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Hi MeerCat, sorry to hear of your misfortune - having just discovered this thread though, there's a gold mine of great stuff here to admire and take ideas from! Looking forward to seeing what you build next

Dude, your repair and restore project sounds truly daunting. Best wishes!

Thank you all very much for your comments and kind sympathies. I've almost got enough things unpacked/restored to be able to get a start on things. But, per advice received here, I'm going to pick out a new project to undertake just for fun. It's funny really, the things that were smashed all to flinders and then the most unusual things that remained absolutely intact. Weird, man.

Okay, first post in a very long time, lots to cover, but not everything at once. I can see my floor again, having got most everything unpacked and somewhat sorted out so I can find what I need to carry on finishing old projects or get a wild hair and start new ones.

I still need to go completely through Theo's blog on his Ender-3; I had invested almost a year into trying to get mine to work properly, but I still see so many people not only using them but designing prints with the Ender-3 in mind (Black Magic Pixels has a set of Elf Terrain I backed on Kickstarter that is expressly intended for the Ender-3/3 Pro- the dimensions of some of the buildings are exactly the measure of the build plate in either the x or y axis, or both. So I believe that good and even great results can be gotten with it- just not with mine yet. I very much want to get mine running properly, if only to have a second printer to crank pieces out- I have a metric crap-ton of files that need to be made real.

So, for less than the cost of the 'improvements' I sank into the Ender-3 Pro, I bought a Monoprice MP10 Mini:



It is roughly the same footprint as the Ender-3 Pro, although it has a slightly smaller build plate. It was very easy to assemble and run the first print using the included g-code for the 'lucky Chinese Cat':



You never know when you might need one of these around, so I'm glad I printed it. There were zero problems with bed adhesion- in fact, the opposite problem is the case: things stick too well (more on that later). Here's a close up showing that there are some layering issues in places, possibly extrusion problems due to the filament sitting out soaking up moisture for too long, or gcode needing to be tweaked. Even as is, I believe that with a coat of matt urethane, then light primer and paint, the details (especially on something this big) will remain but the layering lines erased:



So right out of the box, using an un-tuned printer and foreign gcode, I got better results than months of playing around with the other ever gave.

My first planned project is a walled Chinese compound (I think could be used for Shogun gaming also) using files created by the Excellent Ian Lovecraft. I learned my lesson building the Imperial Guard outpost out of a multiple picture frame all in one piece:



(That sucker is 30 inches on a side.) So for this I ordered in some 12 inch square pieces of Russian birch panels, intended for CNC milling and carving, or wood-burning with a laser, to divide the compound into four quadrants. Each will have an item of focus (house, shrine, drums, etc) and could be used separately, I guess. But I really intend for them to be joined together to form a large gaming space:









The two blue pieces I actually managed to get off the Ender-3 Pro, after replacing the feeder mechanism. Unfortunately, the spool ran out after the smaller house and I found I had a whole new range of problems when I tried to run the next one doing everything as much the same as I could. Everything in grey is off the MP10 Mini and none of it has been cleaned up yet (the odd stringing tags and what have you). The Foo Dogs you see in the one shot measure about 1.25 inches long- not bad for an FDM printer, I think.

More photos to follow, especially as I get more pieces printed, enough to finish off a quadrant and start priming and painting. I did want to get back into the posting game ad have also voted on anumber of pics in the Gallery and left some comments on the great work all y'all are doing.

More follows soonest.

Congrats on the new printer and the repair of the Ender. To my with regard to 3d printing uneducated eye the results look really great and tempting!

Looking forward to seeing the painted board. There are quite some nice Asia themed minis from historical to scifi on the market, that would likely be a lot of fun playing on such an adequate board. Any plans?

Looking like a beautiful board!

Thank you for looking in Max and Gwyn! I've backed two kickstarter by Zenit Miniatures for their Kitai Warlord forces and received the first some time ago (a fair amount of Gong and Terrcotta Dun infantry, some cavalry). The second is for War Elephants and some Qiang Cavalry- so a lot of figures to be painted 'one day'. I have .stl files from a last year for some Chibi style 'warrior critters' from Heresy Labs as well- if the printer continues to hold up, printing some of those out is definitely in the books as well.

