3D Printing

TommyBoy0329

New Member
How does the community feel about 3D printing? I am sure this might have already been covered, but I am relatively new here...

I ask because it turns out my scratch building and kit bashing skills are terrible, lol

And with 3D printers becoming cheaper and more accurate, you can print almost anything now-a-days...I am on the fence about purchasing a new 3D printer...I love making stuff, I have a closet full of model kits I wanna build someday that I just haven't gotten around to making (being in the Navy and moving every few years makes storage a pain for built up models and dioramas)...

I want to use the 3D Printer to make the kits and models that aren't available commercially. Particularly I want to make a studio scale USS Rhode Island Nova Class like 3ft long...I tried once, scratch building from insulation foam, using publically available deck plans...I got the basic shape down, but when it came to filling in the slices and rounding it all out...it ended horribly...but if I can find a publically available STL and scale it up accordingly...I could print the chunks and assemble them like a kit and viola...large scale model that never existed previously...

Easier said than done I know...but I think 3D printing the model would be easier than scratch building...plus the way these models print, it leaves hollow spaces for lighting...
 
3D printing is amazing when you have realistic expectations. There are areas when it shines and ones where it fails.

Prepare for a sizable learning curve and honestly, if you don't have time to build a kit, you're certainly going to be up against it starting design and printing from scratch.

I bought one and it's changed my work completely, but in no way does it replace skill, it's just another tool.

It's invaluable for precise shapes, etc that would take forever to scratch build, especially with multiples. If you are building a ship hull, it'd be great for printing bulkheads that you could add a hull to, I've made PET ballast tanks for my RC submarines, but you're asking a lot to print out a 3' hull. Making turrets, lifeboats, etc. would work well, but you're going to spend a good amount of time working out the designs.

I'm a sculptor, I can knock out a 1/16 Oddball head in a few hours, but it would take me twice that to make a set of goggles for it, that's where the printer comes in.

otc1.jpg
 
3D printing is widely accepted here and even the pros use it. As ausf said, it is a tool and doesn't replace skill. In fact you probably need to develop further skills in order to use that technology, which may or may not come easy. Scratchbuilding skills, (like with most things) come with time and practice. kit bashing is no different. There are numerous threads on this site that will help you with both. I find that looking at other people's work helps you figure out what to do and what not to do.

Being in the Navy and moving every so often does pose a problem when building, displaying and storing delicate models, I'm sure. Building the models on a display wher they are secured to the base, along with an acrylic case , may offer a better way of storing and transporting your modlels. Depending on the size of your models, these cases can be found at some hobby stores, but larger models or dioramas probably will require you to build them yourself or get them professionally done, which can get expensive.

Printing large models in pieces is not as easy as it seems, but it is possible. Again I would recommend searching the sections here and seeing what is possible. It's not as simple as just selecting a STF file and pressing print. It takes careful planning, and not all STF files scale up to look good. Don't look at your experiment with foam as a failure. Foam is easy to carve but does pose challenges when trying to skin it. As with naval vessels, the bulkheads are manufactured first, then joined with stringers and then skinned. Perhaps using another method on a smaller project will give you confidence to start a large project.

TazMan2000
 
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Just don't think you're going to buy a 3d printer and things will appear magically. It still takes a lot of skill to get from print to finished quality. In fact it takes skill to get good quality prints in the first place.
 
3D printing is amazing when you have realistic expectations. There are areas when it shines and ones where it fails.

Prepare for a sizable learning curve and honestly, if you don't have time to build a kit, you're certainly going to be up against it starting design and printing from scratch.

I bought one and it's changed my work completely, but in no way does it replace skill, it's just another tool.

It's invaluable for precise shapes, etc that would take forever to scratch build, especially with multiples. If you are building a ship hull, it'd be great for printing bulkheads that you could add a hull to, I've made PET ballast tanks for my RC submarines, but you're asking a lot to print out a 3' hull. Making turrets, lifeboats, etc. would work well, but you're going to spend a good amount of time working out the designs.

I'm a sculptor, I can knock out a 1/16 Oddball head in a few hours, but it would take me twice that to make a set of goggles for it, that's where the printer comes in.

View attachment 749455

WOW !!! that is one damned fine sculpt of Oddball !!! Almost makes me with I collected 1/16 scale, LOL. I have been slowly collecting kits and figures to do a couple of Kelly's Heros dioramas in 1/35th scale and one set of figures I have looked for is Oddball's tank crew. Jaguar made a set a while ago but it is long out of production.
 
Just don't think you're going to buy a 3d printer and things will appear magically. It still takes a lot of skill to get from print to finished quality. In fact it takes skill to get good quality prints in the first place.

Very well said. I started to type in a long complicated response. I'm going to restate or elaborate on GG comments, any thoughts of magically downloading some files, and printing an entire model of a special interest subject, like the Nova class, to injected kit standards only exists in a few rare cases, and that's because the 3D mesh designer/print maker made it that way. I'll just list the subjects that I downloaded that had serious issues that I could not fix. 1. 1/535 scale Enterprise-E. Yes, the E. It may have been fine as a mesh, it was horribly inaccurate at this scale. 2. 1/1000 Akira. Could not perform "process flow" onto the original mesh to produce a hollow print that could be lighted. 3. Modify a Halo 2 Covenant Carbine so its live round magazine could be swapped like in the game. The reasons these issues could not be fixed ranged from, the easiest solution to fixing the issue was to completely recreate the mesh, to not having the original mesh file so it could be corrected, to, despite a common mesh format, and high powered CAD software, the state of the art in printer formats is still not sufficiently advanced to allow even simple manipulations post publication of the STL file.

