3D Printed Starfighters

Klav, how hard was it to get into the 1:1600 scale? Did your earlier models scale down well, or did you have to do a lot of changes to account for wall thickness?

Also, if anyone has an interest in 3D filament printers, checkout MakiBox.com they have the cheapest one I can find, and would be PERFECT for tabletop minis. I ordered mine, with 1 kilo of PLA plastic for $250 shipped (with a shipping lead time of 6-8 weeks). They are still in the prototyping phase, but are ramping up production.
 
First off, i absolutely love these. Is there any possibility of having these beautiful models in a 2-3 inch size like the old micro machines?
 
The current options are pretty good sizes... most of the color ones are about 3-5 inches in length, and he's got unpainted 1-1.5 inch ones for tabletop boardgames. If you specifically want a 3-inch model, the Arrow, Ferret, Epee, small scale Excalibur, Salthi and Morningstar are all pretty close. Dimensions are posted at Shapeways.

Klavs stated in another thread that the color material doesn't really work on ships smaller than 2 inches: https://www.wcnews.com/chatzone/threads/cant-get-enough-3d-prints-april-2-2013.26799/
 
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Has anyone got an idea about how sensitive the printed colors are to sunlight? I bet one should place his models on a shady place to prevent bleaching :/
 
Good question, you should ask Shapeways support! Judging by their material guide it are basically ink jet printed colors, so they are probably susceptible to sun fading. They appear to use pigment based inks and a sealant however, so who knows.
 
I received a note from a gentleman who lived in the tropics. His first Arrow faded to white in a few days! I'd say moisture is the biggest problem, not direct sunlight. Seal liberally with Testors semi-gloss or dullcoat for the best results.

Still, I wouldn't leave them outside in the sandbox to get blasted by the sun. A few minutes here or there won't hurt them.
 
Excalibur, Morningstar, Super Rapier and Concordia Rapier (Low Viz) are here! I would say I'm most proud of the Morningstar, she's so small and the model turned out very tiny yet extremely detailed.

I'd ordered 2 different sizes for the Excalibur, but they accidentally sent me two big ones. Anybody in the Portland area want to trade for a drink?

For the family portrait, the Raptor and WC3 Arrow have moved on to guest homes, and the rest are going into Klavs Jr's new baby mobile!
 

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That line-up is awesome! So ... what's next? Any usual suspects still missing? Or will the Kitty fleet get some love?

For your entertainment, a pic of Dream Foundry's 'Spork', a nice rendition of a Durango-class carrier that just arrived, done up in 'regular' stainless steel. Quite nice, if I say so myself!
 

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Apologies to anybody who's purchased rejected models recently, Shapeways has increased their tolerances in all materials, so a once printable design is now unprintable because of what they call 'Thin Walls'. So the Morningstar, Ferret, and probably a few others may be rejected, even though the models have not had any changes made. This is especially prevalent with the smaller models, so please be aware. I'll have to scale these up to ridiculously expensive sizes to make them printable, so I'm really not sure what to do right now.
 
Aargh; just received the dreaded Shapeways e-mail! :(

Having these wildly out-of-scale wouldn't be something I'd be too happy about ... have you already contacted Shapeways about this?
 
Just received the message below back from Shapeways. I get it, they don't want to produce stuff that might be too small for their printers and delay their production, but it's still frustrating as there are models out there, sitting happily on people's desks and now they suddenly can't be produced any more. This shouldn't affect some of the thicker ships, like the WC3 ships, but I'm fairly certain a lot of the smaller ships will be rejected now. Sigh. I guess we'll have to wait till the tech gets a little better. I'll leave the models up for now, but in the meantime, please realize that you'll be ordering these at the risk of them being un-proudceable, despite examples being out there already. Sorry guys!


From Shapeways:

Hi,

Thanks for writing in.
As it is, the thin walls of your model weren’t caught on earlier versions and slipped through.
If it had, your model would have been rejected previously. Even though your product was printed
before, we cannot permit models that don’t meet design requirements to be printed as the
possibility that the print will fail is too high. Because we print multiple products per printing
session, we have to adhere to the rules to try and ensure a successful print of all the items
in a printing session. Otherwise, it could crash our printer and affect all the other models being
printed at the same time. This would also mean that other models would be delayed, as we would
have to print all the models from the printer again. I’m really sorry that we were not able to print the
models in their current state. Our apologies for the inconvenience and for not finding this issue sooner.
If you have similar designs, I highly recommend updating them as well to avoid any unnecessary rejections.
Thank you for your understanding.
Regards,
Gary
 
Understandable from Shapeways' standpoint, but it still sucks... Well, I'm thankful for what 'slipped through' and hope they'll loosen their policy in the future. Is this only for the sandstone material or also WSF, D and (F)UD? And just curious, do you get more details on where a model fails? Is it things like wings etc. or internal structure?
 
Unfortunately, it also applies to all the other materials as well, I'm having a spate of rejected models and will probably have to scrap most everything in the shop. I'm pretty livid right now, all I wanted to do was provide cool ships to everybody and now we're pretty much dead in the water, even if you've got one on your desk now, it's likely they'll be rejected now with their new 'enforcement.'

If anybody has 18 grand I can borrow, I can buy one of the machines Shapeways uses myself and print them that way, anybody? Anybody? :)
 
I'll send Shapeways an e-mail politely asking them to reconsider. I have become quite a frequent customer there, almost exclusively via your models and all (except one) have printed perfectly and shipped ahead of time. If everyone else affected would also send them a similar request it might help. Wouldn't count on it too much, but missing sales might make them reconsider the policy change.
 
Klavs81 said:
Excalibur, Morningstar, Super Rapier and Concordia Rapier (Low Viz) are here! I would say I'm most proud of the Morningstar, she's so small and the model turned out very tiny yet extremely detailed.

I'd ordered 2 different sizes for the Excalibur, but they accidentally sent me two big ones. Anybody in the Portland area want to trade for a drink?

For the family portrait, the Raptor and WC3 Arrow have moved on to guest homes, and the rest are going into Klavs Jr's new baby mobile!
Click to expand...

It's great to see so many ships together! One tip for the collages: if you have four images, arranging them in a square instead of a long rectangle is usually best. It allows for much larger size images on auto-sized gallery views compared to the vertical layouts, and it allows for more manageable thumbnails compared to the horizontal strips.
 
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