Today I had a delivery from Shapeways containing some parts I’ve been waiting a while for and I thought I’d share them with you before I get a chance to really test them out fully.

As well as several other bits the package contained the two parts below.

The white jumble of parts contains many bits, from gears to couplings all on one sprew, which have been 3D printed in Shapeways Fine Detail Plastic.  The parts I’m interested in for this post are the couplings; there is a new sample set of my 3 Link and Instanter fixed couplings without the flexible section and a set of dummy Kadee couplings.

The new 3 Link and Instanter fixed couplings will be covered in a later post as they need to be tested on a OO layout and as I’m an N scaler that is a little difficult tonight but the dummy Kadees can be test fitted now.  Below you can see one next to an actual Kadee with the NEM fitting.

The dummy’s fit together well and there’s a bit of movement to allow for rotation.

They also fit well into the real Kadee.  However, they rotate well in one direction, as shown below, but in the other direction the left hand side of the dummy catches the lug designed  to hold the Kadee spring to the knuckle jaw.  This can easily be rectified by reducing the length of the left hand side.

I do have one OO Gauge loco to hand with NEM pockets and it’s a Bachmann Class 66.  The new dummy coupling clipped right into place and looks good.

As I only have the one item with NEM sockets to hand tonight I can’t do much more testing than holding the original Kadee up so you can see how well they fit.

But what about the black mesh cylinder?

This is how I 3D print my N Gauge Short Rapido Replacements in Shapeways Black Versatile Plastic; you can read about those here.  I added a few dummy Kadee couplings into the cylinder as well to see how they printed in this material.

And I must say they came out even better than expected.  They fit perfect with the Fine Detail Plastic set and the original Kadee.

Plus they also fit perfectly into the NEM socket as you can see on the class 66 below.

As the Black Versatile Plastic ones come pre coloured, are more flexible, strong and don’t need to be cleaned before painting I think these will be the ones to use.  But as with the new 3 Link and Instanter fixed couplings it’s now off to the actual OO railway for some proper testing before I’ll know if they really work.  I’ll let you know more when the testing is done.