Necromunda Terrain

 Every since I moved into the new house a year ago I've been having weird issues with my FDM printer. It would randomly stall during long printers, and somethings even small prints. About 10% of the time it would lockup. So I finally got around to tracing the issue back to the Raspberry Pie I was using and the OctoPrint system. I scrapped it and reinstalled clean with only the parts of the OS and add-ins that I use and the old CR10 printer has been cranking out great prints ever since. The old printer is now three years old and still going strong, so cost wise its easily paid for itself with all the terrain and models I've mode over that time.

 I've been steadily printing terrain for Necromunda and or other Sci-Fi games. I'm defiantly hanging out of some table top time in the near future, once the government lets us out to play. In the mean time I have a fair bit of terrain to paint.

Them Trolls

 I managed to get in some painting time today. So to start with and to do something different from Necromunda models I started on my three trolls for LOTR. Using alternative models I had printed up last week. 

I'd been having issue gluing the resin models together, so after some advice from a Mark the other week, I ordered some accelerator for super glue, which turned up on Friday. It works really really well, and I've been able to glue the resin parts together really easily. It's awesome stuff. The Zap Zip Kicker is well worth it, saves time and frustration.

I've got the first few colors down on the trolls along with the first skin wash.

While I wait for the troll wash to dry I moved onto a few more Necromunda models and got the base colors down....man I'm so looking forward to actually playing some games...soon I hope, once we get out of lockdown.

Completion in site

 A very busy week at work and not much energy to do too much in the evenings, so I haven't done much over the last week or so. Today however  I made up a bracket for the 120mm fan and mounted into the cabinet today. Using the supplied bolts that came with the fan along with some rubber washers to reduce the vibration transfer from the fan to the cabinet. Then just used some tape to seal up 2mm gap created by the washers.

The cabinet is working really well, and hopefully my second voltage controller will turn up in a few weeks, after the first one was busted, in the mean time I can just run the fan at full speed.

The voltage controller will be the final bit to go into the cabinet, and now I'm working on the window attachment to hold the exhaust exit tube and secure the window shut.

My Escher Gang for Necromunda is coming along nicely (all to slowly)  and I even found my old 40K buildings. I've still got another 10 or so models for the Escher gang to paint, along with a bunch of cyberpunk models to make up another gang.

I'm really looking forward to getting out of lockdown and playing some games.

The Big Test

 With the intake fan done and working, plus with the other parts a few weeks away I decided to setup the new printer cabinet and test it out in its current state. So with a hand from the wife we put it up on the workbench (gotta look after the old back these days)  where it will live. I cabled in the printer power and set up the resin printer. It was leveled perfectly ... share fluke on that part. 

Once the printer was in, I really showed that I need the interior LED's setup for sure, as the cabinet really cuts down the light even with both doors fully open. Of course that's one of the functions and reasons for the cabinet. Working space inside the cabinet is perfect, not to small and not to large to interfere with the aircon unit on the wall above the cabinet. 

I'm currently using an old servicing tray under the printer for drips and spill protection. I've used it for years for undercoating mini's. I'm sure its doubled in thickness with all the overspay in the 10 odd years I've been using it. I'll have to get around to getting something a little more cleanable once we are out of lockdown and shops are open once again.

I've started on my clear bottle of Anycubic basic resin using the same settings as what I used on the clear green resin. And attempting to print these lovely girls to add to my Necromunda gang.

Hopfully the settigns arent to differnet... still got a lot to learn about the settings for the differnet resins.

Smaug print

 So I've now completed the Smaug print and and it's cost me $50.81 in resin. Which is just awesome, if you consider you need to pay $650 NZ dollars to by the Games Workshop version.

Now I just have to sand down the joints a little as they are a bit tight before assembling and painting.

I also spent some time and worked out the costs so far and put everything into a spreadsheet.
At this point having printed 68 miniatures, that's counting Smaug as one, and a little hovercraft for BattleTech which is tiny as one. Just keeping it simple, so  I'm at $33.03 per model, after two and half bottles of resin. I should half that by the time I get through my next two bottle which are included in that price.

Safe to say its not going to take long to justify the costs... not that I have to, but tis good to keep track of costs and see what the models I'm making are actually costing. The running costs are definitely more expensive than filament printing, but the results are just awesome.

I've just cleaned the vat again after printing Smaug's and his huge bases, along with 30 plus models, and its holding up really well now that I have the exposure time correct for the resin. 

These two cyberpunks are off my last print, the quality is awesome, and I'm sure I can actually get it better with more time and tweaking the settings..

Hobby day - Upgrade part two.

 So today has been another full on hobby day, this time I built a small shelf so I could stack my paint holders on top of each other to give myself more painting space. My new room layout is starting to work well. Just need to build a cabnet with extraction for the resin printer... whcih is my next large project once the wood arrives next week. 

 

Once that was complete, I got stuck into printing and also some painting. I’ve now printed enough for two gangs for Necromunda. Although I’ll probably need more models with different weapon options.

Completed printing, green stuffing and undercoat the Gorgoroth for Lord of the Rings. I printed it on my FDM printer so a little warping on the print bed meant it needed a little green stuff to fill in the gaps. Overall I'm pretty pleased with it. 

Necromunda ... Old School.

 Yep, that’s right , the old school version of Necromunda has made a return to my shelves, after I found a copy online along with the source book. I just couldn’t go past it. Both books have now turned up and are in very good nick considering their age, so I'll be digging though all my old models to find if I have any left and then printing off extras that I'll probably need. 

 

No guess if what I'll be going for first ... House Escher of course.

 

I've been busy testing and learning how to use my new Resin Printer, currently using this nice Cyber punck sniper as my test model.

On the LotR, I moved back to my FDM printer to do the Gorogoth, as the actual size was way bigger than I expected, and at the full size, printing in resin just didn’t make sense, plus I still need to learn heaps more before tackling large prints in resin.

I have got alot further with the setting and setup, so I'm getting half decent prints now in resin and I've got my process of cleaning and curing down. So much to learn, but its a good kinda of learning.