Wednesday Workbench 21 September 2022

 

I haven't quite finished the third squad for a couple of reasons. For once it's not because I've managed to distract myself. I was feeling a bit under the weather yesterday (it's a cold which broke out properly this morning) and I'd also managed to strain my right wrist slightly thanks to a quite large and heavy book I'm reading at the moment. 

However, I rallied around today and almost got them finished today - I've just for he camo dots, metals and the breast eagle on one figure to paint before they get varnished. Oh, and the bases need to be drybrushed as well.

3D Printing

I've printed a few odds and sods since the weekend:

Jukebox and arcade games

Junction boxes

Hangar taxi and load lifter

I also printed the Judge Dredd bust at 50% and 75%:

One of them will become a terrain piece - the Statue of Justice.

Over the next few days I will probably be printing a lot more odds and sods, mostly little bits for tarting up buildings, scatter terrain and bits like that.

Paint Table Sunday 18 September 2022

 

I've made quite good progress on the third squad of Waffen SS today:

Assuming no interruptions tomorrow, I should have them finished on Tuesday.

3D Printing

Here's what I printed today:

I decided to print a "slice" of the Judge Dredd helmet file I have to see if it will fit me when scaled down to 90% to fit on my printer. It does, with just enough space for foam padding. Printing it did highlight a few setting issues which I'll need to address when I do actually print a full helmet. Overall, I think I might wait until I have a larger printer so I can print it full size.

Inside the slice is a bust of Old Stoney Face himself:

It's scaled down to 25%; I've got another one scaled to 50% printing right now.

During the week, while browsing on Thingiverse (a site for free 3D printing files) I stumbled across a few pieces that evoked a strong nostalgic buzz. I've printed a couple of them since Wednesday:

No, not some kinky toys. Those who are old enough (and likely British) will recognise these as props from Blake's 7 - a teleporter bracelet and blaster from the Liberator. At some point I will reprint the coiled bit and "wand" stem in clear filament - I did them in this purple to see how well they printed. I'll also need to order some DIN connectors and black curly cable to complete the blaster. I might even get some leather to do the belt for them...

Finished: 28mm Waffen SS Squad 2

 

A day later than anticipated, but still quicker than the first squad! Yes, this is the riflemen and second MG42 team for the second squad of my core platoon. As they ended up being finished today, tomorrow will be Paint Table Sunday.

Riflemen

MG 42 Team

And a photo of the full squad (including the NCO and first MG42 team):

The figure without camo is from The Assault Group, the others are all from Artizan.

I'm all set to begin painting the third squad tomorrow; with luck they'll be finished on Tuesday which will complete the core platoon. After that I'll probably do some of the non-squad supports before doing the support option squad.

Wednesday Workbench 14 September 2022

 

I'm making good progress on the second Waffen SS squad. If all goes well, I should have them finished before the weekend.

3D Printing

I've printed two more models since Sunday:

The model on the left is a very early 1:270 design by 2nd Dynasty; the one on the right is a new 28mm aerospace fighter that they've just released to tie in with another creator's cyberpunk campaign on My Mini Factory.

I have now bought a filament dryer to see if that fixes the problem I was having with the grey filament. It arrived today and I've got the grey spool drying in it at the moment. I weighed the spool before putting it in - 896g; after four hours it was down to 893g so it does seem that my suspicion about the cause of the stringing was correct. I'll weight it again at 8 hours (about 11pm tonight) and again tomorrow afternoon after 24 hours.

Finished: 28mm Waffen SS Squad 1

 

And that is the first squad for the core platoon complete (I've already painted the NCOs and three MG42 teams). The extra figures are the seven riflemen and an additional MG 42 team which will allow em to field them as either infantry or as Panzergrenadiers. There is also a surplus MG42 figure (the kneeling chap) which I decided to paint up alongside this squad.

Riflemen

MG42 Teams

The MG42 teams and the figures not in smocks are from The Assault Group; the smocked figures are from Artizan.

Here's a shot of all the Squad 1 figures together:

The figures for Squad 2 are now on the paint table and I've even started painting them. Hopefully I'll have them finished a little bit quicker now that my 3D printer issues seem to be resolved.

