thomas and friends mini series

Looks real cool, guys. Whenever it’s fully assembled and in display mode, I’d like to see it. For now I can get a better picture of it all with that imagine. Anything stopping them from sliding off on either end? Is there room for 6 per tier possibly?

To answer your questions;

Q: Anything stopping them from sliding off on either end?
A: Yes, I deliberately designed the shelves so that you can only slide the miniatures on from one end, the other end is sealed, thus making it just that little more difficult for someone to remove them.  The fit is also quite tight to stop them rolling off it tilted for example and again to stop little hands pulling them off.

Q: Is there room for 6 per tier possibly?
A: No, this is a physical limit impossed by the length of the miniatures themselves combined with the maximum size I can print length wise.  The printer I have is one of the larger hobbyist ones made (commercial ones costing thousands can print larger) with the largest print build size.  I can think of one other model that is even bigger, but frankly I wouldn't have room to accomodate that and would rarely need a bigger build size.  I could potentially make longer shelves, but these would have to be printed on end (the build size is 300mm x 300mm x 500mm - width x depth x height), but this would potentially result in weaker shelves.  It's all to do with how the layers of plastic are extruded.

Anyway, here is a peek of what I am currently printing, a set of 'blue plastic tracks' (literally as I'm using blue filament ), unfortunately I can't take credit for these models as I found them on Thingiverse.  The set available is based on the Brio type wooden tracks and seems to cover most if not all the normal track types available.  Similar to the wooden tracks these pieces are secured together using little plastic clips.  Seems I'll be able to have a full 'mini' size train set, all I need to do now is figure out if there is anyway to motorise a mini lol!!

Please note these are mini-sized and close ups so look 'rougher' than they actually are, I've also not cleaned anything up - for example the bottom of the bridge needs a little sanding to clean up the bottom.