WS&S

Wargames, Soldiers & Strategy

Wednesday, September 14, 2016

Adventures in 3-D Printing for Miniature Gaming

Adventures in 3-D Printing for Miniature Gaming 

So here we go with part one of my adventures in 3-D printing for miniature gaming.
 Like I had said in my Intro blog I first tried 3-D printing a year ago at my local makerlab.
 The first miniature I Printed on the makerlab printer was a french WW-2   S-35 tank the tank is 15mm scale and it came out very nice I have now printed x6 of them  for use in my battle group games .
  I then attempted to print a RPG miniature of a elf it really did not have any detail i was very disappointed but , I did try a few 28mm miniatures  with no luck at that point i was about to give up when I thought why not print items that improve the look of my games for example terrain pieces like furniture, wagons, barrels and objectives .


About 6 months ago I decided I needed to purchase a printer so I started to do the research to find out what my options were and the cost. I found out very quickly I had so many options and one of those options was building my own printer I did not choose that option as I did not feel I had enough knowledge to built it on my own .
After deciding I did not feel comfortable building my own printer I started looking at commercially available printers and found you can buy decent quality printers under $1000 US after researching and looking at what I could afford and reviews I decided on the Printrbot Play. https://printrbot.com
  
I have had the printer for 2 months now the first few weeks I was tempted to throw it out a window or return it lol .
 I had problems like bed leveling and filament jamming and breaking a part because I was not careful ugh !!!!  But I stuck with it and after a few weeks I started getting great prints .
 The first projects I started printing were for my WW-2 early war french army and  I also started to print German  Landwasserchleper Amphibious vehicles for a what if game set in 1940 invasion of England .
 I have now moved on to a new project that I will be sharing in my next blog .
 I will be  printing  a 28mm miniature on my new printer at home  I will be posting info how that goes in the blog as well as posting  other projects  .  I hope you come back for more and find the blog entertaining .

Thanks walkaboutgamez


3 comments:

  1. What software do you use to generate the print files? I've found that this is one of the biggest limiting factors I have in terms of ease or viability of prints; I use Cura which seems very reluctant to put in supports when they are needed sometimes.

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  2. I am really enjoying this series, keep them coming.

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  3. That's awesome. What a great way to enhance your games. I really like the idea of making small terrain items - items that may not be otherwise available, or difficult to make by hand. Great post ~C

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