Friday 27 May 2016

Latest Shapeways Booty

Here's the latest batch of my 15mm models, received from Shapeways this morning, all in WSF nylon.

I've de-sprued turrets, scrubbed them down with a toothbrush to remove any excess nylon powder, and sprayed them with a pale grey primer to make it possible to photograph them, but that's all that's been done to them thus far.

They are, from left to right:

  1. Bob Semple tank (New Zealand, WW2)
  2. Garford-Putilov armoured truck (Russia/Soviet Union, WW1—WW2)
  3. T-27 tankette (Soviet Union)
  4. T-24 medium tank (Soviet Union)

The limitations of the 3d printing process and material shows up most starkly in the steeply-sloped glacis of the Garford-Putilov's turret. The print layers are very apparent there. However, overall I'm quite pleased with them. As I've mentioned before, WSF isn't adequate for scale modelling purposes, but for wargaming models it's just fine.

Desktop stereolithography printers for high-resolution resin printing are available now for well under $US5,000, so I'm hopeful of being able to afford one of my own before senility sets in irretrievably.

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