"What’s the cost of 3D home printing?" Topic

I'm just curious.
What's the initial cost of a GOOD 3D printer?
How steep is the learning curve to make good figures?
How much does the material cost? How does that relate to the cost to print a 28mm figure?
How much does an STL File cost?
Is it worthwhile to purchase a file for a one-off terrain piece?

And any other questions I'm not familiar with, but should be asking.

I was "fluent" with AutoCAD 2005, but haven't touched it since. How easy is it to develop your own files?
Or is that a dumb question?

Two main types of 3D printing are predominant with regard to our hobby. PLA (not the army) which uses a solid filament and MSLA which uses liquid resin. PLA is easier and cleaner. 1kg of filament costs about $10 USD to $30 USD a roll. A Bambu A1 regular or mini models are excellent printers. The Mini is only $200. USD You can be up and printing for $220 USD plus shipping / tax. There are a lot of aspects to MSLA printing. But if you want to go low volume and labor intensive, there are several beginner printers for under $200. USD They may break after a few dozen prints though. A kg of liquid resin costs about $20 USD – $30 USD for average stuff. Get water washable resin and cure in the sun and you can be up and going for $220 USD or less. This setup is not ideal but a cheap entry option. You can get good prints but it will take more time to process the steps. I didn't mention the MSLA options that can quickly raise the price but improve your quality of life. There are plenty of good free STL free files on Thingaverse. Plenty of great paid models on myminifactory and wargamer3d. I've also bought some impressive sets of of Kickstarter. Plenty of free slicing software. I've bought some individual decent terrain pieces STL files for under $2. USD The prices are all over the place.

PLA is considerably less of a hassle than MSLA. PLA is great for terrain pieces such as buildings. MSLA is superior for smaller objects such as infantry and vehicles. There is some overlap between the types. I primarily print 28mm mimiatires and terrain myself.

As it's a hobby, expect to put a good amount of time into it to learn the inns and outs. Expect failures in printing too until you figure it out.

I posted some related info in this thread….

TMP link

there are SO many free Wargame 3D printing assets. a few hundred dollars for a PLA printer and you can be printing in a few days. there will be errors, it will take longer than you think at first. But you quickly will have LOTS of buildings or tanks. I find it, for me, works best when I need 2-3 'one off' vehicles in 15mm that I can print overnight. Things like Landing craft become practical to have.

My son tells me about $500 USD for a good starter resin set-up, but thereafter cost per figure is in pennies. He concurs that filament is better for terrain, and he hasn't paid for a file yet. Lots of free stuff out there.

He felt it was easy to pick up, but he was a Microsoft Certified Software Engineer before he got out of high school, so I consider the source.

My son was given a free filament printer (Ender 3, pro?). What a crock. Needed some parts and work to bring up to good condition, still doesn't work worth a hoot. What with all the time he's put in trying to get it working, he would have been better off with a fancier new printer.

Resin would be preferred, and one that self-levels, but we really don't have a climate controlled area that has ventilation that we can set it up in.

The learning curve is very steep, and a lack of real directions or support isn't helping.

I have opted to not have the hobby of figuring out and maintaining a printer. I have opted in to buying stacks of spools of PLA for a friend who does have that hobby and is willing to print for me.
: 3

Prices for files range from Free to Oh Heck No. I have paid for a number that are in the Worth It To Me price range.

My file searches always begin with [keyword] STL Thingiverse for freebies and then expand from there. Google image search always works better than the search function in Thingiverse. But once I'm in Thingiverse, clicking on other keyword links from one file followed by lots of scrolling sometimes leads to good finds that didn't pop-up in Google. Printables has also yielded good results.

John, there is another option not being discussed: reach out to a 3D Printer on Etsy, asking if they do special orders.

This avoids the investment, time, learning, toxic fumes, etc. Many will do custom orders -- you just have to reach out and ask. You will likely need to get the STL files you are interested in having printed.

As far as the difference between FDM (layers of molten plastic extruded and applied one atop the previous), which is low-toxicity, and Resin Printers (very toxic fumes from the resin; resin is a sensitizer to skin -- always wear gloves; cleaning the printed figures with >90% isopropyl alcohol also produces flammable vapors, and it can be an irritant to skin and likely lungs, as well), is narrowing.

In other words, for printing 28mm figures, FDM printers are approaching such thin layer lines, that you can use them, instead of a resin printer.

