06 January 2020

French Armour-AHPCX #2

For the last 3-4 months, I have been immersed in the world of 3D Printing. I started with terrain to learn the skills needed to utilize this technology but over the last month I have been experimenting with printing vehicles on a FDM printer. It is quite a challenge and I will accept that a Resin techonology is probably the way to go here. However, I still believe that for wargaming, FDM vehicle prints are a good option. 

I recently had an EW CoC game and my opponent was playing the Belgians and decided he wanted to take some French tanks as supports. Well I have no French tanks as I do not have a French force (yet) so we had to use some substitutes. Not an ideal choice and this can be a little more difficult as vehicles are hard to find for some of the more minor nations (no offence to the those nations of course).

But in the 3D Print world this is not the case, and with a bit of googling I found several different STL files for French tanks. The tricky bit is how to print these STL files, as it is not a case of just hitting print. Problems include what type of supports to use, how do you orient the vehicle on the build plate ( I have tried flat on the side vertical as well as on a tilt all with different degrees of success). My prints have improved but I am still not even close but I am hoping you will agree they are ok for wargaming. Enough blather, time to move on to photos. These were my 2nd submission to the AHPCX.
Char B1 bis, sort of lost control of the dirt!

I am not a big fan of the black lining between the camo

Somua S35

Have to find some French decals

Hotchkiss H35 and 39

 
As you can see the striations on the models are quite a challenge and although these were all painted with an airbrush there was some runoff and spidering.

10 comments:

  1. Very nice pieces

    All the best with your 2020 projects

    Cheers
    Matt

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  2. They look good John and the paint works is good as well, it does the job for the gaming table.
    cheers John

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    1. i hope so, in the heat of the battle maybe those striations will be missed!

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  3. Like your printed French armor. I found playing with the print angle helps. 45 degree angle on the model helps. The latest cura 4.4 is very good. Prusa slicer will work on your CR-10. Over Christmas I had my power supply for both printer quite working. I got the Ender 3 working again. It only took 10 minutes to change out the bad component with the new. Before the prints crashed I managed to print two Baby Yoda's. You and see these on my blog. Happy New Year.

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  4. Nice job John, perfect for a quick force, sounds a bit technical for this old guy though, although I would like an air brush. If I had known how many German tanks I would collect it might have been worth it.

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    1. John. It isn't that hard. I'm 71 and been 3d printing for almost a year.

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    2. I have had a lot of fun with the airbrush and the 3D printer

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