New 3d-printed stuff

 I just received my latest order from Shapeways, which is always a little bit exciting to me because you never quite know how your digital designs will really look in the flesh.




To the right is a 1:100 (15mm) WWII German 105mm howitzer. This is the first model I've printed as a kit, for later assembly (you can see it in its unassembled, unprimed form at the bottom of the picture).

There are two reasons for that:

1. To save on space in the printer, which also saves money when printing.
2. To get a cleaner print. Diagonal surfaces tend to show visible stepping from the print layers, and if everything can be laid out horizontally or vertically, those printing artifacts can be minimized.

I haven't made this model available for sale, mainly because it would still be cheaper for people to buy cast metal and/or resin models. However, it's a successful experiment for me, and it means I have a couple of field guns to put on the table.

 This one is the Carden-Loyd Machine-Gun Carrier of the 1930s, printed in FUD resin, again in 1:100 scale.

It looks rather speckly in this photo; that's because I've given it a dusting of pale grey over black primer, so that you can see what's going on. The raw resin is translucent, and virtually impossible to photograph effectively.

It's available at http://shpws.me/OkRX

 Here's the British Medium C "Hornet" in 1:100 scale, a WW1 tank design that didn't quite make it into production in time for the fighting.

This one is printed in WSF nylon, so its surfaces are rougher than the FUD resin examples. The detail is still quite adequate for use on the game table though.

This one is available at http://shpws.me/OHlc

Here's a bit of a novelty item, the British experimental Grand Panjandrum in 1:100 scale, printed in WSF.

This thing was developed for D-Day as a remote-controlled demolitions device, but it proved to be farcically (and dangerously) uncontrollable and never made it into production. However, it appears as a "what-if" weapon on the Bolt Action Operation Sealion supplement. so I made it for that.

You can get it at http://shpws.me/OzSb

 Here's the piece I've most been looking forward to getting. It's a fighting compartment and gun module for a PanzerJäger 1, designed to fit on to the Minairons 1:100 scale plastic Panzer 1 model.

That Minairons model is actually of the Panzer 1A, and as far as I know, the PzJg 1 was only ever mounted on the Panzer 1B chassis, but frankly they don't look different enough to me to worry about, and I know of nobody who makes a plastic Pz1B.

It's printed in FUD resin, and I haven't bothered to make it available at all in WSF because of WSF's rough surface texture, and because the printing tolerances are too fine for that material.

You can get it at http://shpws.me/OMkj

The view into the fighting compartment,
showing the gun breech and radio

Here it is sitting in place on the Minairons kit body
(still on the sprue). It does need a tiny bit of sanding
at the back to sit perfectly, but I'm pretty happy with it.