3D Printing and Painting Services

[dataylor1958]

I am new to model railways and have just started on my first TT Scale layout. I am looking to source some platforms, bridges and buildings, ideally 3D printed/laser cut but then painted. Alternatively I could buy them and send them off to be painted. I don’t need anything really fancy, I have seen plenty of unpainted stuff but I am rubbish at painting so need to outsource it. Any suggestions?

[Steve M]

My suggestion would be to research the available paint products and techniques and do it yourself.
That may sound harsh but once you factor in the costs involved in getting someone else to do it - postage, materials, labour, then even the smallest of structures will be very expensive.
Many in this hobby have come to realise that a model is the end result of learning and applying many new skills and basically getting better through practice over a period of time.
As a start I would recommend searching a few videos on YouTube. Try subjects from the model railway world, gaming and military modelling for techniques and also view a few from layout builders who are happy to showcase their efforts.
You might surprise yourself.

[Tricky Dicky]

There are plenty of people out there offering services such as weathering, this is taking a pristine model out of the box and give a model a more care worn look. These services are mainly for already painted rolling stock rather than scenic. One of these services might be prepared to do what you need but as SteveM has said it is going to cost.

For someone who feels painting is to be avoided, I am surprised you have not considered card models these come ready printed and just require assembly.

Richard

[dataylor1958]

There are plenty of people out there offering services such as weathering, this is taking a pristine model out of the box and give a model a more care worn look. These services are mainly for already painted rolling stock rather than scenic. One of these services might be prepared to do what you need but as SteveM has said it is going to cost.

For someone who feels painting is to be avoided, I am surprised you have not considered card models these come ready printed and just require assembly.

Richard

Thanks, I'll check some out.

[Tricky Dicky]

Look at Scale Scenes website, they sell downloadable kits which you print out on your home printer. The downside is that they are more work compared to the more popular Metcalf and Superquick ranges in that unless your printer can print on card directly you have to print on ordinary paper and glue it on to the appropriate card and there is more cutting out to do. The big advantage for you regards the scale you are working in is that most of the established card model suppliers have not embraced TT120 and only produce OO and N-gauge models. Scale scenes also only produce OO and N-gauge models but their website has information about how to use your printer settings to scale down OO scale models to TT120 and 3mm scale. The other big advantage is that if you need to produce several similar buildings like a street scene you can reprint your download as many times as required.

Richard