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Desert Dwelling Update.

The two story house just finished, but as I said in the previous post the ground floor is the same.

Here we have a comparison of the two. 50% and 60% of the full size.

I am going to go with the 50% size as I think it will look the best.

Here we have the two story version…

Unfortunately I printed the wrong size upper roof. I say unfortunately as although printing a new one should be Easy Peasy, it sadly is not as one of my dear, dear children have totally destroyed the laptop screen. Therefore we will have to somehow get it to Unst and then see if he can fix it before he can somehow get it back to us!

I can now only print the things on my micro SD card. Bugger!

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Desert Dwelling II

Well I down sized a building to 50% full size and it came out thus:

This is a different one to the first, but is another from the ones purchased from Terrain4Print.

If we look at the first print it looks like this…

It is quite big compared to the MKIII.

And then side by side…

To be honest I think the smaller of the two still looks fine, whereas the first one printed looks a bit on the big side.

I am printing off a two story house, but the base is the same as the one with the stairs.

Once it is done I will do a further comparison shot between the two. Let me know what you think so far.

Posted on by maenoferren22 · 6 Comments

Aww Isn’t it Cute

I managed to print off the British MKVI

I still have a Panzer MKII to test print as well. I have also managed to find an M3 Grant that I can print. This one is 1/56 scale so will need reducing.

On the 3D printer front: I did purchase the village set from Terrain4Print. $10 for a pile of files is pretty good price. I will test print some of them as soon as I can.

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North African Buildings

I decided to have a go printing some buildings.Both of these came from Thingiverse.

The one on the left is from Jonnybrokenbones, I have this one and a two story one from him too.

The one on the right is a free sample from a set by Terrain4Print:

https://www.wargamevault.com/product/216710/Modular-arabic-village?manufacturers_id=11761

Now what can we say about them. Both of the took about two and a half hours.

The one from Jonny is a nice simple design with a roof that drops in. It doesn’t have a door (it is from the other house) I just stood one up against the hole to see what it looked like. It has a full base too. This one is designed for 15mm miniatures.

The other one by Terrain 4 Print was a reduced sized from 28mm. I dropped it down to 60% size. This one is a hollow shell with a complete separate roof just below the exposed beams.

It comes with separate doors and window shutters. In the free one it comes with a domed roof too. This one is really well detailed. It can’t be seen that well in the basic black PLA, but the render has ‘fallen off’ in a few places. The roof is also textured.

I checked up on the bought version…Basically 6 different buildings and a couple of separate walls (however if they are mirrored then it takes it up to 12).

Now if I were a total skinflint I could make 4 ‘free’ buildings from this set, plus another few free ones from Thingiverse. But you know what, of the two I really do like the one from Terrain4Print. A lot of work has gone into the design of these buildings and it only seems fair that I help out the designer. I will purchase the set of six and tip the other designer from Thingiverse.

I want these for a desert themed board for ‘What a Tanker’ If you look at the pic below you can see how big the buildings are compared to both a tank and a 15mm figure.

I reckon I will reduce the size down a bit more to 50% as the buildings look just a bit too big still.

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Somuaaaaaaaaa

Somua ah ah

Print the tank and drink your tea…..

Somua ah ah print the tank and make coffee…

sorry was listening to Black Lace there….

Anyway tis’ done.

Here he is the little rascal, all printed and ready to go.

I moved positions on the build plate and he worked fine. I did manage to rip the back of the turret off when I was removing the support struts…which was quite a pain in the backside. You can just about see the line. I now have two Char B and the Somua.

I would like some of the little Renault FT tanks if I can find some.

I would have printed up another Somua or a Panzer MKII or even a British MKVI Light tank (or was it a MKIV) but decided to print up a small desert house. It is 2 hours into a 3 hour print. I have also got a two story one but that will take over 5 hours to print.

I managed to get some more paint onto the dwarves…

Still a long way to go but getting there.

I actually haven’t opened the submarine game box all evening. How about that for self control😖

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Printing Tanks II

So tonight I decided to get the Somua S35 completed.

A nice French Medium tank…

Nice flowing lines etc….

Sadly I returned to this!

