Athearn Blue Box DD40 Rebuild

Athearn Blue Box DD40 Rebuild

Making my MP40

I've been working on this MP40 for a couple years now.  Lately, I made some 3D printed parts to help me out.

I need better pilots and a better cab stand, so I used a Mecreator 2 to make these basic parts and they turned out pretty decent.

I used PLA to make the parts and found out that PLA is hard to sand.  In the pictures below, you'll find that the surfaces are a bit rough and the accuracy is not that great.

This project is mostly a learning project and not meant to win any contests.  I do have several more DD40's that will build on this concept and their accuracy should be much higher.

The next step from here is to use wood filament rather than PLA.  Parts printed with wood should be much better for finishing.

First up we have an orange box Athearn DD40 dual motor that needs quite a bit of restoration:

A top view of the MP40 Hercules:

 The rear, you can see how the 3D printed parts are very rough and will require quite a bit more work to get right.  Also the air enclosure.  It's big, but rough around the edges:

MP40 Hercules

 The xy milling table, a very handy tool.