Month: October 2025

French Ironclad Admiral Duperre, Initial Blender work

Frances ironclad Admiral Duperre after about 3 weeks of Blender work

Oct. 27 2025

Winter’s coming and I need a new resin printer anyway, it’s time to switch to Blender design work and prepare for next seasons model building projects.

Having had a most excellent time with Charles Martel, and really loving the steam punk look of her, I decided to go back to the source of tumble home goodness.
I spent a day or so doing a deep dive into France’s early ironclads, her pre-pre-Dreadnoughts if you will. So many interesting options, (the ironclad era is chock full of them from all nations). It didn’t take too long before I found what I was looking for: Admiral Duperre .
Sticking with France also allowed a connection to Charles Martel and you can readily see the evolution of design ideas.

I found Admiral Duperre to be an irresistible subject for modeling, she has so many naval design eras baked in:
– Straight from antiquity, the prominent ram bow and forecastle.
– From the preceding generation of ironclad frigates, 14 massive muzzle loading broadside canons 7 per side.
– Again from the age of sail, schooner rigging! Or was it barque? Anyway she’s got sails for Pete’s sake!
– The latest ironclad innovations were also present: Steam engines powering duel props, a fully steal and armor plated hull, 4 armored barbettes housing massive breach loading 13.4″ rifled cannons, (in pseudo turrets even!)
– And my three favorite design elements, two of her massive barbette guns are arranged forward, side by side in wing turret fashion, she’s got two giant side by side smoke stacks right behind them and of course a sexy tumble home hull.

I’m thinking she’s about half done. maybe an additional month or two of Blender design work before I’ll switch to parting mode, breaking her up into printable chunks. Hopefully I’ll have a new resin printer by then.

Update: Dec. 16, 2025

Admiral Duperre Blender work complete

What Screen Death Looks Like On My Elegoo Saturn

Results from tank clean command on my Elegoo Saturn’s dying LCD screen.

Oct. 9, 2025

A sad day, confirming my long held belief that there was something off with my Elegoo Saturn. I knew it had a dead spot at 12:00 and that failures were frequent below it too. I mention this as early as my Revell Arizona 1917 conversion project with the box of failure picture. I’d come to avoid the vertical center of the Saturn’s build area for all of my recent German Recognition ship prints. With their completion I finally drained the vat and took a look at what was going on.

What an odd death pattern. I get and expected the 12:00 patch of darkness but the brightness around it is odd, as is the dim area just under the brightness. I’m guessing the left and right flanks are normal? I’d still had good luck printing in those areas. Or is the brightest area around the 12:00 dead zone the only part still functioning at 100%? The underlying grid pattern is also unexpected and seems like it could cause issues. I wish I’d done this test when I first got the printer to establish a base line. Also wish I knew what could cause these types of failure. Think I’ll post this on Redit and see if anyone can enlighten me.

While I’ve had the Saturn for about 3 years it had only run for approximately 200 hours before the first Arizona print failures, not much by any standard. I did do all my printing in an unheated/un-cooled shed so it did see temps in the range of 40-100 degrees Fahrenheit, but the same is true for my Creality LD-002r resin printer and it’s still fine with much more print time on it.

I’ve looked into replacement screens and they are no longer available from Elegoo. The only option I’ve seen is from Chitu box, they don’t look identical to the Elegoo part but are likely fine, if I wanted to spend $119 USD on Amazon. Currently the Saturn 2 & 3 are still selling new for $279 with slightly larger build areas and much higher resolutions, though I do hate rewarding such poor durability and support with repeat business.

I suppose I can keep using it “as is” for a while longer, maybe prices will drop or a new killer resin printer will be released. With winter coming there’s no rush for me to buy new right now.