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Showing results for tags 'The Canterbury'.
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I've had a small scale Rocinante for a while, and after stumbling across printedplanes website from a thread on the forum, I found that they also do quite a few Sci-Fi models, amongst which is the Canterbury, that unlucky ship that kicked off the Expanse series by getting nuked. There were 2 options of sizes, one at 100mm the other at 150mm, and on the basis of go big or go home, I selected the larger of the two. The lead time was quite substantial after order, but with 3D printing that's fairly likely, as anything 3D printed takes an age to get done. This process is the stereoscopic laser in a bit vat of resin goop, the name for which I really can't remember right now, but it seems to give a pretty good result. When it arrived it was in 3 pieces, main ice storage area, fuel tanks, and engine pods. It was also goppin'! What do I mean? It was slimy and sticky, with white goop oozing out of it in places. I was bit concerned until I read their FAQ and found that this is pretty normal, as the models are hollow printed, and some of the resin gets trapped inside the voids. There are some vent holes in the model, but it's difficult to get it all out, so I left the parts tipped up to allow the stuff to pool in the bottom, then blew as much of it out as I could using canned air (butane). Then I cleaned all the parts in a bath of IPA in my ultrasonic cleaner, which got things nice & clean, although the occasional little blob of goo would still find its way out. I ended up leaving them to drain naturally by propping them up again, with the occasional squirt of air evacuating the accumulated goop from time to time. A couple of weeks later and the parts are nice & clean, and the resin has hardened up too, being much more rigid, as I found out when I dropped the engine pods by mistake. I glued the broken pod and its supports back on and have now finally gotten round to priming it along with the Roci. I wish the ice storage area had been printed in top & bottom halves really, as painting inside that area is going to be difficult, and I still haven't ruled out making a few cuts somewhere to facilitate this, but I'm pondering it long and hard before I make any final decision. The surface is well detailed, and there's very little evidence of the layers to be seen, but there are some attachment points for the support structure that need sanding back flush. This is what the first primer layer is all about really, to check for imperfections. The most obvious layer pattern is visible on the outsides of the baffles on the engines, but as these are flat surfaces, they shouldn't be too hard to clean up. I'll be working on getting things ship-shape in short sessions, and once I've got it suitable for painting, I'll give it a coat of grey and then start trying to replicate the surface colouring to match the few pics of the Cant that I can find online. I'm trying to resist the urge to get the printedplanes Roci in 300mm, as the wee one I have from Shapeways is a bit small, although it looks like it scales out somewhere near the same scale as the Cant, although they're never seen together on screen. Can't wait for season 4 next year