To be fair there are some nice flowing lines in there too…it must have popped off the bed the second I left the room. Interestingly enough. I tried again, instant failure. I decided to give another Matilda a go…

Worked fine, I went for another Char B… last time I looked at it an hour in, all systems were go.

The one that failed was front left, the ones that succeeded rear left. It could be that the front left has lost the level or that it is a bit greasy. Either way I will give it a wash and a re level tomorrow.

As can be seen from the photo above the Char B came out spot on! Below is how it came off the plate.

As with some of the other tanks the 37mm gun was a little fragile and snapped off.

So tomorrow we try the Somua again (possibly in a different place 🤔).

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Printing Tanks

A Matilda to start with….

A picture of how it came off the plate.

You can really see the support network to help it print properly. I have always printed it vertically before (like the turret). This is the first time on the tracks and to be honest, there is less chance of it getting knocked over, the down side is a lot more waste.

Here you can see the stuff that has been pulled away from both bits…weight wise not really very much, it just adds to the time required.

And finally… here she is all trimmed up and ready for a run into the paint shop.

I am printing off a CharB just now with a Somua to follow.

To be honest I don’t know what theatre of operations or date to go for. At the cost of these I can print of a fair few different ones and see what catches my fancy.

I did consider the desert war. The advantages are that I have some palm trees etc as well as some 6mm buildings. I also have a terrain mat and some desert style hills.

I reckon I can print some 15mm buildings and off I go!

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Friday’s Forgotten Forces

Well another Friday has arrived and it was another freezing cold foray into the shed to depress myself at how much untouched stuff is in there.

Today we have Skelingtons, as my kids used to call them

Command units, cavalry and spears…

Next up missile troops and zombies (and half a chariot)…

And finally the swords…

I must have started on these a year and a half ago at least. I got them as another force to play HOTT with my daughter and they kind of got forgotten about. They are now in the big shed where I do my painting so hopefully they will get finished sometime soon… 🤞

These came from Alternative armies from their 15mm HOT fantasy list.

These have a nice skeletal bagpiper as part of the command group… question is how does he play it without any lungs… to be fair I am being a little trite… I am willing to accept reanimated corpses shuffling about, but not magical bagpipes. It is simply one of those things that niggle me 🤔

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More 3D Printing

I promise I will stop sometime!

My MKIII and panzer 38t’s

I also printed a water barrel cart.

It has only one wheel as, although I printed two, I hadn’t realised the wheels are stuck together to make a thicker one. It’s a 10 minute job tomorrow so not a worry really. I would have printed an extra pair tonight but I am part way through printing a 15mm Panther.

Pete asked me how much does the printer cost to run, I had heard about the price of a lightbulb, but in reality I honestly don’t know. I tried doing a bit of research, but the internet is so bad tonight, Pages wouldn’t load. One I did manage to see was $370 dollars per year if he ran it 24 hours a day. Others were saying 2 cents per hour. So I think the consensus is pretty much… not that much. Mine has a heated bed normally sitting at 60 degrees, it has 2 fans in the print head and three small electric motors. Plus a fan on the board (similar to a computer fan).

Another site I found worked on an electricity tester and ran a 5 hour print with the total cost of £0.04.

Whatever the actual real cost is2 cents an hour or just under a penny an hour it still is great fun.

My Panther is now half way through…

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Further 3D Fun

Today was a day if 3D ups and downs…

First the ups…

A nice little Stuart light tank.

I also printed of a Lego clone warrior for my little boy, some eggs for my daughter to paint like real ones. My wife wanted something printed as she was feeling left out.

Then the weirdness started. It wouldn’t print her stuff properly, I checked the bed level and the extruder, eventually I noticed that the nozzle kept getting covered in plastic that kept coming back.

Eventually I dismantled the hot end and found this…

The black stuff between the heat block and the metallic red heat sink should not be there. So this all had to be cleaned off and sorted. I added a new nozzle as the first had probably had it. It had worked itself loose too.

I also changed the Bowden tube, the white thing leading into the heat sink. I also changed the coupler, only to find the tube wouldn’t go through it!

I printed a new bit of an upgrade and am now printing a sarcophagus which I thought was going to be a quick one… I reckon it has another hour or two yet….

I also printed a nice little barrel

Tomorrow I must get back to my graveyard bits and bobs…