Saturday 16 June 2018

1:100 Dutchman (FDM print)


This is the Vickers Commercial Light Tank of 1936, known colloquially as the "Dutchman" because the major purchaser was the Dutch East Indies Company. It was produced in several variants.

I printed this model on my Ender-3 FDM printer in PLA (0.08mm layer height). It's 1:100 scale for use in 15mm gaming, and it's about 35mm long — I've included a 15mm Peter Pig WW1 British officer for scale. I've given it an overall base coat of Khaki Green No.3, but I haven't gone any further with the decoration as yet. I included a separate turret with an open hatch. in the .STL, and eventually I'll find myself a commander to stick in it.

I'm pretty happy with it so far, but I'm wrestling with stringing on my prints which makes for a lot of cleanup work. I suspect the culprit is moisture build-up in my filament; I've got the roll in a dehydrator at this moment, and I'll try another print when it comes out. I've seen various ideas for easy-peasy PLA stringing removal on YouTube, but none of them are really very satisfactory, especially on a model like this which is 99% rivets, so it's just the arduous one-at-a-time removal for me.

I shall have to get a reel of black filament, which would make painting little models like this a lot easier. All I have at the moment is bright blue, which stands out like dogs' balls if you miss a spot.

You can have one* (or ten) for your very own: it's available for sale from my page at Shapeways. Unlike most of my models there, I haven't made this one available in their white nylon, but only in SFD resin. I could never get a printable model in the nylon without some major redesigning.

* Though not, as yet, with the open hatch turret. If there's a demand for it, I'll upload that version too.

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