Considering that it was a first-pass print, as it were, it's more than good news. The joint in the middle is a more-or-less perfect fit, so the four parts fitted together exactly as intended. I did have to do a fair bit of post-processing and fine-tuning though.
The main problem was that the corrugations on the top surface of the outer rail were printed as random blobbiness:
...but these corrugations actually serve no purpose whatsoever, I don't even know what they're doing there on the original model, the blobs can be trimmed and sanded away.
The only corrugations that are important are the ones on the outer surface of the rail. In this draft print they're not very pronounced at all, in some lights they seem to be almost absent, but it seems they're enough for the rubber tyre in the monorail drive to grip onto. I expect that another print using finer settings would be much better.
The white-ish discolouration in the middle of the rail is caused by my trying out the technique of washing with ethyl acetate which is meant to be a solvent for PLA and good for smoothing out any general roughness. All it did was put a white film on the surface. Maybe it was too dilute in the product (nail varnish remover) that I found in my local pharmacist?
I cannot overstate how grateful I am to Nigels for committing his time and resources to this project. Now I just need to negotiate an acceptable price for a couple or three more. We can't expect him to go on doing these things for free!
The main problem was that the corrugations on the top surface of the outer rail were printed as random blobbiness:
...but these corrugations actually serve no purpose whatsoever, I don't even know what they're doing there on the original model, the blobs can be trimmed and sanded away.
The only corrugations that are important are the ones on the outer surface of the rail. In this draft print they're not very pronounced at all, in some lights they seem to be almost absent, but it seems they're enough for the rubber tyre in the monorail drive to grip onto. I expect that another print using finer settings would be much better.
The white-ish discolouration in the middle of the rail is caused by my trying out the technique of washing with ethyl acetate which is meant to be a solvent for PLA and good for smoothing out any general roughness. All it did was put a white film on the surface. Maybe it was too dilute in the product (nail varnish remover) that I found in my local pharmacist?
I cannot overstate how grateful I am to Nigels for committing his time and resources to this project. Now I just need to negotiate an acceptable price for a couple or three more. We can't expect him to go on doing these things for free!