July 30, 2025
OK, “Completed” may not be the right word, this model is definitely completed but while building it, I discovered my Kormoran design and any future assemblies of it, will benefit greatly from a few changes, more on that in just a bit. Here’s a Wikipedia link: German Auxiliary Cruiser Kormoran, if you’re not familiar with her impressive history it’s definitely worth a read.
The images above are basically of a beta build. The top 6 are of the completed model, the lower three are of the assembled, unpainted ship and two shots of the Ender 3 Pro FDM hull parts. There are no decent pictures of the resin print outs. If you’ve read my Nuremburg post, you may recall I’d discovered what seemed to be a dead spot on my Elegoo Saturn. I needed to rearrange, re-support and re-slice, Nuremburg’s parts in ChituBox to avoid it, in order to get perfect prints. Well… I’d already had Kormoran’s resin parts arranged, supported, sliced and ready to go… So I rolled the dice… and lost, a couple times. Of course it was the superstructure that was over the dead spot and it failed. I ended up just printing two superstructure only parts on either side of the build plate, avoiding the Saturn’s now confirmed center dead spot, both printed perfectly.
Between failed prints and the final superstructure print, I had all the parts needed (and then some) to complete this model.
But as mention above change is need, The torpedo bays in the FDM parts were a bear to get the supports out of, I ended up considerably damaging the hull around the openings doing so – that’s changed to now have separate roof pieces. The amidship gun covers needed reworking as did the bow deck cover over the forward guns. The mast and wench parts were a bear to assemble, they’ve been changed to what I hope is an easier to work with design, and many, many, other small tweaks.
All that said and flaws aside, I do like the looks of her and think this beta build shows potential.