A 3D Printed Mine Truck
Encouraged by the success of my Mine Trolley Prop for stop motion project, I decided to design some wagons to fit the Mine Trolley. The3D printed model presented here is a chassis that can be fitted with any other sort of top. For this first version, I just a made simple flat-deck using ice-block sticks.
The Mine Truck loaded with stuff
The Mine Trolley and Mine Truck Projects
The overall dimensions are 65mm wide x 120mm long x 32mm tall. The track gauge is about 38mm. The wheels have reasonably wide flanges and so can ride on rails up to about 40mm between rail centrelines.
The deck on top was made from iceblock sticks stuck together with PVA glue with a thin cardboard strip around the edge. Easy to make with a hacksaw and sandpaper. The iceblock sticks were painted with a sepia coloured brown acrylic house paint without undercoat. This allowed the paint to penetrate the wood nicely and give an aged stained look. I have not included an STL for this part seeing as it is so simple to construct anyway.
Things you will need in addition to the printed bits;
- 2 x Ø4mm rods of some sort for the axles. These are cut to 55mm long. I used dowel.
- Popsicle sticks for the deck.
- Glue. I use an epoxy glue, buy anything without too much flexibility will work.
- Any other structures you would like to add to it. For instance I shall build a tank truck at some stage. This may be made with something like a repurposed plastic container with some wire detailing for things like hand-rails.
In the model shown here, the buffer channel sections were cardboard rather than being 3D Printed. This gave a slightly more rugged look. The original digital model and all STLs include these channel sections as you can see in the exploded view below.
There are quite a few pieces in this project. The .pdf in the downloads section below has some assembly suggestions.
Incidentally, the images shown here with the Mine Truck loaded with stuff feature a couple of barrels. These are scaled up prints of Dutchmogul’s dungeon Delving Decor: Medieval Barrels.
Have fun with this.
Downloads
The project assembly guide is available as a .pdf which can be downloaded from here:
And the digital models can be downloaded using the links below:
Rendered view of the Mine Truck model in Blender.
Assembly
There are quite a few pieces in this project. Below is a suggested assembly order.
Step1: Join the side components into panels.
Step 2: Add the Brake Blocks.
Step 3: Assemble the Buffers
Step 4: Assemble the Wheels
When you cut the axles and mount the wheels, make sure the wheels are pushed on about 4.5mm from the ends of axles.
Step 5: Bring the Sides Together Around the Axles, Inner Top Angle Plates, and Bracing Frame.
Step 6: Join the Buffers to the Assembly Using the Outer Top Angle Plates.
Step 7: Glue on the Deck or Whatever Using the Top Angle Plates.
Some More Photos
Mine Truck complete with deck sitting on some balsa rails.
Mine Truck complete with the deck.
Mine truck chassis without the deck.
Mine truck chassis underside.
The Mine Truck and Mine Trolley prop in action.
Also, here is a small test video of the Mine Trolley and Mine Truck in action together.
Two things I learned from making this test animation;
- either do stop motion animation naked to avoid creating “bow waves” and “wakes” in the sand around the object being moved - I suppose I could also wear a short sleeved shirt.
- motion blur is required at this sort of speed. This would require some sort of motion control rig. Hmmmm, the timelapse camera slide could easily be repurposed for this role.
Update: I created a tool to calculate the required motion of an object for each frame based on a simulating a particular full scale motion. Check it out here: A Stop Motion Calculator
It was used to produce this test video:
Which turned out better, but I swear those little bricks are alive.
Downloading the Models
There are several models available. They include the Blender model and the STLs for the components.
You can download the models from various other sources too (not that that’s any different than downloading it from here):
Youmagine:
www.youmagine.com - Mine Truck
Thingiverse
www.thingiverse.com - thing:2491671
And from this website:
If you are looking for tracks to display your mine truck on, then have a look at these parametric track models. You will just need to set the track gauge to 36mm and sleeper length to 58mm to be compatible with this model.
Have Fun.
This design by Hamish Trolove is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.