Christmas prep

Christmas will be here in three months. That means that it's time for me to get busy working on my kids' Christmas gift! Last year, I waited too long to get serious about their Colorado central 23 foot flat car.  Accordingly, I did not get the trucks 3-D printed until New Year's.  So with a more ambitious car planned for this year, I decided that I better get started earlier.  This time it is not a Colorado central or south park car, but if you look at the running gear, you might be able to figure out what it will be.  1:20.3 scale again.

Ultrasonic cleaning

I made the plunge and ordered an ultrasonic cleaner.  Yes, you can clean 3d printed parts without it, but I want to reduce the effort.  I also do not plan on using bedtime...there's a fair bit of confusion that the wax makes the parts translucent and that when they are clean, they are I opaque white.  As an engineer, I am completely comfortable stating that this is only half true...the opaque finish is from the bestine attacking the acrylic...the opaque white is akin to putting a million tiny scratches into acrylic sheet...no thank you.

The ultrasonic cleaner should arrive a couple days before my first sets of or&l freight car hardware arrives from Shapeways.