They are multiplying!

 It's not that I need that many, but I was making a few anyway so just finishing before I move on to something else was the smarter move.

 

So....more spidies.  2 Big ones, 3 small ones, same scheme, roughly same basing style. 

 

Outdoor Shitcan - painted my first 3D homeprint

 This is what I bought this printer for. Printed this off in the morning, cleaned and based it in the afternoon and primed it in the evening. Painted it the next day while with my girls, then varnished, based etc.

I used this free file by Pietia Models: Village Toilet

Unlike a lot of other 3D files, this one really seems to work inside the strenth and weakeness of FDM. The way it is printed nicely hides the seam and the layers in the wooden planks. I did discard the roof as I like my normal method of using card more. Basically a 2 piece print at 0.2 layer height, and I did turn ironing on...that just looks better and doesn't cost that much extra time. 

I did the most basic of cleaning, a hard brush and a lighter to remove any thin fibres. Glued it to a base with Superglue, sanded it with my usual grit and some rocks. Cheapo primer and I let it dry and gas out over night. 

Quick paintjob in green, weathering, gloss varnish, matte varnish and various tufts and calling it done. Slides right in with my Stalker and Post Apoc scenery Hope you like!

 

A Grave Matter - testbase

 Had it in the box, primed and ready to go, so it was about time to finish these. 4cm square base, 2 gravestones from Green Stuff World IIRC. I've been looking at many a peoples (28mm) graves to get an idea how I would like to see mine based up. Tufts from various sources.  28mm scaled. 

 

 

New parts for the printer. All hail the Machine God.

 All the parts arrived, installed a brandnew 0.2 nozzle, and checked ever bolt in the head, took out and cleaned whatever dirt was inside. Dumped the roll of filament into the new Filament Dryer before I started all of this. Turned on calibration and.....

 Son of a.....

Took out the 0,2 nozzle and replaced it with a brandnew 0,4. Took out the clean plate and washed it all over again and started a single 15mm test print at 50% speed. Turned out fine. Did the same at 100% speed. Fine again. Duplicated it so I had 9 on the plate, at 100%. Again, fine. 4 28mm sized containers.....also fine.

Guess I will not be printing with 0.2 any time soon, so 0.4 it is. 

9 x 15mm containers test plate

4x 28mm containers test plate

 

Tomorrow I'll slice up a bigger 28mm item and see how well that works. 

Also print up a shrine to the Machine God.

Verrotwood AI Creature: Spider

 Before actually designing and building a crew, I thought I first make a few AI Creatures. Always handy for other games as well. To start off, a Wargames Atlantic Spider.

 I've seen some pretty scathing reviews on this kit, mostly about assembly....but I have 0 issues (I'm assuming it's either my abundance of experience of their lack of that (or patience)). You have plenty of legs, you can do what you want. Sure, the first 2 legs fit is a bit stiff but Ultra thin glue slides in nicely and sets it in no time.  Based it on a 40mm MDF base (might drill in a hole for a magnet later, but this last batch of MDF discs has a lot of fraying, pretty bad quality if you ask me) added some spackle and sand over that.

Paintjob was easy. Cheapo Action Grey Primer, 3 coats of a mix of Brown and Black wash and a bit of water, with a blast from the hair dryer in between. Vallejo Basalt Grey sponged/dragged on from the top downwards. Mix in a bit of Ivory and repeat. Mix in more Ivory and call it a day. AK Tenebris Grey for the eyes, fangs and base rim. Paint base as usual in some tones, drybrush. Black wash for the eye sockets. Add white stripe for front of base. Spray with gloss varnish. Matte coat the rim and the rest of the base. 

Tufts used are AK Chesnut Foliage, GSW Tall Shrubbery Dry and Mininatur Early Fall 2-Tone. Leaves that fell from the AK box were glued on to fill spaces.

And that is it really. Took me a few hours this afternoon to get it all done. Wanted to keep it simple and easy as I'm not sure how many of these I need/want to replicate. The mottled grey and glossy look works fine for it I think. No blood or anything, spider venom does terrible things to fleshy bits. Base has a nice dry/dead look to tie in with the Verrotwood theme. 

