Wednesday Workbench 29 June 2022

 

I'm waiting for the extra figures I ordered from The Assault Group to arrive, but decided to crack on and start painting a couple of the support options. 

There are two tripod MG42 teams (minus two crew - I don't currently have enough kneeling/prone chaps), a forward observer and a Panzerschreck guy. I should have the painting finished tomorrow, then I'll get them varnished on Friday. 

After these, I will probably do the HQ (senior leader and Panzerschreck team) and junior leaders for the main platoon. 

3D Printing

I think I've got the printer and the slicer profiles about as good as I'm going to get them, so I've started work on printing the big project - a 28mm 100 Ton Type S Scout Courier from Traveller:

That's the first two steps done (there are thirty four printing steps, some quite big, some quite small), covering the front half of the ship. When it's complete, it will be about 26 inches long and 12 inches wide. From what I've been told, it will use up about 2.5kg of filament. I reckon it will take about 4-5 weeks to print the whole ship. 

Finished: 28mm Waffen SS Test Figures

 

Well, almost finished - They'll need a bit more work on the bases (particularly the Jump Off Point one), decals to be added and maybe some touch-ups.

Uniform Test

The second highlights came out a bit "chalky" and both highlights lose a bit too much of the green. That could be because I added too much Light Grey and Sky Grey to the uniform base colour. I might try another figure using Stone Grey instead.

Autumn Oak Leaf Camo

Barrel snapped during prep, so using for a JOP marker

Overall, I'm happy with the colours. Perhaps the base colour could be a bit lighter (it was German Camo Pale Brown, highlighted by adding Buff). I also need to practice my "dotting".

Spring Oak Leaf Camo and Helmet

I definitely need to practice my "dotting"! Overall, happy; same thoughts about the base. For the helmet, the colour looks about right; same goes for the rest of the equipment, although I may have over-highlighted the yellow of the Panzerfaust.

All three figures are from Artizan.

Paint Table Saturday 25 June 2022

 

No, your eyes aren't deceiving you - those are indeed part-painted figures! I decided this afternoon to make a start on some test figures for my late war Germans. As they will primarily be opposition for my British Airborne I reluctantly opted to do them as Waffen SS (*spit*). 

Having made that decision, the next one was obviously which SS camouflage pattern to go for. After some humming and haaing, I opted for oak leaf pattern. I'll do the main platoon in the autumn version (with orange dots) and the supports in spring (green dots). Well, apart from the sniper that I'm using as a test model which has been done in autumn.

Before starting the test paints, I did try out a few mixes to get a uniform colour that I'm happy with:

The top row is Feldgau working to Grey Green, the bottom is Feldgrau working towards Dark Sea Green (1:0; 3:1; 1:!; 1:3; 0:1). At the bottom of each swatch are the first and second highlights, made by adding Light Grey and then Sky Grey.

I decided overall that the 1:1 mix of Feldgrau and Dark Sea Green was the best. For uncovered helmets I'll be using a 1:1 mix of German Uniform and Dark Sea Grey.

I was thinking (and somewhat dreading) that I'd have to freehand the various insignia. Then I remembered that I have a decal sheet, although I might need to get another to ensure that I have enough to go around all the support options. I'll still need to freehand the shoulder boards on some figures though...

Wednesday Workbench 22 June 2022

 

It's Wednesday and I have remembered to do a workbench post this week! As you can tell from the photo above, I have got the later war Germans primed. I got that finished yesterday.

There was a reason I didn't finish them on Monday - I was out most of the day gaming. I had decided it was about time my ancient Germans got blooded, so I arranged an afternoon and an evening game at the club. The afternoon one was against IanM's Triumvirate Romans, led by Julius himself. The dice were wild for both of us, either one extreme or the other with very few middling rolls. That led to some crazy results once the battle lines clashed. It all came down to the final two combats in one turn - Ian was one point away from breaking and I was two away. I lost the first of those, leaving us both one point off breaking, then the dice gods favoured me - I won it, despite being down a factor, causing Ian's unit to take the cohesion loss I needed to break his army!

Here are some photos of that game:

The evenign game was against DaveM's Early Imperial Romans. I was running a slightly different list, using an allied command of Batavians. Luckily for me, they passed the test in the first turn and didn't go "hesitant". Unluckily for me, I had made a complete hash of my deployment - I should have put that command on my left flank and the command with cavalry on my right. Lessons learned...

I forgot to take photos of that game. Because of my poor deployment, the Batavian medium swordsmen were facing elite Roman heavy swordsmen and got badly mangled; on the left flank, my medium cavalry were matched up against Roman heavy cavalry and suffered equally badly. I also suffered from the dice gods' disfavour almost every time it was crucial. Still, it was a good game overall. 

Paint Table Saturday 18 June 2022

 

I completely forgot to do a post on Wednesday - I had photos ready to go, but simply forgot. I could have posted on Thursday, but as that would only have been two days before today...