Bottom line: do your YouTube homework, learn as much as you can, then pull the trigger. Fat Dragon Games' channel on YouTube is a fantastic resource: he dials in the STL files and settings, for the STL figure files he sells, for most FDM printers out there, to get the best results possible. He goes into the whole of the subject on his channel. FDG is only fantasy, but you can learn a lot from his channel. Cheers!

Another thing to file away…

Resin figures break, easily -- usually at the ankles! Get yourself a resin repair kit from Amazon, or elsewhere: they include a bottle of resin, and a UV Penlight, to cure it with. This is the one I bought, and I love it! These are amazing tools to have in your kit -- curing the resin, to make a repair, takes, literally, five seconds; the UV Pen is USB rechargeable. Cheers!

I recently bought an Elegy Mars 5 Ultra resin printer and despite the fact that many people on YouTube are saying it's the ideal resin printer for beginners it actually is a really good resin printer for beginners. With the curing station and other accessories I spent over $500. USD Once I've painted a hundred minis it will have paid for itself. It is very, very messy. You need a garage or shed, you can't use it in the house. It's messy, but not at all hard. Amazing results just pop out after a couple hours. The Mars 5 Ultra will print six or seven 32mm minis, but you're going to have trouble with the larger dragons – it has a small print bed.

I do think you need to *want* to do it.

Creating your own STLs for spaceships, ironclads, buildings, etc, is very easy, look at TinkerCAD, a free, online, and very easy to use 3D designer. You'll be effective in under an hour (it's sort of meant for kids). If you want to do horses and people and dragons you're going to need Blender. It's also free and there are a *lot* of instructive YouTube videos. You will spend many, many hours of watching, practicing, etc, before you are effective.

There are a *lot* of free STLs for wargames, and there are a lot that you can buy relatively inexpensively. A *lot*.

FDM printers are easy and fun, no mess, you can use them in the house, you can get a good one under $200. USD The layer lines never go away, though. When you paint things they always show up. You could do many terrain features, but not all. I have printed many, many tanks and they look fine. But things always look "3D-printed".

I have a pair of Ender 3 Pros. They do need attention, but I have gotten a *lot* of use out of them. They are certainly more fun than resin printing.

A brief aside about UV curing resins:

Get yourself a resin repair kit from Amazon, or elsewhere: they include a bottle of resin, and a UV Penlight, to cure it with.

I still don't have a 3D printer, but I've been using UV curing resins for years (since Bondic was the only one on the market) and they are extremely useful for special types of gluing projects.

Leaving aside my own failed experiments, the only real problem I've had is matching the right frequency of UV light to the resin. The resins come in two main categories (395nm and 365nm), and will only cure _ v e r y _ s l o w l y _ under the wrong frequency. You can buy cheap tubes of UV resin for personal use, but only get ones that tell you what frequency of light they need. Some are silent, and it's a PITA to figure out by experimentation that you need to go buy another UV pen light.

I do think you need to *want* to do it.

From reading this thread, and elsewhere, I think that's the key.
For the record, in the past I've thought that plastic figures were a really dumb idea. This was mainly because of the cost of milling out the molds, the cost of injection molding machinery, and so on. Obviously I was wrong about that.

So now, there's all this fuss about 3D printing. I'm initially dubious, so I thought I'd ask. I see it's relatively "easy and affordable".
But here's the thing. I've purchased tanks that look their are made from corrugated steel. I read above that will never go away.
As for resin, well, I spent a good deal of my career as a Safety Manager in a small company and at a Kmart. I also was on committees in larger ones.
I've found that you need a real hardass approach to things like MSDS sheets, and that hobbyists are more laissez fair. TMP is where I read about grad students washing their hands with toluene. 🙄😱

Obviously, 3D printing is a different hobby in itself. Thanks for the insights here, but I don't think I need another hobby. But I will check out other printers out there for obscure minis that I might "need". Like Jubilation T Cornpone.

Obviously, 3D printing is a different hobby in itself. Thanks for the insights here, but I don't think I need another hobby.

This is exactly why I don't have a 3D printer.

It would be extremely useful for getting all those niche items I can't find in production, and might even be a more efficient use of money for hobby purposes. But it would also eat up a great deal of my already limited hobby time, become yet another source of toxic materials in the homestead, and fill up my remaining storage space with miniatures I haven't quite gotten around to painting.

If, at some point in the future, it looks like the only way to continue building collections of miniatures is to 3D print them at home, I'll relent and start that hobby. While I can still buy what I want from others who do all the production work, I'm going to keep doing that.

