Rocinante from The Expanse [COMPLETE!!]

[Kallisti]

Late lat year Mike posted a pic of the 3D printed Rocinante from The Expanse he'd got from PrintedPlanes.com, so being a fan of the series I had to go and order one myself. I bought the 300mm version which arrived in April just as I'd started work on the 1:24 Angel Interceptor. Having completed that and the Space:1999 laster tank, it was time for my first experience with 3D print!

 

 

The kit arrived as 4 parts as you can see above. The quality of the printing is excellent - there is minimal scan line effects. There are, however, no decals included. I did notice though that another rare sci-fi model kit company had produced a 300mm version of Rocinante last year and Jim Botaitas aka JBOT had produced the decals for that kit. So I contacted him about these as I was already talking to him about decals for Thunderbird 6 in preparation for when AIrfix release the new 1:48 Tiger Moth later in the year. He was willing to send me a set on the understanding that it was for a different kit. 

 

Here, then are the decals for the Rocinante after it was repainted in non-MCRN livery

 

 

Finding good screen caps of the ship in the Belt livery isn't easy but here is a decent representation

 

 

The first task was to harden the 3D print material - there was some stick residue left, particularly inside the engine bell. So during the work on the Angel interceptor int he garden on the sunny days during Easter, the 3D print was put out in the sun for a while so the UV would react with the print material and harden it. Didn't take long and after that it was washed in soapy water, isopropyl alcohol and soapy water once again.

 

The next task was to sort out how it was going to be displayed. As you can see from the parts above, there is no stand provided and the kit depicts it with the chain guns deployed so it is in flight. So I had to drill a hole in the underside to accept an acrylic rod as a stand. This was not as easy as I expected as the 3D print material is quite brittle so the first attempt ended in a bit of a disaster as several cracks appeared and some pieces broke off. Thankfully they were all clean breaks so it was easy to repair.

 

The second attempt at drilling a hole was much more gentle and ended up drilling a much smaller hole than needed and then using rounded files to enlarge and reshape the hole to what was needed. I wanted to pose it at an angle so the hole had to be shaped correctly. Inside the body, I fitted a piece of brass tube at the correct angle to take the acrylic rod. This was then glued in place with repeated applications of epoxy resin to build up the support for the stand to give it strength. Its not heavy but I wanted to make sure it was robust enough to not be a problem attaching and detachment from the stand multiple times.

 

Sadly I didn't take enough photos of this early stage of assembly - hence me blathering away instead of showing you. I built the stand out of an offcut of MDF left over from building the club display at Telford a few years back. This was sanded smooth and painted black with the acrylic rod attached in the middle

 

 

I'm working on a decal of one of The Expanse logos to put on the stand. So what has happened to the ship itself I hear you ask? The assembly of the 4 parts was easy, the fit was decent and any minor gaps were filled with the superglue that holds it together. I then gave it a couple of coats of Halfords grey primer, in between was some small amount of sanding where there were the most obvious scan lines which smoothed the slight imperfections into insignificance.

 

The most recent job was painting some "pre-shading" on some areas, ready for the next layer of grey paint. I'm planning on using Tamiya XF-20 for the base coat of the overall model, but here it is with grey primer and pre shading...

 

 

Here is the underside and you can see the hole for the acrylic rod

 

 

So this is the sort of thing I'm aiming for with the display base - the decal isn't attached yet, just placed on the surface

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 16, 2019 by Kallisti

[Dave]

Excellent.

Is Jbot still operating then? He announced that he was retiring 

[Kallisti]

He is but there was a short period when he was responding to personal approaches. I think he's curtailed that as well now.

[Kallisti]

This has now been completed - well it was finished last week but I've only just got round to sorting out the photos. So here goes:

 

 

The decals were sourced from Jim Botitas, aka JBOT and were originally designed for the Fantastic plastic resin Rocinante kit whihc just happens to be 300mm long and the same size as this 3D print! They fitted pretty well, the only difficulty being some knobbly bits on the front upper surface that the decal had to conform to.

 

 

 

Underside shot

 

 

This is superb 3D print and I highly recommend it if you are a fan of The Expanse.

 

 

 

[Rob998]

That looks fantastic! I’m just about to start mine, after a small (ahem 😏) wait in the stash...

 

What colour did you use for the engine bell? I was thinking of using some shade of aluminium after dismissing gunmetal as too dark. 🤔

[Kallisti]

I think I used XF-56 Metallic Grey as a good match