3d printing

[Tiger1fan]

Hi all, hope everyone had a great Holiday. I wanted to see if anyone else was working on any 3d printing projects related to our hobby to see if we could share some how-to information? I really still know very little about this process but somehow have managed to create and have printed a 3d jack for my King Tiger.



I created this model in 3d Studio Max and then exported it to an STL format and uploaded it to Shapeways.com. They run a check on it for you to see if it's printable then you go to the "My Models" section of their website and get the price to print. The cool thing was that they give you many choices of materials to choose from with different prices. For this first test I chose the cheapest material, Sandstone, to see how it would come out and see if it would be cost effective. This model in this material cost me $25.21 plus shipping to my house. According to others I've spoken with some of the higher cost materials would produce an even more detailed model, but I've not tried that yet. So was wondering if anyone else is doing this yet that might be using a different process? Next model to be tested is a fuel drum I've been working on, I need a bunch of these and was wondering what would be the best way to break up the model for molding? Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Kind regards,
John

[Hoffner]

Oh did you buy a new toy?

[Tiger1fan]

Hi Brad, hope all is good with you.

I did not buy a 3d printer, I just built the model in 3d and had Shapeways print it for me.

[ActionMan]

There has been quite a bit of discussion on OSW about 1/6th printing, with a fair number of examples.

With the fuel drum I'd suggest finding a suitable drum to use and just printing the lid and holes (too early in the morning to think of the proper name!).

[Tiger1fan]

Thanks ActionMan I will check out the threads, thanks for the heads up.

John

[Reef12]

That would be a lot of resin I guess a hollow mold.

Would be nice though.

The dollar store has drums called green slime pretty close to 1/6 scale and a buck a piece.

The lids is where the trouble comes in.

Hope you find out and let us know.

Jeff

[Tiger1fan]

Hi Jeff, thanks. For sure a hollow model. Still making adjustments will report back when I see how much the cost is to print. Made it into 2 parts, the barrel and a seperate top so there can be multiple texts on the lids. Will see.

Thanks,
John

[Tiger1fan]

Hi all, here is the most recent 3d prints from Shapeways. We are making custom fuel drums to use to carry our paintballs to our tanks. A short piece of 3.5" pvc pipe with some rings and the pieces below will make our drums. We will also mold in a plug to the top to make it removable. Please excuse the bad quality pics from my cell phone.

Cheers,
John

[Falckner]

Some great details !