- Ix

PS: I also worry about the durability of the materials used in 3D printing. The various resins and polymers haven't been around long enough to know how they age through temperature changes, UV exposure, moisture cycles, etc. I will be upset if my old painted miniature collection self-destructs when I pull it out of the box a few decades after I set it aside and forgot about it. The old guys will say "I won't be around long enough to worry about that", and many 3D printing enthusiasts are too young to think on such a long time horizon, but pulling out old collections gathering dust in a forgotten corner is something that happens all the time in this hobby, and jump-starts a lot of games. Not every game was painted up recently.

White metal miniatures have many downsides, but they will still be around to play with for generations. The miniatures will last longer than the paint applied to them.

I love working with styrene, but it yellows and grows brittle over time. Old models eventually become unbuildable.

Old polyethylene figures (e.g. 1/72 plastic figures, like Airfix) seem to be very durable, though they are a PITA to paint. There have been a lot of developments and experiments in that corner of materials technology, and I don't know how they all hold up.

I now have a lot of ships in various UV resins that I worked pretty hard to build. I don't want to play with them constantly, but I do want them to be around for a long time.

I'm waiting for full colour printers.

There seems to be some wild disagreements here. Somebody asked us which models were FDM printed and which were Resin. We and they picked them up and could not tell. Tipping them upside down was the only place you could tell.

I can only talk form my experience with FDM prints.

My printer is a Prusa I3+. I did build it and it worked fine with no remedial work required, but I did take a couple of days. Probably better to buy it ready assembled. Setting up – put in filament, works every time, run test program and twiddle one knob to get the pattern shown in the picture, took a few minutes. Much the same as you do when you change colour cartridges on a paper printer.

Load STL file in slicer select resolution (normally 0.1mm) and press go.

Again I can only life stuff I have had. The most heavily used item so far is some bed frame supports for the caravan one of my first 3D printing jobs. I do admit I printed them a bit thin. The manufactures part it replaced was 2 year old. But my bits are showing some issues 12 years on. However some new parts are expected to outlast me as they have been printed more robustly in better material. Even PLA has improved over the 10 years I have been making stuff.
Not sure I would call that a hobby in itself. But then perhaps loading a microwave oven is a hobby for some.

If somebody gives you a printer free suspect it might be duff. Same as somebody gives you a bike it may need lots of new bits or even be worthless.

NOTE – I will admit even if you are an engineer getting to grips with drawing 3D objects to turn into STL files IS A HOBBY. Look at it as a far better way to scratch build. It does take the same time and effort, but having done it once you can make lots of copy's with no effort.

Cost my equivalent printer £1,054.80 GBP, note this a significant upgrade on my printer which they still support but do not make new. My printer is still working great after about 5 years.

Filament the stuff I use is PLA+ £20.99 GBP per kg. About 100 1/144 vehicles per kg.

"Old polyethylene figures (e.g. 1/72 plastic figures, like Airfix"

Old polyethylene figures can go brittle, I have lost thousands of Airfix, MPC, and Esci figures over the years that were supposed to last forever. I think some use an additive that others don't use as I have had 10 year old figures go bad and 40 year old figures that are fine.

The newest PLA printers used by a person of great skill can create wonderful models these days, I have seen them myself. Smooth-On also makes a paint-on resin that is self leveling and will fill in the striations on PLA models, it works well but there is a brief learning period.

I have been told that the cheap resins break easily but the expensive resins are very strong. PLA is very strong.

I don't have a printer but Fidelis Models, owned by a good friend, is coming out with both resin and PLA printed models and so he his learning a lot about it. He owns some files and he is licensed some others for sale. He is having the work done by contractors so he does not have to do the printing.

It is an interesting technology and I suspect in a few more years after a few more bugs are out of it we will all have a 3D printer.

Mike Bunkermeister Creek

I use Sunlu resin now, the ABSlike, its about 22 dollars a liter, cheaper then the stuff I used to use, mixing in tenacious, ect. I like it better. Sunlu has a more flexable resin, I have some, and I have not even used it yet, as I am satified with sunlu abs. havent looked at recent costs of printer lately, they should be quite good, more detail then you need.

The problem with 3d printers is this. if you have a pile of shame, ya, all those miniatures you have not painted yet, hold on to your hat, because it will grow exponentially!

