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3D Printer… Request from a Small Boy

My youngest wanted something printing and this is what he chose…

The printer decided not to bed some things down properly hence the gaps and Greenstuff. It is still a very nice mech. Each part is printed in two halves and then stuck together. This is a ‘House Vermeni Highborn Command Pod’ that came off Thingiverse.

Weirdly enough this was designed by Dutchmogul in 2013. My son picked this one out of all of the options available on Thingiverse. We intend to paint it tomorrow.

In total it took about eight and a half hours to print (including the 70mm base).

I was just looking at it again and it might make a nice proxy of M4A1 Grizzly (heavy suits for the mobile infantry in Starship troopers)…

I really must watch the series and CGI films again. Not to mention actually play my game I bought as well as the RPG!

Today has been a serious lack of motivation day modelling wise. By time I played with the kids, read them story fed the cat (yes evidently I am the only one that can possibly feed him) and the mooched about a bit building the mech it was 10pm and I really couldn’t be bothered to start on any form of painting.

I might try something tomorrow 🤞

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3D Printing…. A bit of painting.

I decided to start getting some paint onto my miniatures that I have printed.

These are all from Ill Gotten Games. Still a very, very long way to go. I probably would have got further, but I also painted 54 pairs of 10mm elven boots too.

I forgot to show the casualty figures…

These need a bit of work on the top layers. I will have a play around with the slicer settings and see what I can do. The STL files looked fine so it is the slicer that needs the change.

The final bit for this evening are the painted counters…

My initial idea was to paint the numbers a different colour. But as they are very clear anyway I might just save myself a job.

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3D Printer Mausoleum Finished

Well that’s the roof printed and it looks rather fab…

The one thing that isn’t obvious from this picture is that either the front or back is off the table by about a mm. It can just be seen as a black shadow below the doorway. One corner had raised a bit on the first couple of layers and got stuck back down with some pritt stick. Looks like as the build went on it separated from the base plate again. In the grand scheme of things it doesn’t really matter as it is barely noticeable but in the printer scheme it might mean a sneaky error has crept in. It could be anything from a loose belt to a too hot or cool nozzle. Looks like some more research is on the cards…

The whole thing was designed by Ecaroth and found on Thingiverse. Total print time around 15 hours. 10 plus for the base and 4 hours 11 minutes for the top. The thing is that you set it going, make sure it is going to bed down okay to the build plate then leave it to do its thing. Come back later and voila it is either finished or a nest of spaghetti.

I am hoping to get this and the other one painted up this weekend. I have a long weekend so four days of work… huzzah!

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3D Printer another Mausoleum

Yep I decided to print another Mausoleum, this time from a designer called Ecaroth. This took a whopping 10 hours 45 minutes, with an expected 3 hours 45 minutes for the roof. This is the ruined version, there is also an intact version of the same tomb.

I also downloaded some civilian ‘casualties’ from Ill gotten Games.

These are two of the upright civilians, the rest are having a bit of a lie down. They are still on the print bed. Now these all come without bases, so I decided to have another go at producing a base to attach the mini to. This is another great set. They only came out yesterday I think.

These are both on 30mm bases that I made in 3D builder and then merged the. miniature with the base. I made them 3mm thick, but may shave it down a bit.

Interestingly enough there were no whispers on these, all though I did do them individually. The wounded or dead ones were all printed together. I didn’t notice too much stringing before I left them.

I will find out tomorrow. As I was feeling a bit knackered I decided that a very early night was required. This means no elf painting….

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3D Printer… Adding Flames to Miniatures

Yep the wispy filament was an absolute sod to get rid of so drastic measures needed to be taken!

I pulled of as much as I could then set to work with a naked flame… I couldn’t be bothered to go and get the paint stripper heat gun. This is actually more controlled on a smaller front I would imagine. The down side was I had to get quite close.

I think the difference is plain to see…

Before…

And after…

Still a bit of clean up to do but a whole lot better than spider web central. They look a bit wet as I dunked them in cold water to stop the wobbly weapon syndrome.

On the plate tonight is the count …5th attempt… this time however I am adding in supports… fingers crossed he works this time. I also decided to make him a base… I was quite pleased with my circular base until I started printing it… it may be many things but circular isn’t one of them😱.

Last night I did a bit of research about the spider webbing on the prints. To avoid the print head bumping the models and knocking them off I decided to use the z hop option. This drops the plate a fraction as the print head moves from bit to bit. Seemingly this can cause more webbing than if you don’t use it. There still might be too high a temperature or over extrusion that is causing it. So instead of printing the same minis again I will print an extrusion test piece and play around with that.

Here is the count, he finished just after writing the above…

There was rather a lot of support… I may have gone overboard a bit 🤪🤪🤪

Here are a few of the recent ones undercoated…

I am rather pleased with them. I got half way through painting the mage before I realised he needed cleaning up…. whoops! The baron has a few build lines, I must have forgotten to change the layer height when I sliced him.

So … what next, well I have just started a 9 hour plus print of a ruined mausoleum… we will see how it comes out. I decided to print it at 0.2mm layers as opposed to 0.1. This speeded up the print by over an hour. The base weighs in at a whopping 85 grams… a whole £1.56 worth of PLA. That is if the printer doesn’t do something daft part way through.

I re levelled the bed again before starting on this one and the front and rear of the left hand side were a touch on the high side. Hopefully things will run smoothly overnight.