 

Verrotwood

 

 

I picked up this rules when I for the daily Bargain of the Day email from Wargame Vault.  Less than 4 dollars for the basic rules, and a low model count horror game? Count me in.

 After printing the book off (I just can't read and take notes from PDF. Dunno why, it just is) I spent an hour this morning going over the rules, the backstory etc. It's only 60 pages , combat etc is basic, D10 based, but basic can be better and quicker. It is aimed at campaign game play to get your Cult to gain favour with your Deity. You are free to create a Deity and a focus stat. Besides combat you can pray to gain favour with your Deity, and use that for various Rituals. Combat is quick and brutal. Once a battle is done you get to check what happend to the wounded guys, and after that you have a exploration phase that can be handy, but also very deadly. 

Standard table size is 3x3, of which 1/4 must be woods, the rest can depend on the scenario, or what you rolled before the game or in the exploration from last game. Monsters can appear, but (fortunately) the lists for thsoe as well as weapons etc is small....no Frostgrave sized tomes needed for that. Again, basic is better I think. 

 Plus: 

Well, that sorts it then. Currently pitching the game to garner interest with the group. 
 

Also, no base size given, but I have plenty of 25mm MDF discs so I'll make some trial bases using those.  

 

Spare parts, spare cash and spare time.

 I received a lot of spare parts for the machine, a filament dryer, lot's of extruders, so I'm all set to give it a overhaul and get to the bottom of what the issue. Just not this week....

With the machine virtually crashing and burning (so to speak) and unplanned spare time I set my sights on improving my living space. I've been here for a year now and I've been keeping a list of shit that needs to get done, eventually. One of those things was to get the bedroom upgraded to a proper bed and more storage space. One order at IKEA later, and delivery the next day....I had to cut a few corners as I want to keep my tiny comfy chair (kids model, so for my spines sake I will need to upgrade that someday) and my display cabinet (that needs a good cleaning) is just 1 cm too wide to fit properly next to the new PAX's.....cause of course it is :)  But this way it works too. The wireless lights still refuse to connect to the new router so I'll just leave that for now, the joys of modern 5 Ghz/2,4 Ghz routers format incompatibility

Nice to have a proper sized bed now, did swap out the handles for leather strips to save my shins and ankles. Still looks as sterile as a surgeons office so that needs to remidied....eventually. But with the cabinets closed you would not know there is a 3D printer hidden there....which was the whole point. Did the same on the other end, getting rid of my, always in the way printer stand, drilling a nice hole in the old PAX and using my spare XXL printer cable to hide the little one. Let us just ignore that cable across the wall....the floor is empty and that was the whole point. 

Flock&Rock will be moved to the other cabinet, I kinda forgot it was still hiding here. Ran into a whole pile of FoW books that need to get listed this week. 

 Now, the spare cash.....

I found these 2 at the local Goodwill, 2 or 3 weeks apart. Both are old beersteins with the mark of 413 Squadron Redskins, a Fighter Bomber squadron and flying NF-5's when I was still a kid and transferred to F-16's eventually. One is marked "Fokko" and the other "FJ"

I sold Fokko for 43 euros, and FJ for 110 euros and both went to the same buyer after a rather frenzied bidding war. Not bad for a 3 euro investment for the 2 combined. After a bit of research by the seller we concluded the original owner was Kolonel Pilot Fokko J. Kingsma, who was base commander of Gilze Rijen Airforce base till 1984. The things you learn. The Goodwill could not tell me anything about who dropped these off, but the chance for any kind of info was very slim to begin with. 

Not the most politically correct these days but it's history ey.

Almost all NF-5's were later sold to mostly Turkey and Greece, these days in storage or as decoys at their airbases (AFAIK). 

Anyway, nice bit of spare cash for the hobby fund :)

Now to finish off some small chores and get the house ready for my little ladies arriving on wednesday :) 3 Weeks have flown past.....

100 hours in and oh boy....

 Well, after 100 hours in I'm getting fail after fail after fail.