Lets say you print a build plate of miniatures a day for a week, and you have 10 to 15 man sized miniatures on it, at 28-32mm, in a week you now have 70-100 miniature you need to paint, and the next week you have 100 more, so you print a few "big" miniatures ( dragons, tanks whatever your into) and you painted 3 miniatures that week… You get the picture… now you see some other game that looks like it would be fun, lets print 100 miniatures up for it! Some sailing ships for age of sails, a week later you have a nice fleet, and you may went thru 2 or maybe 3 bottle of resin, depending on what you printed, spent 40-69 dollars, and you are looking at 200 plus miniatures you need to paint, but …. you decide you need more orcs, like maybe 30 more. this is just printing one build plate full a day, depending on how tall your miniatures are, you could get 2 or 3 buildplates printed in a day

I see that you can't just throw the waste back in the pot, like I did when trying to cast my own metal figures. 😄 I wasn't very good.

Albus Malum A hidden gain for FDM. I really have no pile of shame (well STL's take no space). Because with an FDM printer it can do a build plate of figures/models or just one with no redundant waste of time or materials and no clean up time. You print on demand so you never build up a pile of unpainted (well a few when you print a few extra at times). But you can and I somtimes do, just throw the extras in the recycle bin at home as the cost is minimal and saving on storage space is a key issue.

I was watching this and the bit at 4 minutes in looks darn impressive!

YouTube link

Got to say I'm tempted 'cos actually I do need Minas Morgul….

"John, there is another option not being discussed: reach out to a 3D Printer on Etsy, asking if they do special orders"

This. I pay other people to print stuff for me. The last thing I need is the ability to churn out thousands of figures on a whim, or to have a new hobby which involves handling toxic chemicals and learning how to do 3D modelling.

"I'm waiting for full colour printers"

You can already get colour printers. They are a bit crude but I've seen figures with printed flesh, equipment and uniform colours.

I started resin a year ago. And added filament (for scenery). It was not a bad learning curve, and the zillions of youtube videos were great in helping me out.

I really do enjoy it, and my pile of shame has grown to a size that amazes even me. one thing though, it is not just the cost of printer and resin- there are all manner of small tools that make your life easier, gloves, endless paper towels, and isopropyl alcohol. Then you end up buying more containers to hold your IPA while it settles for cleaning. In the end figures are dirt cheap. If you use a combo of 80/20 resin with a flexible one, like tenacious, the brittleness problem ends.

Then you start spending too much time on kickstarter, wargames 3D, thingiverse, etc. and need to buy an external drive to store all your stls. And then you realize that you need to save all the cheap plastic trays and packages you get from foods to sort and store all the bits you end up printing.

The biggest issue at the start is getting everything leveled, and getting your settings right. This seems to be the sticking point for most people, and almost drove me mad, until I suddenly got it right. I hear the latest printers have solved a lot of those issues though.

I have been very interested in this. I have two friends one with PLA printer and another with a resin printer. Booth printers are gathering dust in their house as both say the learning curve was not worth the time. My understanding is that you have to use a splitter (software) and structure supports for the figure as it is being printed both take skill and time, though I see STL files which come with settings to cover a particular size or two. PLA printings do have those lines and Resin is toxic and you need ventilation. But I do like the notion of my pile of shame being virtual.

One's soul.

It's just another in a long line of "let's make everything computers!"

Social lives were meant to be going that way with unsocial media.

No Australia is changing that for kids, so that's a good start.

At the end of the day your painting or playing with a figure. The actual figure has (usually) no bearing in these contexts.

Metal plastic resin, any scale, ad long as it fits on a correct size base, often not even that.

So, with that out of the way, you can then look at the other merits of what your doing.

Value. Metal has the most value.

Durability. Typically metal and plastic.

Cost. Metal and resin can cost the most.

The idea of 3d home printing is that you can make what you want when you want.

Like children would like.

Being an adult I appreciate the fact you can't always have what you want, and that is what makes things good.

If you could have any figure you wanted, you would,

A Have lots of figures, too many.

B Not care for your figures, as you have too many and can always replace them.

C Make people jealous and not like you.

I'm sure you can come up with more.

It also avoids retail stores, as far as minis go. Which is not good.

If the government can keep kicking kids off the internet, it will be better for retail.

Perhaps future adults won't be as fixated on technology.

Here is a Peachy video on a novice using a 3D printer

link

Interesting video – thanks for the link.

WARNING THIS ONLY APPLIES TO FDM PRINTS I HAVE NO PERSONAL INTEREST IN RESIN SO CANNOT COMMENT ON THEM.

