scaleModelGuy Home – The Union of Scale Model Building, 3D Printing and Art

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Welcome

I’m Joe, the scale model guy. I chose the site name: scaleModelGuy.com, for many, many reasons. The most compelling being that all the better names were taken and Ya, I do like building scale models.
You can check out my projects and reviews from the vertical picture menu at right (below for mobile).

Some of you may wonder if I’ve pilfered much my content from Foobuggy.com.
Yes I did.
But it’s OK.
I was the Foobuggy.com guy too.

Foobuggy was my personal site and was being overrun with with model building ramblings and posts and not surprisingly, cat and foliage pictures weren’t a big hit with the scale modeling community.
Changes had to be made.

If you visit a few of my project pages you may see a fair number of them are 3D printed models that I’ve built with either my Ender 3 Pro or Da Vinci Mini printers (Edit: I’ve added: LD-002r & Saturn resin printers). 3D printing will likely be either the death or future of the scale model building hobby.
Probably both.
Today’s manufactures may struggle and fail, while the hobbyists thrive.
Change is inevitable.

Anyway, it’s a great time to be a modelist!
Hope you like the new site.

Joe – the SMG.

Elegoo Saturn Print Examples

German Graf Zepplin aircraft carrier 1/500 scale

German Admiral Scheer Pocket Battleship 1/500 scale

This post is long over due and the printer that created these print examples is now well past it’s sell by date. That said, I still wanted to post a collection of print examples from my Original Elegoo Saturn 3D printer as I’ve found it to be a tremendously capable and reliable printer.

I’m also hoping that seeing what a now obsolete resin 3D printer can do in the hands of an amateur, may inspire a few creative types to take the plunge! Again, that said: For the Love of God! read up on my earlier Saturn and LD-002r posts to more fully see what you might be getting into!

Once again, that said: Worth it!

New Project Time?

Imperial German Navy, WWI Torpedo Boat: V69

I still have the Revell USS Arizona WWI conversion project to finish, it’s been more challenging than expected but once she’s done, I’ve a choice to make.

Over the last few years, mostly while printing, building and recovering from Charles Martel, I’ve kept busy in Blender revisiting some of my earlier, favorite designs, rebuilding them from the ground up to be reprinted on my Elegoo Saturn. This allowed/required me to increase their detail levels to take advantage of the Saturn’s capabilities and also because I’ll be printing some of them in a larger scale. During this time I also completed a couple totally new designs, IJN Yamato and a German Schnellboot, and last and yes least, there’s my tiny Japanese WWII plane collection in 1/450 scale, intend to augment some of my “finished” Japanese ships. They’re fairly simple and were fun Blender designs to create, only taking a day or so each.
I’m almost ready to dive in, but which to start?
Decisions, decisions!

Revell USS Arizona WWI Conversion

Revell Arizona retro 1917 refit - Blender parts

Since I was a teenager I’ve wanted to modify the Revell USS Arizona kit, building it in her original WW1 1916-1918 configuration. With the advent of affordable and capable 3D printers, the time has come to give it a shot!

Above are the Blender renders of the major parts I’m planing to print to pull this off. I want the new parts to blend in with the existing Revell kit, so yeah, I built me some stepped pyramid stairways, and even kept an inaccuracy in the details on the forward superfiring barbette to better match it’s stern Revell counterpart. I’ll likely need to experiment with the thickness on the individual cage mast rods. The Elegoo Saturn can print details at .05mm but I’m pretty sure if I tried printing them at that thickness the result would be a blob on the bottom of the resin vat.

If I end up creating a project page called: WWI Revell Arizona, you’ll know it all worked out! 🙂

Joe

Graf Zeppelin 1/500 scale German recognition model complete

My Graf Zeppelin German aircraft carrier, is complete. She fits in well with the rest of the fleet. A faux WW2 recognition model, she probably has a bit more detail than a real one would’ve but I couldn’t resist, the under deck support details were just too cool to omit. She’s a whopper too, building out to about 21 inches. She was also the most difficult of my recognition replicas to design, her casemated guns were tricky and her high degree of bow flare that blends into the near vertical hanger deck sides took me a while to get right (or at least acceptable) . I actually printed a first draft on the Ender 3 that didn’t look right in hand – huge wast of filament!