As you can see, I've been doing something that isn't 3D printing. The figures in the photo above are the start of a Late War German platoon and supports for Chain of Command. Having assessed what I actually have and compared that against what I will need to field them as either standard infantry or Panzergrenadiers (each with an extra squad) and adding some further support teams, I've determined that I need four more MG42 teams (gunner plus loader), at least nine more riflemen, an extra Sergeant/Leutnant type, a "Panzerknacker" team and a medic. Given my preference to avoid too many repeats of the same figure I will probably be placing an order with The Assault Group for the extras.

Having sorted them out on Thursday, yesterday I glued them onto bases. This afternoon I have been adding basing gunk. I will probably do the priming tomorrow.

3D Printing

I did some further sanding at the beginning of the week:

240 grit

400 grit

800 grit

1200 grit

To be quite honest, I couldn't feel a great deal of difference in smoothness between 400 and 800 grit, and next to no difference between 800 and 1200.

As for the printer fine-tuning, I've been doing lots and lots of test prints adjusting different parameters. Here's a photo of some of them:

Although these did uncover some profile settings that would help with some of the issues I was having, I finally caved in and decided to bite the bullet and do a proper tuning. For that I needed to order a longer USB cable than the one which came with the printer and to download some terminal software. I've been running that today, followed by some test and calibration prints. I've got a few more to run, either later this evening or tomorrow.

Paint Table Saturday 11 June 2022

 

Today I have mostly been...

Running more test prints on the 3D printer. I also made time to give another junk piece a single light coat of filler primer and do some more sanding tests. I took each quarter to a different level of grit - none, 120 grit, 180 grit and 240 grit.

No sanding

120 grit only

120 and 180 grit

120, 180 and 240 grit

Since Wednesday I have printed a few more (wider this time) sanding blocks and added sandpaper strips to all of them:

I'll probably spend a bit of time tomorrow working up through the different grits on the piece I was sanding today.

Yesterday I primed and dry-brushed the pieces I'd sanded on Wednesday:

No filler primer before sanding

Filler primer before sanding

The drybrushing helped to show that the one with the filler primer was a fair bit smoother. It also made the sanding much easier, apart from recesses being a bit clogged.

Wednesday Workbench 08 June 2022

 

Apologies for the lack of posts since last Wednesday. Mostly I've been tweaking and testing the printer profiles. I had thought I was almost there, but there are a couple of issues which are still niggling me.

Having printed a few bits for the big project which had defects, I decided that rather than binning them I would put them to use for practicing sanding the prints. In the photo above, the print on the left has had three light coats of filler primer; the one on the right hasn't.

Here are some pics taken after two rounds of sanding, the first with 120 grit, the second with 180 grit. 

Both came out fairly smooth, but some layer lines can still be felt in places. The one treated with filler primer is smoother than the non-primed one. I think that three coats may have been a bit too heavy. I might try another piece with one light coat for each stage of sanding to avoid it clogging up recessed lines and details.

Tomorrow I will prime both pieces black and then give them a white drybrush to see how smooth the surfaces are.

When not tweaking & testing profiles, I have been printing a few things:

Most of them are bits and bobs to either "prettify" or upgrade the printer, in some cases both. As well as the obvious test prints, I have printed a heap of OpenLOCK clips for the big project, some sanding sticks and some printable grass.

"Printable Grass?"

Yes. I happened upon a set of files on Thingiverse while searching for terrain files and was intrigued. The files are designed to print 60mm long strands, but I shrank them down to 30mm long:

Part of the reason I was interested in these was that I wasn't truly happy with the "kunai grass" bases that I did last year and these might offer a much better solution. No, I'm not planning to print them in purple - it's possible to get filament in various suitable colours. 

Wednesday Workbench 01 June 2022

 

The airbrush cleaning is almost done - two fully cleaned and re-assembled, one with a few bits that still need cleaning. I might need to replace the needle in my 0.3mm smaller one - I think I must have hit the tip with something.

On the 3D prinitng front, I seem to have resolved the big problem I was having. It seems the cause was a combination of vibrations (reduced by using foam inserts from figure trays under the feet; also by tightening up some of the bolts on the printer's frame) and a couple of settings in the slicer software.

I spotted this afternoon that my first filament spool was running low so I printed a few batches of small items that I'm going to need for a big project. I had just enough for that:

After removing the remaining filament, I did a little bit of maintenance on the printer, then loaded up a new spool of filament - I went with purple. The first job was to run a couple of quick calibration tests, and settings test that I'd forgotten to do on Monday:

Anticlockwise from left: Temperature tower; calibration cube; "All In One Nano Test"; the supports test

Supports test after removing supports

It seems that I have got my support settings dialed in just about right. The supports came away easily enough with pliers and left clean surfaces with no evidence of sagging.

Yesterday I ran a test-print of a part for the big project I mentioned further up:

There were a couple of issues with it - the problem I mentioned above and also that the "bridging" over the recess was a bit messy. I've found a slicer setting that should resolve the latter and will test that tomorrow - if that doesn't work, I'll just have to add supports for the bridge.