As the temperature has risen again I think I will take the printer back into the shed… it’s a bugger having to unplug the fridge every time I want a cup of tea 🙄.

I fully intended getting some more done on the elves tonight, but truth be told… I couldn’t be bothered.

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3D Printer… More Miniatures

Yup I downloaded More minis today 😱…I am beginning to think I am developing a problem.

The next three town guards try to work out what to do with the goblin. The other two are a big oaf and a porter. I managed to snap the porter off at the ankles and then dropped the other one and the top of his head sheared off! I think I might have to increase the infill a bit or at least change the structure.

In case you were wondering, this is how the guards came off the printer…

I put them on a raft to make sure they stuck. They also had a lot of whispery material between them, you can probably just about see it on the heads.

It kind of looks like this (apologies for the naff photo)…

It is some form of extrusion issue. I am trying to work out whether it is too much or two little going through the nozzle. I do know that it is a right bugger to clean up properly.

The four above are 4 Alternative hero miniatures for the printable game I am working on now. You can really see the issues with the strands on these and to be honest this is the worst I have seen.

Once again all Of these are from Ill Gotten Games.

I also managed to spray all of the tokens tonight. Note to self … wear a mask when spraying lots! I found 4 different coloured sprays to make them different.

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3D Printer…Another one of those Days!

Yep, it went all doolally again today! Took it apart to make sure there wasn’t any filament leakage, there was none. I decided to put the new Roll of filament on, so I checked the hot end was still up to scratch.

Tried my fourth attempt to print the count from Ill Gotten Games. To be fair he got up to the waist before pinging off the build plate. Now I learned how to add bases and things to miniatures today thanks to IGG. They have a nice little YouTube video on putting bits together. Even better was the fact that it was free in Windows 10… huzzah.

So after the count disaster I went for some more Sci Fi weapons crates. One if the lads failed totally and the other was a total bugger with filament sploodging where one of the handles should be. I let it finish, dumped the spaghetti and cut the handles off the other lid.

I might actually use my new 3D skills 🤪 to completely remove the handles before printing begins.

Last night I printed this cart…

It is a very nice cart except that a four wheeled cart like this would need a turntable otherwise when it went round a corner it would slide sideways. I intend to make it a two wheeled farm cart. I will also do something about the width of the shafts. I am married to a competition driver so these things are ingrained….

I managed to get all of the tiles finished tonight…

I am going to put a request in to IGG see it they can do a corner for both the road and the river. That way I can increase the length of both…

And finally…. on the print plate are another three town guards. They have been running for three hours 45 minutes and are up to their chest/shoulders. I would like to wait until they finish but I want my bed. I went swimming with the kids an£ what with playing chasing games and getting me to swim with them on my back then I am somewhat fatigued!

I haven’t forgotten my neglected elves, I sprayed them and then errrr neglected them as I started painting tiles 😱. Hopefully I will get on with them tomorrow.

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3D Printer… A Day Of Ups and Downs

The printer was not printing anything this morning, it was being a bit of a bugger last night so after threatening it with violence, I checked the bed level it was way out. Not sure what caused it to change so much but I blame….him….

I am not sure whether he had a snooze on it when it was warm or whether it has been changing incrementally on each print…. the problem with the latter theory is that it was way, way out. Never mind levelling with a piece of paper, this thing could have taken at least a piece of cereal box card. On the up side we got there in the end!

So Today I managed to print off some more sci fi barricades and some more alien plants.

The four barricades came in at 3 hours 30 minutes and the plants at an hour 19 minutes each.

I also got some paint onto the game tiles…

The tiles, especially the building ones still need a lot of work, but I am happy with the other ones and will get them varnished.

I am giving a 4 wheel wagon a go at the minute. This is something that failed yesterday and this morning. Touch wood, but it has got a bit further than it did earlier. I can actually see some wheels and the bodywork forming. This is a two hour print so I might manage to stay up until it finishes.

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3D Printer… eclectic mix

The title says it all really…

A couple of Sci Fi crates, one with a couple of heavy stub pistols and the other with some kind of combat shotgun.

The three guys are town guards from Ill Gotten Games. Two of them have halberds and the other has a crossbow. The guards were printed with a raft in case they needed it. Sadly it stuck too well to the plate and it has taken me about 45 minutes to get it off.

I set the thing off to print a big air vent and of course now the bed doesn’t seem to be level. I am too tired now to faff on with it tonight. I will level it properly tomorrow. I just hope that the plate hasn’t lost any of it’s adhesion properties.

As the guards were covered in fine wisps of filament it might mean there is a problem developing. I will have to have a proper look tomorrow.

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3D Printer Updates…

So the printer has been running quite a bit this afternoon and evening…

I redid the heroes for the game… much better this time round… but then again they took 5 hours plus to print. I still managed to snap the spear off the same one again! I reckon the PLA just isn’t strong enough. I will drill it out and put in a wire spear or something similar.

This is still without the specific miniature profile for the slicer.

The other thing I made was a vat of bubbling something or other.

It isn’t exactly the largest thing to hide behind, but I reckon I could double the size. This size took an hour and a half to print.

I also made a start on printing the game tiles….

Still a very long way to go. I fished my Dark green rattle can out of my shed and have brought it into the house to warm up a bit. I will give all the fields etc a spray with it then get some variation onto them. Part of me wonders about adding flock to them, but I am worried it might look weird. On the upside I can print a tile off and give it a go…..

On the plate now are some 40k style ammo boxes with separate lids… They should be done in not much over an hour.