Thought about this some more in the light of some of the comments. We did in the early days struggle with supports. We got rid of the problem by buying Simplify 3D slicing software. We rarely do anything not using the automatic supports and they are fine for all but my 12mm real scale figures but they are pushing the system very hard. Most 12mm figures are more overscale so less issues.

This is an option to avoid the "3D printing hobby" but as many have said that's the call of those in t5he main not actually having a printer or a less than ideal printer. Again FDM only comments.

We were offered a good resin printer but worked out the hassles were not worth any marginal, at best, gain. But it is a personal choice. To me it seems there are strange comments FDM OK for terrain not for figures. Why if its good for terrain is it bad for figures. We use FDM for everything.

The H Man – You know you are writing on one of those computers you hate right?

It's called typing, right?

It's also called grammer check.

I find it interesting how people with little argument go to personal attacks and pettiness so quickly.

A sign of weakness and loss.

Sorry I foget US humor does not cover Irony.

"the expression of one's meaning by using language that normally signifies the opposite, typically for humorous or emphatic effect."

Crikey! Your on a roll today, mate.

Age quod agis.

I MIGHT be interested in buying an STL file if I wanted to do whole battalions and regiments of Hessians or British 1768 Warrant uniforms.
But my main interest now is units that demand that every figure be different.
Pirates, Apache and Comanche do not advance in serried ranks. No do gunfighters at Rosa's Cantina or the OK Corral.
At my age, I don't need a new hobby with a steep learning curve. 🤷

It is a completely different hobby.

A lot of metal ranges have multiple variants and plastic kits also.

I'm not sure why 3d printing has its own board, yet everything else is shoved under moulding and casting, as it's just CNC extrusion, ala injection moulding. Then you have industrial injection together with bench top metal casting kits, something to be reviewed at some point?

I do a lot of custom prints for peeps. They send me their files and I give them a quote.

"At my age, I don't need a new hobby with a steep learning curve." Exactly, I m sure that 10-15 years it will be much easier to print and the machines will be a fraction of the cost. But for me at that point, I'll be happy just to be able to play games.

If it gets easier to print figures, that only means more manufacturers may be printing and less reason for people at home to bother.

I doubt it will ever get cheaper or quicker than injection though.

You'd be asking a lot of a printer to do the same numbers.

But, again, for decades now, you can print your own magic and other trading cards at home.

No one does (of any consequence).

Also there are more females getting into wargaming, it seems, than ever before. It seems they may be more susceptible to marketing, if the bottom of Myer/DJs is anything to go by. So they will be perhaps keener then the blokes to shop retail, helping to sustain that end.

Of course, you put a pretty girl in a shop, either side of the counter, and just you try to keep guys out!

Hmm… Stay home with my pimples and already obsolete 3d printer, or go the game shop??

And to paint/play in the shop, and hang out, you maybe required to buy from the shop, management depending.

So retail will keep going, one way or the other, and traditional manufacturing with it.

I came here for H Man's "not in my backyard" rants.

H man Currently its probably indisputable that injection molding produces the cheapest and best, most accurate scale models. With the caveat that the Production numbers are very high (probably 500,000 off) as the tooling cost is vast, production from that tooling is very low cost.

3D printers can be very cheap already, I have a small one (FDM) that produces excellent models and the cost of printers in real terms (at home and commercially) is falling so home printers will be cheaper by a large margin as there are few economies of scale in 3D printing and of course there is no external profit margin on home printed stuff.

One significant cost for all, is the sculpting in whatever medium, if the required sculpt is not available. If we want a new vehicle that is unlikely to sell in great quantities, like engineering vehicle. We have commissioned several vehicles for our own use that are not popular choices for manufacturers and the cost overall can be of the order of 5 to 10 times a typical vehicle cost as the sculpting cost may only be spread across 4 or five vehicles, less in some cases.

Need we note the distinct contrast in quality of the above responses?

Ultimately it's the more popular designs that will sell the most and, thus, be injected.

That leaves 3d printing to play second fiddle. If that.

You then have the fact it's its own hobby and only of interest to some people, competing against resin and metal casting.

Plus the choice (?) between home, service, and business 3d printing.

All the while injection is packaged, branded and on the shelves being sold.

Injection needs no more advancements, although it will probably get them.

3d printing definitely does need advancements (to be competitive), which we are yet to see.

Most people are still : walk into shop buy orcs. If not mail order.

PS

An interesting poll idea, if only for TMP. How do you get you minis and approx % per, sculpt cast in metal, sculpt cast in resin, computer engineering 3d print, buy files 3d printing, buy files 3d printing service, buy moulds cast in metal, buy online new, buy on line second hand, buy in store new, buy in store second hand. I'm sure there are few more ways too.

