the project?
I use the custom-made 3D printer, it’s a big brother of DeltiX from Trilab. I called it DeltiX XXL, current DeltiX XXL is a unique model, no one has the same printer. It was developed with the aim to print wagons and locomotives for a garden railway. I chose PLA Extrafill Traffic White as material. PLA has the best printer parameters for printing larger components as wagons.

If used outside, would not be better to choose ASA? We know it’s a bit complicated to print than with PLA, but it’s the material made for outdoor use.
Yeah, I know that ASA is known as a material for outdoor use. I am going to use the ASA for accessories, which are intended for permanent placement outdoors. I tested that direct sunlight beams cause softening and deformation of the model after about 4 hours of sunlight. So when you use a wagon for about 1-2 hours on the railways, there is no need to be afraid of any damage of the wagon. The surface finish of cementing and painting helps the model to resist the sunlight beams.

Are there some special colors for printed parts like these?
As a finishing procedure, I use polyester putty and airbrush color to make the surface smooth and colored. Every color which is used for the real wagon is from RAL color system. I use the same RAL colors as used in the original one.

It can be pretty complicated to find the exact same colors which were used in a real life. Do you also combine shades you need sometimes?
Every real wagon has its own colors which were selected according to their technical standards. These standards were described in the technical documentation for each wagon. Nowadays, it is technically impossible to find more than 60-years old documentation for wagons. It is easier to find the real wagon, take the RAL sampler with and find the corresponding color with the real color on the wagon. Often the hardest thing is to find the wagon itself.


Thank you for the interview and we are looking forward to your next projects!

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