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3D printed kits, anyone know anything???


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Hi All! 

 

I'm not sure where on the forum to post this as it could be relavant to most gentre of kit building but Sci-Fi is my go to preference so I'm putting it here.

 

Does anyone here know anything about 3D printed kits? Or more specifically, the preparation of them. I've recently seen a kit of StarBug from Red Dwarf online that has been 3D printed but it looks to me that there would be extensive sanding prior to building and painting due to the lines on the surface created when printing each layer. Is this correct? Do these lines protrude or would the surface be smooth? Some kits look really smooth and some look like they've got protruding lines.

 

Definitely see more and more pieces being offered that are 3D printed nowadays. 

 

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks 😎👍

 

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I’ve seen this same kit, it will indeed require sanding. I bought a lightsaber kit tht was 3d printed And it has required sanding, filler primer,  more sanding, primer, more sanding and at the moment is languishing along with a couple of other projects I want to rekindle but don’t have the time for (I’m lucky enough to be actually working during this current situation and I’m self employed). 

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Good news re working, glad that's going okay for you. I'm Furloughed and it's starting to get a little tedious....but the family are all healthy so shouldn't complain.....I just want to get working again. 

 

I'm not adverse to putting the effort in on a kit but I'm loath to spend what is the same, and in some cases, more for a kit that needs greater extensive work than any other kit.

 

I've also seen some 3D printed miniatures.....I'd worry that details could get lost if lots of sanding is required.

 

Cheers for the response 👍 

 

Stay safe 😷

 

 

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The are 3D printers that print with liquid resin, as opposed to the line-producing plastic filiment types.  The resin ones dont have those lines and look to be very clean moulds.  Here is an example of a resin 3D printer scroll down to see some examples, or have a search for these types on YouTube, you should see some good reviews and results.

 

Mike

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Yeah, my son is actually planning to get a resin printer, so I reckon that for the price of a bottle of resin he will let me use it and I’ll let him use you UT cleaner😁 the prints from the SLA printers are superior in termed of surface finish.  

3 hours ago, Fletch0311 said:

 

Stay safe 😷

 

 

Cheers @Fletch0311

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I don't know too much about 3D printing and the only two 3D printing kits I have bought, if you can call them kits are:

 

1/8 Bowman figure for the Moebius 2001 pod.

 

1/12 Astronaut figure for the Atomic City large scale Mercury.

 

I have to say they are a extremely good, on a par with with high end resin casting, if not better - the likeness to Bowman is uncanny. They have a light dusty feel to them, which I assume will clean up with a wash in soapy water. But other than that I'm not anticipating any other clean up.

 

The downside, the price tag.

Edited by The Tomohawk Kid
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21 hours ago, Fletch0311 said:

Hi All! 

 

I'm not sure where on the forum to post this as it could be relavant to most gentre of kit building but Sci-Fi is my go to preference so I'm putting it here.

 

Does anyone here know anything about 3D printed kits? Or more specifically, the preparation of them. I've recently seen a kit of StarBug from Red Dwarf online that has been 3D printed but it looks to me that there would be extensive sanding prior to building and painting due to the lines on the surface created when printing each layer. Is this correct? Do these lines protrude or would the surface be smooth? Some kits look really smooth and some look like they've got protruding lines.

 

Definitely see more and more pieces being offered that are 3D printed nowadays. 

 

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks 😎👍

 

Hi Fletch

 

I've been doing 3D printing on and off for about 6 years now though I've opted to use services such as Shapeways (though there are others available) than buy my own. This is mainly due to the fact that home 3D printing - in terms of fidelity - is still some way behind commercial versions which can now print in multiple materials and a range of plastics. The best kits to go for would be those that have been made using SLA (Stereolithography) which is where the parts are formed by a laser fired into liquid resin. FDM (Fused Deposition Modelling), the more common and cheapest version of 3D printing, is where the model is built up from layers using heated ABS thread, one on top of the other, and this is what can cause the 'stratifying' effect you often see. These are the hardest parts to clean up especially since some of the material feels similar to nylon and priming/painting isn't much fun either. I tended to use Fine Ultra Detail material though this can be far more brittle than other plastics and can have issues the larger the part is. But I'm not trying out some newer materials with a better balance of properties. Below is a link to a post where I showed what can be achieved through 3D printing - this using parts made through Shapeways along with my own bespoke PE set to create a super detailed 12" Space 1999 Eagle before Round 2 came to the rescue last year with an all new 1/72 styrene kit (of which I now have 'many' 😉) and for which I will be resizing and shaping many of my older parts in order to create full interiors for these. None of this is cheap. But then what hobby is?

