Shapeways - 1

I must apologize to anyone who's been interested in my Old West Layout - it's been a numbert years since I've done anything. Part of the problem is that I've been doing some science fiction writing and part is that I've retired (Spring 2010) and now that I'm not working 5 days a week I seem to have more to do than I have time for. My Old West Layout was one casualty. What follows is a little of what I have managed to do.

One drawback to Z scale modeling is that there are not as many accessories available as there are for N or HO scale. Sometimes, I "cheat" and use N scale items, but the only cacti that

I'd seen, especially the saguaros that I was looking for, didn't really look like saguaros (Janet and I spent 3 years in the Sonoran Desert - the home of the saguaros - when we lived in Tucson, so I've seen a lot of saguaros.) I discovered that I could make a reasonable facsimile of a saguaro from a couple of jumbo paper clips. That was about the time that I got sidetracked and work on the layout came to a temporary halt.

This past Christmas (December 2011) my son, Scott, was home for a visit. As you may know, Scott is a 3-D modeler. He's found a company called Shapeways that can take the computer file created for a 3-D model and "print it out" - create a real model that you can pick up and hold in your hand. Shapeways can print out models in a variety of materials. The cost of a model is based on the type and amount of material used, and if the model is very large, you might find the cost a bit much. Fortunately, Z scale items aren't very large. Which is another drawback. The 3-D printing technology is still in its infancy. There is a limit to how small items can be created - they could print out Z scale saguaros, but they wouldn't have needles. Of course, at Z scale, who's going to notice?

So Scott modeled a selection of saguaros, prickly pears, a stagecoach, and an old Spanish Mission (based on the one out at Old Tucson Movie Location from the early 1970s). I had models printed from several different materials and would recommend, for Z scale, that you have them done with "frosted ultra detail." Here are the "FUD" versions:

About $12