I'm a gunsmith by trade, and I own my own gun shop
I may need to talk to you about some nerdy custom orders and gunsmithing work...
A lot of the things you can find on Etsy and similarly offered through vendors who 3D print things... Well, ya
really need to vet them. A friend has gotten both an E-22 and a Naboo S5 from Etsy vendors. The E-22 was a print of Sean Fields' files (I know, because I have them), and it's, in plain language, a shitshow. All PLA, the settings weren't dialed in as there were a few gaps and several pieces with bad layer adhesion, the scope had gotten jarred during printing and had a 1mm offset about halfway up, several pieces arrived broken, some weren't there at all, and it was printed with enough layer height that some detail was lost and there were SOOOOOO many print lines to sand and fill.
We've put many hours into it and it's starting to look decent, but I had to print/reprint some of the missing pieces, tossed the Hengstler and T-tracks and used my own, and had him order a real tac light and picatinny rail. Overall, it would've been cheaper for him, in materials and time, to have me print a kit for him, from the same files, in all-black PET-G (oh, yeah, the filament colors are all over the place, too) at finer resolution and ensuring no misprints. I'd still have used real T-track and accessories, but would've saved him the time he spent trying to sand, fill, and glue all the broken and low-res stuff.
The S5 is just a travesty, front to back. I can't even.
I got a good live-action Westar-35 off Etsy, but I did my homework and went with a good vendor. I'm still making a couple of my own, though, from modded airsoft pistols. This one was for a friend. For an Amban rifle, I'd definitely do as I did -- vet
good, accurate 3D files and print it oneself, with good internal support (Sean, for instance, designs his blaster files to work with scaffolds of PVC pipe). I'm working on some FIrst Order stuff right now, and, except for the aluminum "holster" plate and the incredibly fiddly main sight piece, my SE-44C is all printed by me on a simple Prusa i3 with PET-G at 0.2mm layer height. Low and slow gives minimal post-processing and a nice sturdy prop:
I have since ground away that stubborn support inside the trigger guard, and the layer bands where the holes are on the flash hider took a bit of glazing putty, but the rest of this is after about an hour of sanding. There's not really any excuse any more for shoddy 3D prints.
www.cronoarms.com
