"Would You Buy These? 15mm Tanks" Topic

No, I'm not selling these, so this isn't meant for the marketplace. I am asking a more general quality assessment question- if you saw these for sale, would you find them acceptable for your game tabletop?

To explain- I've been doing 3D printing for about 4 years now and before I learned what I was doing, I tried to print some really detailed stuff- sometimes it worked, often it didn't. For that reason I got a bit gun shy to try really high end models, and had been focusing on bases and making stuff to support my own designs. Fast forward to this summer. My son was home from college and I gave him my old Replicator 2 as I was mainly using my Cel Robox printer these days.

My son comes walking by one day with a Centurion 3 in his hand. "Wow, that looks great," says, I, "where did you find that?" Well, he found them here- thingiverse.com/thing:769137

I wondered what they'd look like on my Cel, which has a better print head and a heated plate, so what you see here is a mix of what I did. I find them good enough to use. Please note that I did minimal cleaning on these- so these are as they were when I yanked off the support material. The Leopards printed really well (the files include everything up to a 2A6 if you want to make them), and I'd use them for Team Yankee.

Cost on these is about $1.50 USD in material each. They print in two pieces- turret and hull. Each tank, at high quality, which is what I show here, took about 8 hours (turret and hull combined).

Here's a PSC Panzer IIIL alongside mine…

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Here's some Centurion 3's with a 10mm Crusader thrown in.
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Here's a pair of T26's with a Battlefront T26-
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Here's the Leopard II's- Note that I included a Makerbot Leopard II. You can see that the Replicator 2 has less resolution but still looks pretty good. The downside of that printer is that it doesn't have a heated bed, and PLA tends to warp and is really subject to humidity. My son's early prints looked great, but his later tanks began to warp as his spool got more humid (I showed him how to store it in a dry box to remove humidity).
[URL=http://s1305.photobucket.com/user/tgerritsen/media/Miniatures%20Gaming/LeopardIICompare_zpsqulle6vu.jpg.html]

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Side view of a Leopard II-
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Let me know what you think. I think painted up they'd look great on my table.

They look pretty good to me.

Perhaps, replace the Panzer III gun barrel, but other than that, I think they look fine, as far as I can tell.

Hard to see without at least primer on them, to see if there are printing striations.

Yup those are good enough depending on price. I assume with your mention of materials cost, that they would be significantly cheaper than most others.

But 8 hours to print? You would not need a lot of orders to clog the system. Maybe sell the design files? Or would you sell via Shapeways?

You taking orders? : )

I think they are amazing and represent real design skill. However, when I zoom in, they seem less sharply detailed than the hard plastics that I currently buy, so I think if I had a 3D printer, I would be chuffed to be getting something like that of it, but as for buying commercial, I would rather pick up a PSC or Battlefront hard plastic kit.

I'd be happy to buy, but at two or three tanks a day, you're not going into production. Still, a system which lets you tell a machine to make you a tank while you're at work and another one overnight will produce more tanks in six months or a year than you're ever going to want or need.

That said, I keep thinking the future of 3D printing is the unusual and the unique. Yes, if you buy the machine, buy the "fuel" and do the experimenting, your incremental cost for the second or third tank battalion will be low. But it has the potential to make them each different--stowage, battle damage, field modifications--and eventually to produce the item you need three of that none of the commercial makers produce. (15mm M6 tank Destroyers? Patton's command "peep?")

But it's a great start.

If they were cheaper, definitely. I already buy a bunch of resin AFVs on eBay.

To be clear, I am not selling them, and I'm not looking to sell them. I'm wondering if people consider them good enough for their own table. In my mind, the ultimate determinant of quality is if you'd pay for them if you saw them on sale.

These tanks are not mine to sell, and I'm not looking to go into business. I linked to the guy who gave these files away for free. You can print them yourself if you have a printer. My point is that for a little time and not a lot of money, you can print up your own force to put on the table. If you look through the files in my original link, there is an amazing assortment of vehicles there (even more at the 1/200 scale, which I scale up to 10mm). Nearly all of them have lots of variants to choose from.

In other words, for about $7.50 USD in materials, I printed up a full platoon of Leopard IIs. Yes the time is a factor, but you set up the print and walk away. When they are done, you come back and start the next one.

Good enough for me.

I'd definitely be happy to have them on a table :-)

Those are fantastic. As Mako said, the Pz III barrel could use a little work, but those Leo IIs are killing me! I'll take six, please ;)

V/R,
Jack

These are surprisingly good for something printed at home. I'd use them.

It looks like the barrels are tough to print when they are thin. Such as the PzIII and Pershing. The larger barrels are fine; Leopard. Detail is not quite what PSC is but once painted and on the table, most people will not notice.
They look pretty good really.

The barrels are the only tough spot (though on the super small Crusader they are pretty good). That's the only thing I might replace.

They look good enough for me!

Absolutely good enough for the table.

I would grab mesh maker slice the barrels off.

Wow. Amazing. I would use them. The world is advancing.

what can I say but yes. I have a Replicator 2 and use it for the majority of my 12mm (1/144) stuff. Most of my models are from STL images provided by Shipyards. Some things it will not make like the TERMINATOR 2 Fire Support Combat Vehicle BMPT-72 due to the small barral diameters ar 1/144 scale. Excellent wargame models. The much criticised surface texture is only visable when to close to appreciate the bemnerfits of small scales like 1/144. Its way better than any of the similar scale metal models that have masive
casting faults and do not even fit properly.

Look good,how many do you get from a spool of filament?