More follows soonest!

The new printer seems to be functioning really well out of the box. I'll have to check into the zenit miniatures STL files as those look great.

Great to see a post from you Meer_Cat! I was wondering how you were. Glad to hear about the progress on sorting all your old stuff. Congrats on the new printer, I'm glad it's better behaved than your old one. The boards are looking good so far.

Have fun with the new printer and good to know you're making progress to someday leave the carelessness of those workers behind you!

Thanks very much for looking in Syro, Viterbi!

It is such a different experience to set up and run a print with the fairly reasonable expectation that it will be at least moderately successful, and to know what variables to control for. I'm finally in a position to start doing this 'tweaking' thing that all the cool kids talk about, to get the best prints out of the machine, instead of just getting it to work at all.

I'll be posting some to Theo's blog- he's a got a lot of good material there and it's acting as a nexus for us techno-geeks (in the case of the resin 3d print guys, it is literally a blue light bug zapper lamp that they all swarm around ).

I'm focusing all my printing on the pieces I need for the boards, but have an incomplete print (2/3 went fine, but some residue built up in the Bowden tube, so the top third was just strings, I control for that now by removing and re-inserting the filament every third print or so, that seems to keep it under control) that I'm working up as a separate 'for fun' project- pics follow shortly.

Thanks again for your comments and encouragement- it means a lot!

More follows soonest! .

So, here's an update- a little bit scatterbrained and peripatetic- but an update:

I'm having great fun cranking out a variety of things, so far the MP-Mini-10 shows no sign of resenting almost constant use. First up, some piles of pallets with their basecoat from the 'Guido's Shipping Yard' Kickstarter:



You'll note that the taller pile appears to tilt; this was a lucky accident. I mentioned in an earlier post that adhesion to the build plate was not a problem with the MP-Mini-10, in fact, the opposite was the case- things stick entirely too well. I printed these before I knew I had to put down masking tape on the plate so that I could get things off; the bottom actually tore away and left an angled base. I like the look and will be using this in the junkyard/repair shop/aerial delivery service piece that is still in the queue to get done 'some time'.

Here's a not so happy accident, but when life hands you lemons, give them back and make margueritas:



This is the bottom 3/4 of a Chinese shrine from the set by Ian Lovecraft. As you can see, the top quarter under-extruded (because of a build up of dust/debris in the PTFE tube; to mitigate, I now draw the filament out about every fourth print to make sure there is no build up). But, a little shaping, a little scraping:



Add a wooden platform:



And Bob's your uncle- you have a lookout platform or, in this case, the base for a signal fire. I've got the flame diffuser from an old oil lamp that will make a great bronze fire basket. Which is kind of ironic, since it is made of brass, but to look right, I have to primer it, paint it brass/bronze, then smoke it and weather it. Go figure.

And here are the pieces to do the first quadrant of the walled Chinese compound (this represents about 36 hours total of print time):



This is the gate entrance to the compound and a kind of courtyard that will be fronted on two sides by houses. The next steps for these is to undercoat them with flat matt, then prime them with Rustoleum. There is excellent relief on these pieces, really good depth, so I can layer some coats on them to help smooth out the layer lines from the printing to make them smoother and more natural. Later, most everything get painted and then glued/epoxied down to the square of birch paneling you see in the background.

Outside the wall, in front of the gate, will be this torii gate, which is nearly finished printing:



The MP-Mini-10 is an FDM printer, but this gate printed out with no supports- I'm pretty happy with it. There is another torii gate (a Moon Gate) in the set, very elaborate, as my confidence grows I'll work up the nerve to give it a go.

That's it for now, more follows soonest. Your comments and criticism always welcome.


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The torii gate just finished; it prints with pins and sockets to fit together so tightly it doesn't actually need glue:





More follows soonest!

I am jealous of those prints, very nice finish.

We can’t let our printers talk, they will unionize, and we can’t have that .

Absolutely Theo! I consider myself lucky to have survived the date that SkyNet became self-aware; now all I have to do is survive the robots waking up and realizing they don't need us anymore!

Daleks: Exterminte!

Nomad: This system is less than perfect and must be neutralized...

Borg: Resistance is futile, prepare to be assimilated.