I’m thinking I’ll only recreate one each of the light cruisers and destroyers that came in the original 1/500 scale German recognition set. Then I’ll call this project complete. But they’ll have to wait till spring for completion, winter has solidly set in and my resin printing is done in a shed. The Blender work will keep me busy for a bit and I’ve been off and on with a schnellboot design for almost a year…

German Admiral Scheer 1/500 scale ww2 recognition replica complete

Right on the heels of completing Scharnhorst, the design, printing, and assembly of my Admiral Scheer Pocket Battleship/Panzerschiff/Heavy Cruiser, WW2 recognition replica, was a piece of cake. Everything just came together and worked the first time.

My next design will be more challenging and diverges from the authentic 1/500 scale WW2 German recognition sets with a subject that I have always wanted to see included in them – the Graf Zeppelin Aircraft Carrier.

German battleship Scharnhorst 1/500 scale ww2 recognition replica complete

Scharnhorst is complete, I’ve been able to take advantage of a relatively warm weather window and print the resin parts for Scharnhorst, Scheer and Graf Zeppelin (GZ is actually still printing, again…). While recreating these recognition replicas has been a blast, I’m finding that without an example in hand, it’s difficult to stick to the original designs as seen from pictures on the web. I inevitably need actual pictures of the real ships to fill in the blanks and when I start designing from them, it’s painful to stop, and retain the often inaccurate design elements of the actual recognition models.

When I get all the ships completed I’ll likely make a project page to contain them all but for now this post is it for Scharnhorst.

Graf Zeppelin joins the German 1/500 scale, replica, recognition fleet

Aircraft Carrier Graf Zepplin joins the Blender recognition fleet

While waiting for a weather window to print the resin parts for Scharnhorst and Admiral Scheer I got a jump on the Graf Zeppelin’s Blender design. As was always her way, she’s not quite done yet! I did have a couple days in the low 50’s and after a totally preventable screw-up (I forgot to screw the vat down!) managed to get both their resin parts printed. The 10 day forecast says we’ll get warmish days in a week or so. With luck, I’ll get to print Graf Zeppelin’s resin before spring.

Should have Scheer and Scharnhorst built shortly. Recreating the WW2 German recognition set, has been a fun and fast project.

Update:
Links to posts for the now completed models mentioned above:
Admiral Scheer
Scharnhorst
Graf Zeppelin

Admiral Scheer German 1/500 scale recognition replica, joins my Blender fleet

The Blender work on Admiral Scheer is done, I had a good weather window to print my finished Scharnhorst design but blew it working on Scheer instead. Printing Scharnhorst will have to wait. With some luck I’ll be able to print the resin parts for both if another good day comes along.

Scharnhorst, Joins My WW2 German Fleet of Recognition Replicas in 1/500 Scale

3D Printed WW2 German recognition Fleet Replicas 1/500 Scale

Scharnhorst is almost ready to join my 3D printed WW2 German recognition replica fleet. The blender model still needs some finish work. I need to hollow out the resin parts and clip objects that are partially embedded in other parts but will be printed separately. With any luck I’ll have some warmish days to print the resin parts before the cold sets in for the season.

I don’t have an original Comet model of Scharnhorst, I searched online and used the few halfway decent pictures I could find and diagrams of the actual ship. When printed she will fill a whole in my collection nicely.

I’ll likely have plenty of time this winter to design the rest of the set. I’ll be starting the Blender design of Admiral Scheer next. I don’t have an original model of her either…

3D printed Turpitz 1/500 scale model

October 11, 2023

After completing the Prinz Eugen replica Comet recognition model, it was only natural to follow up with Turpitz.
Again I used the Ender 3 Pro for the “Wooden” hull parts and my Elegoo Saturn for the parts that would have been cast lead on the Comet models.

As with Prinz Eugen, the pictures with two ships show my printed model next to an original. And again like Eugen, this Turpitz is not a perfect replica – minor improvements were made as well as a few mistakes…
My next version should be close to perfect 🙂

This was a small, simple build, so no project page, just this post.