Paint Table Sunday 11 September 2022

 I have made progress on the figures you saw on my workbench last Saturday. Not as much as I'd have liked because, you guessed it, I managed to distract myself...again. There's actually not much left to do on these - paint the base, add the camo dots, paint the metals and a couple of details and varnish them. They should be done before Wednesday.

3D Printing

The distraction

In my last post I mentioned that I plan, at some point, to print a full sized (OK, scaled down a bit to fit on my printer) Judge Dredd helmet. Well, I decided to do a test print of a half-size helmet to see how it would look. I opted to print it upside down as that would require much less support material.

I spent ages trying to get the support material off, but what remains seems to be permanently fused. So, I decided to do some more tests prints on even smaller versions to hone in my support settings. I thought I had them honed in, and printed another half-size helmet:

Better, but still an awful lot of fused material - I think the extra weight compared to the smaller tests was the problem. Cue a few more tests before I decided to see how well it would print in the normal orientation rather than upside down:

Left - printed without dome support
Right - printed with some dome support

The one printed with some dome support (support angle threshold set at 70 degrees) came out very clean where the support was, but around it there was some sagging - I think I need to set the threshold at 60 degrees. Or just not worry as  it won't be seen...

Of course, the lesson here is that I could have just printed the helmet upright and the material wasted on supports would have been much less than what I ended up using on all the test pieces! Now I just have to hope that, when I finally print it, the scaled down version will fit my head. If it doesn't it will just have to be an ornament.

Traveller Ships

With all that going on, I also managed to print another three 1:270 scale Traveller ships - an Armed Packet, another Type S Scout/Courier and a Vargr Corsair.

While printing these (and the helmets) I noticed that I was getting a lot of bad stringing. I knew that one possible cause was a worn out nozzle (replacing the current one was already on my to-do list) so I bit the bullet and replaced it. I also decided to replace the PTFE tube inside the heat break - I'm glad I did, as it highlighted a problem I hadn't been aware of:

It seems that the PTFE tube inside the hot end was slightly too short and there had been a small gap between the end and the nozzle. Over time, that had filled up with filament which had burned and crept up inside the hot end. Getting the white PTFE tube out was a job and a half and I knew I'd have to ream out the bore. After about an hour of twisting increasing sizes of drill bits I'd got all of the caked material out and the new PTFE (blue "Capricorn" high temp stuff) could go all the way through. With that done, I was able to fit the new nozzle.

However, I was still getting really bad stringing. I've spent several hours yesterday and today printing out small test pieces to see if changing my retraction settings might help. I got variable results. I finally concluded that it must be a problem with the filament - I suspect it might not be as dry as it should be. So, I switched out the grey for a new spool of purple and ran a test print to compare against a similar print I'd done on Saturday with the grey:

It's definitely an issue with the grey filament. I'm going to buy a filament dryer to see if that helps as I like the grey for prints as it's good for taking photographs of models.

Paint Table Saturday 03 September 2022

 As you can see I'm set up ready to start painting some figures. It will be the Waffen SS as I want to get at least the infantry done before the end of this month.

I finished priming the new figures this morning:

Then sorted out the riflemen and extra MG42s to fill out squads and support teams:

Core Platoon plus a few supports

Supports

Looking at what I have, there are a few more figures I need to get - I need a few extra SMG chaps and could use a flamethrower team and an AT gun (and crew). I also need something to make up a third Jump Off Point.

3D Printing

I've printed another Traveller ship but haven't finished assembling it so no photo today. I have however printed another 28mm starfighter:

I'll need to do a bit more clean-up of this one as the humidity has gone up and is causing some issues with the filament (you can see some "zits" on the photo above). I think I'm going to invest in a filament dryer as this isn't the first time I've had problems.

I also printed this last night:

"I AM the Law!

After running all these test prints to work out the best way of printing these:

The customisable file I used isn't the best, but it is the easiest to use that I could find. I do have a Dredd badge ready to print after the next two Traveller ships and eventually a helmet and maybe some other props (no, I don't have any plans for doing cosplay - they'll just be for display!).