I'm glad to see you are having a lot of fun with your new 3D printer
I enjoy seeing your various projects and builds, but an added benefit of frequenting your blog is that I am often exposed to new vocabulary (even though I consider myself to already have a good vocabulary), so thank you for that as well.

I do thank you Syro, and am glad you find things here that you enjoy. I don't recall using any particularly nifty vocab here, but I do learn a lot from all the rest of you, that's for sure! (I did have one of my students give me the RCA Dog look when I told her to "move with alacrity", had to explain what alacrity was.)

Hit a snag with the MP10-Mini in the form of a clogged nozzle and no back up. So, mandatory (mental sanity) safety stand-down until a new one arrives next Monday (more than one, I ordered two of a bunch of different makes/models/materials to see what works best; when getting the printer, I forgot the basic axiom of the military, carpenters and mechanics: two (of something) equals having one, and having only one means none if it breaks or you lose it).

In the meantime, I got half the pieces for the first quadrant of the Chinese project undercoated with matte varnish (and am dancing around the little apartment singing "Incense and Peppermints" by Strawberry Alarm Clock from the fumes) and messed about with a new liquid pigment product from Greenstuff World.

Every time I think I have everything I need from those guys I get another email showcasing some new thing because shut up and take my money. This time, it was liquid, air-brush-deliverable pigments for rust, dust and earth:







These are terrific- already thin enough to use in the airbrush, or to apply as inks or washes. And really, how often do you see colors like Zinc Oxide, Verdigris and Turquois Flake, anyway?

I mentioned previously basecoating the two pallet gubbins with Rustoleum 2 coat in One (turns out, this one is called 'Fossil', which looks like clay, to me). Tonight I hit them up with some new liquid pigment- brushing it on and then rubbing away the excess with a bit of tshirt material:

This one I used Medium Earth on, and will probably go back and flood some darker color into the cracks with a smaller tip brush:



This taller stack (that leans) I used black soot. I figure to leave it pretty much as is:



Originally, I was thinking these would need three coats to finish off- a base wash, a darker low lights ink and a highlights drybrush. Silly me, all that extra work! I like how they came out with one application of these pigments and am looking forward to trying more of them on more types of surfaces to see how they do. I've become quite a fan of the air brush, so anything I can deliver via that means is already achieving favored nation status for me (although there is lots that only the right good brush can do). I do want to see how these work layered on each other- like on a vehicle muffler with heavy rust at the exhaust welds with lighter rust moving down the pipes and then white oxide highlights here and there. Should be fun. And, with enough fumes, I'm sure I can remember all the words to every Fat Mattress song ever written....

So there you have it, more follows soonest.

It's great to see You have such a good start with Your printer Meer_Cat. I am more than a bit jealous here. And these pigments do look very realistic. May have to look for these specific ones to try. Thumbs up!

Thank you for looking in, Wirecat! And thank you for the kind words. I've been messing about a bit more with the 'weathering washes'/liquid pigments and they are quite fun to work with. If applied over one another wet, they will blend; if I let one layer dry and then add the next, they will layer- it creates a number of interesting looks. Pics follow when I can catch up.

The saga of the 3d printer continues- because apparently nothing is to be easy for me. But hey, the strongest steel comes from the hottest fire (or so they say).

This time, it's replacement V6 nozzles. Mine clogged and just refused to unclog, so I ordered new ones (should have done so earlier). Monoprice themselves don't have any on hand and gave no date when they expected to have more, so I ordered aftermarket ones- from three different manufacturers, thinking at least one would be a suitable replacement for my machine. Nope, every single one was about 3mm longer than the original.

No problem, sez I, I haz a self-leveling 3d printer, I shall let it level itself and it will allow for the 3mm different that the tip of the nozzle sticks out. Much frustration later, nope, it won't.

So, I did what any red-blooded hobbyist would do and attacked the offending nozzle with a razer saw to reduce it's length. One busted razer saw and chewed up nozzle later (it will make a nice bit on some future diorama) and it occurred to me that my Dremel tool and some cut off discs might be the answer.

It was, worked like a charm. Then a half hour fooling around with the z-offset and leveling and self-leveling the build plate and I've got a print running that seems (fingers crossed) to be going smoothly. I'm printing more stone pavement sections for my Chinese village project.

