Search the Community

My pal printed this out for me on his whizz-bang super-duper 3D printer, but I'll leave his name a mystery so he doesn't get bombarded with similar requests. This wasn't a cheap item to print, but it was worth it just to test the capabilities of the printer! Although it was printed before Christmas, I didn't receive it until a week or two ago, and have only now gotten round to doing a little work on it today. It's a phone pic, and the main upper receiver part was missing at this stage, due to it having to be printed separately. you can see the resin is still damp from clean-up, but what you can't see too well is the level of detail that's been achieved with a relatively "cheap" printer. A couple of years back this would probably have cost a quarter of a mill, but now it's a few tens of thousands. We're a long way from being able to print a squadron of Spitfires overnight, but we're getting there. They do need to reduce the cost of consumables though, as it's shocking how much a kilo of the stuff costs - it's almost as expensive as a gallon of inkjet printer ink! The grips on the handle of what was once a Broom-Handled Mauser were first to see the sanding sticks & primer, as tonight I just don't seem to be able to focus on anything meaningful, as I'm dog-tired and more than a little bit sore. I've been sat there staring into space with a sanding stick in hand, and a grip in the other, idly buffing at it to see how quickly the parts can be made ready for paint. These parts are curved, so as you can imagine, with them being made of thousands of tiny flat layers, there is some texture to them and a bit of sanding and filling was/is necessary. Comparing this print to the previous printer I've had dealings with though, the difference is chalk and cheese. The layers are far less obtrusive, and that means a lot less clean-up to get a smooth finish. hell, if I wasn't picky, I could just prime it with a high-build primer, slap a coat of paint on it and go "Pew, pew, pew" to my heart's content I'd like to do a bang-up job of it though, to do justice to the super job that Mister X did of the print. I thought I'd start with the grips because there are two of them, so it'll be easy to gauge the difference that a few coats of primer have made. As you can see, two coats of primer and some fairly idle sanding have improved it a lot, and with an extra session, plus paying a little more detail to the grooves, it should be ready for paint in no time. These are wooden on the real thing, so a little roughness is to be expected, but I'm going to go for a sleek, worn look when I finally get around to painting them. How I'll achieve wood grain effect though, I have no idea. We shall see. There are some replacement wooden grips available on eBay at the moment, which come with all the necessary bolts to hold the grips firmly to the frame, but comparing my Airsoft Mauser to this one, there are some subtle shape differences that might end up with a poorly fitting part. They're also £20, which is a fair wedge for something that might be useless really. I'll be updating this as-and-when I have time to make any progress, and I might also add the progress pics of my Son's Nerf version of this gun when it arrives, as I intend to paint it in proper colours, leaving the tip that blaze red colour, just in case. It's not as accurate as this one in terms of look (they've had to shoe-horn the Nerf mechanism into an elongated receiver), but it might reduce his clamour for this one. The flash-suppressor is a tad delicate IMO, and might not react well to being accidentally smacked against a door frame, swing, dog or my head