BTW, I have experienced GG's third sentence. I downloaded a set of files to print a full size Star Trek Next Generation Phaser Rifle. The author of the files claimed the project was printable. Yeah, if you have a commercial class printer with a giant printer bed. Just figuring out how to cut some of the sub-assemblies up so they could be glued back together was a challenge. Then I ran into the dreaded "warped print" problem. I learned a lot about getting good 3D prints from that project, which was a perfect storm of filament choice/s, printer settings, printer build plate material, printer bed preparation, and printer modifications (extruder fan shroud).
 
It also depends what 3D printer you can get--most 3D printers are the FDM type that use a plastic filament. It's very cheap but it does poor detail and so it's mostly suitable for larger objects that don't need much detail. Printers that can do higher detail are more expensive and can only print smaller objects along with having expensive materials.
 
It also depends what 3D printer you can get--most 3D printers are the FDM type that use a plastic filament. It's very cheap but it does poor detail and so it's mostly suitable for larger objects that don't need much detail. Printers that can do higher detail are more expensive and can only print smaller objects along with having expensive materials.

Sorry, but if you know what you're doing, you can get great detail out of an FDM.
 
Sorry, but if you know what you're doing, you can get great detail out of an FDM.

There's only so far you can go with FDM, you're always going to have a rough surface do to how the layers are made--the edges of each layer will be rounded, so while you would expect a fully vertical surface to be smooth, it won't be since the nozzle extrudes a round bead that then gets flattened which produces rounded sides. You are also limited by the size of the nozzle which can go down to 0.3mm, though more potential issues come up with a smaller nozzle. Also, nothing in the X/Y axis can be smaller than the thickness of the nozzle, which 0.3mm is pretty big and it also means that it will always have rounded corners. It's a limitation of that kind of printing.
 
There's only so far you can go with FDM, you're always going to have a rough surface do to how the layers are made--the edges of each layer will be rounded, so while you would expect a fully vertical surface to be smooth, it won't be since the nozzle extrudes a round bead that then gets flattened which produces rounded sides. You are also limited by the size of the nozzle which can go down to 0.3mm, though more potential issues come up with a smaller nozzle. Also, nothing in the X/Y axis can be smaller than the thickness of the nozzle, which 0.3mm is pretty big and it also means that it will always have rounded corners. It's a limitation of that kind of printing.

You said FDM does poor detail, but it can absolutely produce fine detail if you know how to use the tool. Do I need to show you the Google results it to prove it? I could argue that there's only so far you could go with SLA or any other printing technology for that matter. I run CNC files with a 1mm bit, so I'm sure I can't get any detail out of that, right? Cause 1mm is yuge!
 
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Sure, show me something printed with FDM that's high detail without a rough surface. FDM is not nearly as good as SLA for details, though SLA has its drawbacks as well like the high cost and most of the printers have a small build volume. But SLA is much more ideal for small model pieces that need high detail.
CNC is a different technology, you could carve something that's high detail but you can't fit the bit into a space that's smaller than that which is the downside. 3D printers offer much more flexibility because you can produce shapes that you can't CNC or cast.
 
No, I haven't, that's why different printers are necessary to get high detail.

A resin printer will absolutely give you a ton of more detail, no question. Tabletop wargame miniature companies print 28mm scale figures on them and no FDM printer can reach that level of detail, even with a 0.25mm nozzle. That stated, here are some varying levels of detail examples done on a FDM printer...

Ok, the helmet isn't full of too much super-tiny detail, but look at the mesh holes in the boot rockets:
STARLORD.png

helmet_4x.jpg

bootrockets.jpg


Various noses for my 1:1 Rocket Raccoon, standard nozzle, 0.06mm layer:
snouts.jpg

Standard nozzle and 0.1mm layer, a part of my Oblivion Pistol:
quality.jpg

Smoothness example, standard nozzle and 0.1mm (100 microns which is my standard quality level):
quality2.jpg

Comparison between my FDM (top) and Sh*peways Ultra Detail resin printer (the resin has primer on it and what looks like "grain" in the top print is actually metallic glitter):
printcompare.jpg

Finished Oblivion Pistol:
ob3.jpg

Kirk's chair in 1/6 scale:
chair_finished.jpg


Niska's "Torture Spider" from Firefly. The metal tube is about 11mm wide:
niska_spider.png

Mesh for Star Lord's helmet, printed with a 0.25mm nozzle and 0.1mm layer height:
meshpin.png


A couple examples I quickly found:
https://web.stagram.com/p/BXDRvG9Fbcq
https://web.stagram.com/p/BSaa9ENBNIV


I will eventually get a resin printer as I want to start making 28mm scenery with more intricate detail and maybe some scale kits, but I've been able to do a lot more with the FDM machine than I ever though possible in the beginning. It takes a lot of time and experimenting, learning how to print certain things (and honestly I've found it's just as challenging for the creative brain as scratch-building, just different), but if you know how to do things optimally a good FDM will take you far if you know how to operate it. So far, I don't think I've reached the limit of what can be done with the 0.25mm nozzle either. It's tricky due to the restricted material flow but I think it can do some crazy things under the right circumstances.
 
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