Wargames in many cases is now so diverse that Injection molding is not always a sensible option. In my case some excellent injection mounded 1/44 minis were available but they did not sell well enough to make it viable and they are no longer available. They were never available for the less used vehicles like engineering vehicles so they were never going to be a complete solution and 1/44 figures were never available for my period.

I did originally have to put up with the dreaded metal, as you would expect, ill fitting, badly scaled and too much flash. Fortunately it coincided with the rise of 3D printing so now decent stuff is available. There is some 1/144 WW2 injection molded stuff coming on but that is not my period.

Shops in the UK are rare and usually are model based not wargames so have little of use to folk like me, so it was never an option. You can buy ready printed stuff but its far cheaper and easier to print your own using FDM.

"ill fitting, badly scaled and too much flash."

That very much depends on the manufacturer.

There are 3d prints in the same category.

"its far cheaper and easier to print your own using FDM."

Keeping with the generalisation I see, not everyone has a fancy computer, 3d printer or the computer courses to properly implement them.

Not cheaper, certainly not easier.

I ordered some 3D printed, 1/444 scale, WW I airplanes from Shapeways, years ago. One was the world's first strategic bomber, the Russian Ilya Muromets Heavy Bomber: crew of 12(!); sometimes fitted out with 12(!) Machine Guns; German fighter pilots are documented as being terrified of flying against one, after their first encounter with it. Mine was printed in sintered(?) plastic, and it weighed <30 grams! The second airplane was a German Fighter plane that had a machine gun mounted in the rear seat position's floor, angled down at 45 degrees -- it was custom built for strafing trenches! This model was also printed in the same, milk-white sintered(?) plastic; it weighed 1/2 of what the Muromets bomber did!

Key factors on these two models: no one else made models of these airplanes; they were unique, and highly desired by me; a metal casting of the bomber could never be mounted on a vertical dowel system we use in our Red Baron game rules, as it would be too heavy, but the 3D printed model was lighter in weight than a metal Fighter plane!

There are many figure types which would never sell enough copies to warrant any sort of mold, for mass production. A 3D STL printer file, however, can be Printed On Demand (POD), which is what Shapeways offered -- and it failed for them because their 3D printers were early versions, and extremely costly ($50k and up).

I love the Etsy 3D printer companies who will work with me to print what models I want, and they will scale them up/down for me!!! I contacted an Etsy seller offering laser-cut MDF triangles: I needed them cut to a very specific size for a D20 Globe project, using the MDF triangles as faces of the Globe. I gave them the very specific equilateral triangle size I needed, and that I needed 21 of them (one spare, in case I mucked it up). I received the exact size I needed, and the project was completed. I also ordered some 3D fantasy figures from another Etsy seller, asking them to scale the figures down from 32mm to 28mm for me: he did, he printed them after I paid for them, and I am very happy with them.

I have investigated buying a 40W Chinese Laser Cutter/Engraver, but once I finished my projects, it would sit collecting dust until I sold it off. It was cheaper/easier to work with an Etsy seller: they invested in the equipment; they learned the operational software, and all the needed things to run the equipment. I just tell them what I want, and they tell me a price; I pay them, they print it, and ship it to me. I get what I want, they make money, and we are both happy.

Etsy sellers have worked superbly for me. Cheers!

Specific game rules may need specific things.

Those planes may prove unsatisfactory if the rules needed them to float on a tray of water, for example. The way that stuff soaked up paint, they would likely sink.

Polyurethane and some other resins are lighter than metal, so would be other options.

I feel, as far as 3d printing, like many things, people will gravitate towards services as mentioned.

It has such a buy in and learning curve.

But I reiterate.

I once owned a 1/72 Ilya Murometz. I didn't know! 😳 It was some Eastern European plastic model kit. I never finished it because I had nothing big enough to store it in.

I am sure that any 3D print company that advertises here (like myself) take on custom print jobs for those that don't want a new hobby of printing their own but would like some of the miniatures that are available.

I just printed a commission for ACW Ironclads for a customer. He bought the files, sent them to me and I gave him a quote. Two days later he had them in his hand.

Chris

"any 3D print company that advertises here…take on custom print jobs for those that don't want a new hobby"

We all know the stereotype -"excuuse me?"

And from Mr McCallister – "I don't think so."

Some may, but any is probably a stretch.