 

 

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I have a 3D Resin Printer and the resolution will go down to .02mm layers (50/mm) the main issue with the home printers at the moment is build size, 155 x 65 x 115mm with my Photon.

 

Clean up on them is minimal once the supports are removed and in most cases there is little prep after that.  I tend to print at 0.5mm layers and in some cases you can just make out the layers depending on the angle of the surface but a layer of primer usually sorts it out.

 

Some of the bits I've printed.

Yagzmhl.jpg

 

nOhqJnS.jpg?1

 

r3XztDc.jpg

 

MpXyNpI.jpg?1

 

Files can be found in numerous places, some are free others you pay for.

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7 minutes ago, Madmonk said:

I have a 3D Resin Printer and the resolution will go down to .02mm layers (50/mm) the main issue with the home printers at the moment is build size, 155 x 65 x 115mm with my Photon.

 

Clean up on them is minimal once the supports are removed and in most cases there is little prep after that.  I tend to print at 0.5mm layers and in some cases you can just make out the layers depending on the angle of the surface but a layer of primer usually sorts it out.

 

Some of the bits I've printed.

Yagzmhl.jpg

 

nOhqJnS.jpg?1

 

r3XztDc.jpg

 

MpXyNpI.jpg?1

 

Files can be found in numerous places, some are free others you pay for.

Wow, they're really impressive. I've seen someome who made the robot thing from The Fifth Element on a Facebook page I follow.....that one is really cool. I'd love to have a kit of that! And the scutter is top drawer! 

 

Thanks 

 

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

The prints that show the worst lines are done by FDM printers. I'm currently working on a Liberator from Blakes7. That had a lot of lines-even though the finish was reasonably good. B&M do a good filler/primer(much more filler than halfrauds). Last year I had my own Dan Dare space fort printed. That's also fdm. I wanted a decent size and a resin print at forty three centimetres was too expensive.

As long as you don't mind taking your time to get a nice smooth surface, go for it.

However you may end up with a sore wrist...

As for me -I'm holding out for the new Elegoo Saturn resin printer- whenever it's released.

Edited by 32buds
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  • 3 weeks later...

I bought an Elegoo Mars (resin printer) and the resolution is very good. Free files can be found on thingyverse and other sites. The quality is very different - some are low-poly so you will have more filling and sanding work on rounded surfaces, many are not super-accurate. But on the other hand you can adjust the scale of many files so you can get a 1:144 Ariane V or Space X rockets. And sometimes there are very good files even for free. If you are into real space subjects there are Vincent Meens upgrade files on Thingyverse for the Monogram LEM in 1:48. It is almost a complete kit and would probably even scale up nicely to 1:32 if you wish.

 

On CGTrader are some very nice files for sale - but on checkout they ask for VAT if you order from outside the US. Happened to me at least and I was a bit surprised by this... Still this B-Wing is quite tempting: https://www.cgtrader.com/3d-print-models/miniatures/sci-fi/starwars-b-wing

 

Regarding readily printed kits I only bought some pieces from Shapeways before and found them quite expensive.

 

As to preparations:

FDM printed kits can be a PITA to sand smooth (the PLA I used was quite resistant to sanding). But it will depend on the filament used. For example ABS can be smoothed with acetone.

SLA prints can be made with watersoluable resin or with the more common resins which need to be cleaned up with alcohol. I cannot speak for the later but the water soluble resin from Elegoo is still affected by water after curing. So when wet-sanding it can still deform to some degree. This wrecked my Dynar Soar a bit, so I will have to print it again and will first prime and then wet sand - hoping the primer will protect the resin a bit.

I use the same primers and colours as for traditional kits - from car paints to model paints. For glueing I use Superglue and epoxy.

 

Rene

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Do any of you have any experience with Shapeways' Multi Jet Fusion printed models? Does it have the pronounced layers that some of the other processes have? I've found a 1/1400 Klingon K'Tinga (for almost the same price as the Round 2 1/350 kit!) that would go great with my 1/1400 D-5 and D-7. I'm concerned that a model with such a complex surface detail might be next to impossible to clean up if thickness of the print layers is too large. 

 

Thanks!

 

Ben

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