I keep cleaning the nozzle, washed the build plate, calibrated again, removed the filamant and put in a fresh roll of brand new filament as the last print was very fuzzy and even just ordered a filament dryer to be delivered somewhere this week as humidity might be an issue.

 

Starting to feel like life before and after marriage this....

 Yet another test run. So far all today failed within 10 minutes, so jay.... 

3D printing first fatality

 Well, after running the printer for 105 hours I managed to clog up the 0.2 nozzle (after only 10 hours of use). Went through all the steps to unclog it, went downstairs to grab the pliers to remove the filament remains from the top....

....and then the all too familiar happend, my left hand just lets go. I can tell it to clamp all I want, it happens more and more often these days, it just goes limp. But yeah, there went the 0.2 nozzle, and of course nozzle first on the tile floor, denting the nozzle closed in a way that is just not fixable. Great.

 Replaced it with the 0.4 nozzle that then also decided it wasn't in a printing mood, so did the same steps....this time with both hands above the table and above a plushy towel. Cleaned it, fixed it and tested it.

 

28mm Odessa tank, free STL from online

Parts loosely combined, printed with 0.4 nozzle at 0.2 layer height. It's a tank only a mother could love, right? Though calling it a tank is a stretch.....

Packed up the tank and shipping it off to a mate who can use a gift as he has tons of Russians and he can use all the armour they can get their hands on :P
 

Car flat or car up? Pro's and Con's

 Tried another all night print to see what would work better, upright or flat. 9-ish hour print for 6 Polski Fiats of various types by Bergman

As they came off of the printbed, 1 destroyed, the rest came off easy enough.

"You were only supposed to get the supports off"

Good enough for use I say

Flat printing does give you these stepped roofs and hood, but a bit of filler and a bit of paint...

When printing upright it gives great detail...

...but like Taco Bell*, it complely destroys your ass!

The destroyed ones can be salvaged by making a garage with no lift off roof and just glueing them partially inside. No one will ever be the wiser.

*heresay. I've never been to, nor shall I visit one. 

Now to test out a very blocky 28mm vehicle for another 9 hour print.

Swapped the 04 Injector for a 0.2 injector....thing and did some tests.

 Switched the nozzle and made a few test prints.

 

15mm STZ-5 family

The tarp is the only weak point but easily fixed

Testing 8mm 30K Rhino's

 

Joining the Cult. I mean Club.

 Well, I've had one on my list for years. But I either did not think the technology was good enough (filament) or not safe enough for me and the kids (resin).

Well, with the purchase of a Bambu A1 that has changed. The current Sale took care of me dropping dough. 

 Having watched a few (well, a lot) youtube video's on installing, and upgrading it while it was en route from Germany. Delivery was quick, it sat on the dock for a few days till it started the route to my place. Same can't be said for the accessory pack, that is still driving around Germany, somewhere (over the rainbow....), enjoying the ride I guess? At Modhails and Ozymandas referral I picked up 4 rolls of basic Geetech PLA from their preferred store. As they said, 1 roll to completely fuck up, 1 to get to grips with the machine, and 2 to start printing. That was ordered on the weekend and arrived before the printer.

 While it was enroute I got some extra Pax parts from Ikea, getting my start up cost just shy of 600 euros for the printer, extra and spare parts, filament, pretty lights and cabinet parts.  

It arrived last friday, and after what was indeed a quick build, I did my first print...

....and it completely fucked up. That was fun. And I learned pre sliced models.....just don't. 
After that it really was a breeze, honest. Now it is just trying out what works, what doesn't, how the slicer works, watching more Youtube.

Currently running it with the original 0.4 nozzle, at 0.1 layer height, irioning on and supports. Focussing purely on 15mm and 28mm scenery and scatter atm, but I have a 0.2 nozzle on the way.....running around somewhere in Germany....over the hills. 

Ain't it cute. 

Cleanup and glueing parts together.

Test scatter for Stalker.

Adding supports.

Testing settings, with and without ironing on.

Trying tiny stuff. Not great up close, good enough for gaming use. Curious to see how the 0.2 nozzle will handle this. 

 Now trying to figure out how to clean them up even better without hurting myself in the progress :)

And with the doors closed it is pretty quiet too!