Salvaging My Cannon & Co. Fan Kits

[fishbelly]

UPPER LEFT: 48" fan base and fan guard. It has been grit blasted.

UPPER RIGHT: Same as upper left with the Cannon & Co. fan hub/ fan blades installed and fan grill.

LOWER LEFT: Cast version of the 48" radiator fan. Fits the Cannon parts as well. I have only seen this fan housing in one photo on a DT&I GP35. I do have the EMD drawings for it and the part was designed from those drawings.

LOWER RIGHT: 48" dynamic brake fan and again the cannon fan hub/ blades and grill fit the part.

I made these to fit the Atlas GP38/ GP40. A few details I added to my parts that are not on the Cannon parts. Not because Gordon could not design them, but with injection molding there are limitations that do not apply to 3D printing.
1. The fan base and fan guard are one piece.
2. The fan grill sits slightly deeper in the fan guard to give the prototype effect of the fan guard extending above the grill.
3. I added the threaded posts and nut to the base instead of a bolt.

The surface finish turned out great after a light grit blasting. You can see the difference. between the two at the top and the lower left. The lower left is fresh from the printer then cleaned and cured. Although the darker parts are a different resin and un blasted is has a superior surface finish than the resin I used for the lighter color parts and it does not show the vertical lines as the lighter color parts do. The DB fan at the lower right has been grit blasted and you can see the surface finish is much smoother that the part to the left of it.

I did not make these to compete with Cannon & Co. I am not going to do that nor do I want to start any kind of parts business. Also Dave did fix the fan guards in the kits. These parts are for my own consumption. The reason I decided to design and produce these parts is because I have about 50 Cannon & Co. radiator and DB fan kits that are useless because of all the flash, short shot parts and broken parts. The fan hubs and most of photo etch is still good. So instead of tossing the kits. I salvaged the usable parts from them and designed new parts to replace the defective ones. The joy of having a 3D printer. I have very minor cleanup to do on the underside of the flange. Anywhere you have supports attached to the part you have to clean up that area. I will be photo etching a set of my own grills because I do not have enough of the 10 arm spiral grills. Almost all of the ones I do have from the kits. The etcher screwed up on and the wires are so thin that if I even think about grit blasting them they disintegrate. So I will just make a bunch of my own. 



Brian

[sknorcal]

Those fans look great!  I need to do the same--I have several Cannon & Co kits with broken parts as well.
Where did you find the EMD drawings for the fans?  

[fishbelly]

Dec 18, 2023 11:49:58 GMT -8 sknorcal said:

Those fans look great!  I need to do the same--I have several Cannon & Co kits with broken parts as well.
Where did you find the EMD drawings for the fans?  

A long time ago, a friend gave me a whole stack of EMD drawings. The cast fan base was one of the drawings as well as the fan guard for the SD45.

Brian

[astrosa]

Nice work, they look very true to scale. May I ask which resin you are using for printing?

For anyone else looking to design parts, I have found some great resources at the Fallen Flags website. Here is an EMD 2nd generation parts catalog, broken down by category, that includes some useful drawings. They lack dimensions but most are very detailed.

rr-fallenflags.org/manual/emd-mpc190.html

Combine that with some key dimensions listed on this other site, and you can scale the drawings pretty accurately to use as a reference.

downunder.railfan.net/ho_dim.html

This is no substitute for actual dimensioned drawings, but might be close enough for the rest of us.

[fishbelly]

astrosa,

I use Siraya Tech.

PRINTER: Uniformation GK Two
BOTTOM LAYERS: 6
BOTTOM LAYER EXPOSURE: 30 seconds
STANDARD LAYER EXPOSURE: 2.0 seconds

There are many things I like about the Uniformation printer. One of the benefits I just found out recently is that I do not have to buy a whole new machine to get a better resolution. Uniformation sells an upgrade screen to take the machine I have from 8K up to 12K.

I got all the second generation parts catalogs from that page before they took them down. I did not know they had the first generation stuff up there. Very cool and thanks for the link.

I agree. Nothing beats actual dimensions, but most of the time we cannot get that so we have to scale off photos or give your best estimate.

Brian

[joppasub]

Superb!!!!

[Dear Leader]

Im surprised the company didn't make good on the defective parts.

[fishbelly]

Dec 21, 2023 10:12:11 GMT -8 Dear Leader said:

Im surprised the company didn't make good on the defective parts.

Dave has sent me plenty of replacement parts over the years. Now that I have a 3D printer and can print these parts. I am no longer concerned about it. Kind of like water under the bridge. No big deal anymore for me.

I have learned my lesson over the years. Shut your mouth and go back to being a model maker/ designer of which I am doing right now with an Atlas GP38. I am having loads of fun with this one. Redesigning parts to make the model a bit more presentable. Currently working on the pilots, draft gear box and buffer plate. I am on the fence about the step wells. Not sure it is worth the effort to redesign them.

Brian

[Donnell Wells]

Speaking of fans, I drew up this replacement dynamic brake part for an Athearn "blue box" GP9 in an effort to nudge the progress marker on this extremely long term project ahead slightly. I suppose I could have used the Cannon part, but like Brian, I have the printer that can hopefully fill this need. We'll see how things work out!

Cheers,
Donnell

[nebrzephyr]

Donnell and Brian....you guys amaze me with what you can create.

Bob

[fishbelly]

Donnell and I have been discussing stuff for a while now. Donnell is a joy to talk to.

I cannot take photos of them. They are just to small for the camera to pick up the level of detail that the parts have. Tonight I successfully printed some coupler lift bar brackets that were designed off the prototype and include the bolt heads. I drew them full scale, then reduced it to HO scale and upsize them 0.4%. They came out so crisp and full of all the detail. I could not print them in true HO scale. They just were to small and the cross sections would not hold up. They are smaller than the Details west brackets and have the exact shape of the prototype bracket. I would love to get these cast in brass if I could find a lost part casting house. I could print up loads of them and have them burnt out of the mold and cast in brass. They only take 20 minutes to print.

Brian

[Donnell Wells]

I'm looking at stanchions too! There are some resins that are advertised as being "Tough" that I'd like to try.