Looks good

A question on the finish, is the coarse finish due to the 3D printing or is it A "dry" coat of primer?

Looking forward to seeing it finished

Dry coat of primer   Take a

Dry coat of primer   Take a look at the grab iron.  Same rough finish.  

Impressive

Looks very good indeed.  Did you print the rivets on, or were they added with decals?  I couldn't seem to print rivets on my Shapeways models in Frosted Ultra Detail.

Well done

Here is the embedded link:  http://shpws.me/P7iI

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In black & white the printed rivets show up. 

More detail on rivets?

Nice job on the tender! I am looking at adding oil bunkers on much of my steam fleet and maybe a custom tender or two. What program did you use? Any tips on how to create the rivets?

Thanks everyone.  The rivets

Thanks everyone.  The rivets are printed on.  I actually used Tinkercad to design this one - works right in Google Chrome .  Might not be the best way to do it, but it worked and didn't take that long.

The rivets are actually square.  I was told that it works better if they are square because they take up less files space, and you can't tell the difference anyway.  The big issue with them is that on a flat panel like a tender side, you may want to sand it smooth to remove all traces of print lines.  In that case, you would probably want to just use rivet decals after sanding.

Kevin

An updated photo...

Rivet decals

I agree - but...

The rivets actually print okay - and I was quite surprised by this.  The issue is that printing flat surfaces (such as the side of the tender) don't print perfectly smooth.  For a show quality model, you would want to sand the sides with fine paper, and you can't do that without obliterating the rivets.  My feeling is that it costs nothing extra to print the rivets, and should someone decide to use rivet decals instead, they can easily be sanded off at the same time the item is sanded smooth. 

I'm still experimenting with the usefullness of 3-D printing in regards to this hobby.  I drew up some Illinois Central sand domes recently - that seems like a good use for this.  I also made some railroad related items - Christmas Ornaments, and am trying to make a replica of an interesting railroad artifact that people can customize and have as a curiosity item.