"A question to those who 3d print WW2 armor" Topic
11 Posts
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| captaincold69 | 12 Aug 2025 8:16 a.m. PST |
I have a local guy who can 3d print for me. He has been printing the Bergman tanks for me in 10mm and they look great. I want to get into some 20mm gaming and I had a few questions. 1) can the Bergman files be upscaled for 20mm?
2) if so, how do they look?
3) how much did you upscale them?
4) are there better files out there to use instead of the Bergman files? 5) I know I'm going to get a cleaner print with resin, but I've seen some nice clean FDM prints, but I can still see the print lines. Should I even consider FDM print? Thank you |
| Andy Maloney | 12 Aug 2025 8:49 a.m. PST |
Hmmm I'll have a go at these – 1. Yes but they do lack some details i.e. machine guns, tracks and wheels 2. Good enough for wargame purposes 3. 178.57% but I always look for dimensions on-line and adjust from there. 4. Yes look for specific vehicles on sites like Thingiverse, several creators have upgraded/modified his models. 5. For me no, I like my resin printer and the prints I can get. |
Micman  | 12 Aug 2025 8:59 a.m. PST |
5. I say it would depend on the model being printed. I use my resin printer for all the small things, up to figures. I have however printed some 28mm test figs on my FDM printer and they came out ok. I have been printing lots of 15mm stuff for Return of the Tripods. The vehicles came out fine. The artillery was to small to get a print on FDM. So the answer is it depends. |
| Andrew Walters | 12 Aug 2025 9:14 a.m. PST |
I have printed a *lot* of his models, mostly for fun. They are superb. At scale they have just the right level of detail. For fun I have printed them out very, very small (sub 6mm) and pretty large (3"+). They always look great. And his work is very complete for WW2 and nearly so for WW1! And it's free! We all owe that guy a debt. My opinion:
The problem with layer lines is that when you paint the model capillary action pulls the paint into the grooves and things look terrible. So paint as little as possible. With FDM I buy filament in the final body color of the tank. Yes, that means I have a lot of colors, a spool is $15 USD-25 for all the minis you could ever, ever print. Then paint the tracks with the thickest paint you can find. Pick out just a couple of darker details, call it done. This is, as they say, good enough for wargaming, especially if you're older… You might be tempted to do a couple of highlights. This is treacherous. If the dark paint flows into the layer lines you can't really see it, but if light colors do this you can see it real well. Luckily the STL if free and you have a doggone kilogram of olive drab or medium grey, so you can print a lot and experiment. If you're careful you might master a technique. So… 1 – yes
2 – awesome
3 – I scaled them to measurements from reference, not a fixed %
4 – I don't know, was not motivated to even look
5 – see above, personal preference. I have both FDM and resin printers, so I'm agnostic there. FDM is much, much easier. Not only the printing, but when it comes off the printer it's already the right color, you just do a few spots of paint and you're table-ready. Easier than priming and base coating and so on. |
| N Drury | 12 Aug 2025 9:17 a.m. PST |
There are several other good designers whose files are available on Thingiverse, in particular tigerace1945' link and jerryflame555, link |
| captaincold69 | 12 Aug 2025 9:40 a.m. PST |
@N Drury Are those 2 designers stl's geared toward a specific scale? Thanks for those suggestions Thanks to all for their commemts |
| DeRuyter | 12 Aug 2025 9:52 a.m. PST |
I have to disagree with Andrew on Resin v FDM for vehicles. I take the point that colored filament may reduce painting time but the quality of resin minis is so much better. He is basically saying watch how you paint with FDM vehicles because you'll see the lines! With resin you can paint exactly like you would for a plastic kit – decals, proper weathering etc. If you use a printing service just make sure they use a good, tough resin. These days resin printing is not much trouble and it is easy to dial in your settings. Also check on Wargames3d for WWII vehicles. |
 Yellow Admiral | 12 Aug 2025 5:15 p.m. PST |
The m_bergman 1/144 (12mm) tanks I've got were scaled up from 1/200 STLs, and the gun barrels are… robust. There are other bits that seem a bit oversized, or perhaps overthick, or chonky, however you want to put it. I'm still pretty happy with the miniatures – the extra thickness makes the barrels more durable, and the miniatures are small enough that it doesn't matter too much, but I admit they don't look quite right when mixed with non-Bergman miniatures (like the super-nice Victrix and Takara models). I also have this problem with 1/200 plane STLs scaled up to 1/144 scale. (Not m_bergman STLs, but same problem.) 1/200 to 1/144 doesn't sound like that much of a difference, but it's definitely visible in the print. You should start with the 1/100 m_bergman STLs to minimize this problem, but expect to still see some distorted elements. Maybe try a few test prints before you commit to too much. - Ix |
| UshCha | 13 Aug 2025 7:07 a.m. PST |
I strongly suggest you see what scale your 10mm are. My experience is that many designer treat scale as an advisory, not a vial piece of reality. I print modern tanks and AFV's. Normally 1/144 so prety much actaul scale (ABOUT 12MM). They scale SCALE UP properly at 200%. OK but the machine guns and tracks are a bit oversize. Howeever older models at 1/72 were crap anyway so a good 1/144 modern well done ST,L scaled up would fit right in. On the plus side the sightly beefy MG's are far more robust than a real scale MH at 1/72. As wargames items I have scaled up my 1/144 figures to 1/72 and in some ways they are better, very robust without the ridiculous out of scale features of some 1/72 models. |
| N Drury | 13 Aug 2025 8:54 a.m. PST |
The two I mentioned are 1:100 by design but have come out well at othe scales. Tiger Ace artillery are very good. |
greenknight4  | 17 Aug 2025 8:57 p.m. PST |
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