I didn't get much else done tonight, given the attention the printer demanded, but tomorrow I hope to primer the quadrant that is undercoated with matt varnish and maybe even start basecoating the walls. And there is also the signal fire structure to work on as well- I really need to get that 27 hour day perfected, to fit everything in. Our get someone to pay me a ridiculous salary to play with my toys and paint figures for them, that's always a winner.

More follows soonest.

Good luck that your printer woes are now over (for the time being ) and the GSW pigments and their application look really cool!

Wow, seems I was away for waaaay too long !

Please keep up the updates about 3D printing, I was considering it only the other day, but currently resisting due to lack of knolegde !

Thanks for looking in, Viterbi and for the kind wishes. I'm fooling around with these washes now looking for the 'easy' way to mass produce stone paving tiles for all the courtyard pieces. I may wind up cheating a bit and going with the liquid shoe polish dipping technique, but want to try a simple base, wash and drybrush and see how fast I can knock them out. Also not sure if it will prove easier to glue them down first to the birchwood panel or paint them up separately and then wash the seams between them later. Still fiddling. I like the ideas I'm getting from your thread as well.

Hi Big H and nice to see you back! I've been lurking on your thread and need to leave some comments- most excellent work. I can pass along some things that I run into here, but you might also drop in on Theophany's 'Gather 'round the printer, kids" thread: lots of people contribute to that one and you get a lot of information all in one place (not that I don't want you to come here and check things out as well, mind you!).

At the moment, of the four quadrants of what will be the Chinese walled compound game boards, I'm basecoating quadrant one, priming quadrant two and printing pieces for quadrant three. Quadrant four is merely a gleam in my eye at the moment.

I hope to have pics soon, possibly Monday. And in the meantime, I'm still learning a ton from all of you'ns.

More follows soonest!

I'm looking forward to seeing your progress on the Chinese walled compound game board Meer_Cat. Especially the fourth quadrant after that introduction

Hey Syro- unfortunately, the gleam in my eye isn't because I have a definite idea of what to do there, but because I'm spoiled for choice and haven't committed to anything yet!

Still painting (courtyard tiles) for quad one, but have printed the 'bell shrine' that will go in quad 3:









I arranged the three pieces to print as one print job using Cura 4.6.2 (and will upgrade to 4.7 when I have some time). You can see in the first pic the masking tape I have to use because the print adhesion is actually too strong- I tore up the magnetic layer on the metal build plate printing directly to it. Now I have to lay down tape (smooths over the torn pits on the magnetic cover) and still need to use a paint scraper to pry the pieces up off the bed- and then use a little acetone to get the tape off the bottom.

In the second pic you can see how well the bell itself came out. Base coat of bronze, some verdigris airbrushed weathering and then some black wash and I think it will look really nice. The pieces you see here haven't been cleaned up yet- this is exactly how they came off the printer.

In the second and third pics you can see the only hiccup in printing I've encountered with the Monoprice MP-10 Mini in the for of the chrysanthemum greebles that were supposed to be under each of the four roof peaks (one did print, the other three only managed half- the teeny support didn't hold up and the strung out a bit). This is not a showstopper problem: the file set came with greebles to print separately to hang from buildings or walls; I reckon to saw/cut the damaged ones off, print new and glue them in place.

The assembled shrine is quite nice, I think. The roof pillars show a bit of layering and I learned _not_ to use just any old urethane to undercoat and smooth them out- some urethanes will eat away at the PLA filament. But I figure to do two basecoats of paint, or a really good primer, maybe another undercoat with paint and then basecoat. That should smooth out the layer lines. If I do several thin wet layers of red, I might be able to simulate the beautiful lacquer effect of Chinese and other Asian culture buildings.

I'm actually painting tonight too, working on the signal tower, so I hope to edit this post in a little bit with WIP photos of that.

One way or the other, more follows soonest!

unfortunately, the gleam in my eye isn't because I have a definite idea of what to do there, but because I'm spoiled for choice and haven't committed to anything yet!

Heh heh, nothing wrong with that, I'm used to what you craft so I am still looking forward to it.
Those prints look very clean, I am surprised that it is without cleaning them up first. But,I am sorry to hear how tough it have been getting them off the build plate.

