GateKeeper Roller Coaster Model

[SitromsCan I park my donkey here?]

Hi!
Here is my newest model! It is re-creation of a car of the GateKeeper roller coaster located in Cedar Point, USA. I have found no drawing of this B&M coaster, so one of the big steps of this project was to model the car on a CAD software. You’ll find several inaccuracies about pieces’ shapes and colors, but the final result suits me. The car’s dimensions are 44 x 11 x 15 cm^3. The model is placed on a homemade base and is illuminated by 21 LEDs. The base is powered by an USB port.

I can send you all STL file you want if you need it, so just ask! I just remind you that no piece is certified to be exactly like the original.

The main steps of this project were:
- To find pictures of the real coaster and to recover some screenshots on the NL2 software (blueprints for Solidworks)
- To model the car on Solidworks. The final assembly is made of approx. 160 pieces.
- To print all pieces on my 3D printer (CR-10 with a PLA filament)
- To smooth all pieces’ surfaces with the XTC-3D resin and a sandpaper
- To paint all pieces with an aerograph and a brush
- To make the base of the model and its electronics part
- To assemble all pieces and to varnish it

This project took approx. 200 hours of work.

Here are the pictures of the car modelled in Solidworks (materials and textures have not been assigned). The next post presents the final result ! What do you think ?

[SitromsCan I park my donkey here?]

The result !

[SitromsCan I park my donkey here?]

Part 2 !

[anonymouscactus"Excuse me, miss, may I pound my large rooster into your donkey?"]

Wow, very cool! Looks perfect, but damn that's a lot of work. Good job!

[SixFlagsAstroworldI prefer to mate with donkeys over humans!]

The detail is pretty cool! Great work!

[DombotBonafide Donkey Expert]

Holy cow, that's amazing. Spectacular work!

[JG-77Jason X versus the Robot Space Donkey!]

That looks awesome! Great work! How long did painting and assembly take once you had everything printed?

[jlp94I know more about donkeys than women!]

Love that! Good job! Which coaster car models are you planning to make in the future?

[pǝʇɹǝʌuıHave I mentioned how awesome donkeys are?]

Decided to explore this side of the forums and wow, this is incredible! The level of detail in that assembly...holy cow. Not surprised it took 200 hours of work to finish! In fact, I'm a bit surprised you got it done so quickly

[SitromsCan I park my donkey here?]

Thank you for all your comments !

Painting and assembly took like 30 or 40 hours, but I had to be sure that all my surfaces were pretty smooth before painting, and that was THE boring part of this project for me, because it took even more time than painting and assembly and it was never perfect ...

I already have started my new model, and I think you'll like the concept, more technical than esthetic this time. It's a launch model (so the most part of the model is a roller coaster station and a second part is a rising track). The propulsion is made with a pusher car below the track on a 50cm segment. Once accelerated , the car goes to the top of the curved track so it turnes back. Then, a brake system brakes the car, and a system made of wheels puts back the car at the beginning of the launch segment.

I'll open a new topic to illustrate that because it can seem mysterious for you right now ahah. So for this new project you'll see the evolution of the work !