Good to know about the supports on the flowers, I cannot wait to print that piece.

I know the problem with too much to print

Thank you for the comments, folks!

Syro: I'm very happy to have the problem of prying the pieces off the build plate, compared to the hairpulling frustration of watching a thirty hour print pull loose from the plate at hour 26 and become ruined, or having to run five or six starts to get the first layer to adhere properly, as with my other printer. Too much sticking is a good problem to have, for me. Also, I'm thinking of maybe just a simple well fo quadrant four, but there is so much to choose from in that particular set.

Theo: In your thread I think you mentioned something about building up to multiple printers so as to be able to produce entire buildings, vehicles, etc faster and I'm in full agreement. I've got .stl sets for entire space- and sailing ships that when complete are over two feet long- mos' def need several printers or I'll die of old age before I ever get anything finished!

On the subject of which, I got the bottom half of the 'hobgoblin barracks' from Iain's first kickstarter printed and am printing the roof now. In the new Asian Adventures set, this is referred to as 'House 2', I think. When the roof is complete I'll post pics of both large houses and the smaller one with one roof variation (it has four) that I've got finished.

Also wrapping up the signal tower for paint and hoping to post pics tonight.

More follows soonest.


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Still need to do a couple things to this signal fire tower, but nearly done (close enough to post here and move along):









The structure itself is the bottom 3/4 of the Chinese Temple Shrine that failed to complete its print properly because of the clogged nozzle. The wooden deck is a plaster casting using Hirst Arts molds. The brazier is a flame diffuser from an Aladdin oil lamp. I actually primered the brass flame diffuser, basecoated it brown, washed it in several coats of bronze and it came out looking like the original brass color. I need to hit it with some verdigris wash and then black, I think. It's too shiny. Used some Cuttlefish Colors kickstarter paints plus some Nocturna kickstarter washes to get everything painted up. I like 'em, but am just as happy with my $1.00 Walmart craft paints, for the terrain at least.

Still working on the courtyard tiles for the walled estate, more follows soonest.

"Rohan will answer!"

Nice work on the tower and it is really fun to see so much 3D printing pop up. It simultaneously makes me want to have one to, but also holds the urge back, by living vicariously through you guys.

 Viterbi wrote:
"Rohan will answer!"

Literally my first thought on this!


Also, came back here to read in the older parts of this thread searching for Athena, which you mentioned in my P&M thread. Fantastic apc conversion indeed. Should have seen her earlier. Lot's of good ideas, especially like the interior! Also love the armoured car based on the BA.

It's funny- the whole time I was knocking the signal tower out, I had the animated version of Mulan in mind; Lord of the Rings trilogy is a much better milieu!

Thank you both for the kind words. The Hanomag and BA64 conversions were both projects that felt right; couldn't wait to get home from work to put some time in on them and almost never put a saw or a brush wrong. This is not to say that the plan didn't evolve as the project went along; I envy those guys that can plan the work out and then work the plan. I have a hazy, general idea of what I want the final product to look like and maybe plan as far ahead as the fist step. Then things change as ideas do or don't work, materials are or are not available or I see something shiny on one of all y'all's threads and have to try to work it in.

I very much appreciate the feedback!

Kind of a quick update- I'm still painting Quad-1, cleaning and priming Quad-2, printing Quad-3 and thinking about what goes in Quad-4.

Here's the three different houses from Iain Lovecraft's first Asian Kickstarter (Hobgoblin City) that I've got completed (the roof for the second style of house- in grey PLA) wasn't quite done before I had to leave last Friday morning):













Some quick notes:

The roofs of the larger houses are interchangeable, as you can see- I actually like the ornate roof on the square pattern decoration house base, but they both look good, I think.

All three have playable interiors.

I think it would be easy to cut out the doorways and build simple sliding doors, to be able to represent locked/unlocked houses.

Even with the printed 'base' for the houses to sit on, they're a bit lower than the courtyard tiles around them. I think a piece of poster/foam core board cut to shape would be the perfect spacer to get them to the right height.

I tells ya, after this walled estate project is printed, I'm half tempted to try printing out the pagoda- all seven stories of it! Fingers crossed that the printer holds up!

More follows soonest.