Author: joe

3D printed Prinz Eugen model

August 31, 2023

After completing my 1.5 year long magnum opus called Charles Martel, I wasn’t ready for another long term commitment but I did want to putter around with something…
I remembered the 1/500 scale WWII German recognition models made by Comet and thought they’d be perfect. Here is the first: Prinz Eugen.
I also wanted to fire up the Ender 3 again and thought it would be a good fit for the “Wooden” hull parts. I used my Elegoo Saturn for the parts that would have been cast lead on the Comet models.
She’s not a perfect replica – I made some minor improvements and a couple mistakes but at less then a month from design to done – close enough!

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

Charles Martel French Battleship, 3D printed with an Elegoo Saturn

This post introduces the Charles Martel project page. The Charles Martel was a French pre-dreadnought battleship from the end of the 19th century. Her 1/200 scale model has been by far my most ambitious 3D build, taking over a year and a half from Blender design to display case. Her project page has a ton of Elegoo Saturn print example shots, in-progress build pictures, and comments from the assembly process, below are a few images from it.

Introducing my 1/450 scale IJN Mogami project page

Completed shortly after USS Helena CL50 and using all the same tricks, my IJN Mogami project was a fun and easy build. Like Helena, it was created using both a Creality Ender 3 Pro filament printer and an LD-002r resin printer.

My First Elegoo Saturn Project

Elegoo Saturn 3D print project USS Tigrone
Elegoo Saturn 3D print project USS Tigrone, partial print fail

It was a long time coming but I finally completed my first large, resin only project, using my new Elegoo Saturn 3D printer. Follow the link to USS Tigrone‘s project page for details and lots of print and build pictures.

Update: To see my most ambitious Elegoo Saturn project, check out Charles Martel

My m26 Pershing is complete!

WW2 US Pershing Heavy Tank
WW2 US Pershing Heavy Tank
WW2 US Pershing Heavy Tank
WW2 US Pershing Heavy Tank

Posted: Jan 1, 2021.
Happy New Year everybody!
My WW2 US m26 Pershing heavy tank project is complete!
I’m very happy with the Blender design and my Creality Ender 3 Pro & LD-002r 3D printers did a great job rendering the parts for this project. Assembly and painting went well and tricking her out and weathering her was a blast.

I’m totally remembering why my 15 year old self loved building armor 🙂

Check out the m26 Pershing project page for all details and pictures.

US Pershing Heavy Tank, Assembled and Primed

WW2 US Pershing Heavy Tank primed
WW2 US Pershing Heavy Tank primed
WW2 US Pershing Heavy Tank primed
WW2 US Pershing Heavy Tank primed
WW2 US Pershing Heavy Tank assembled
WW2 US Pershing Heavy Tank assembled

Posted: 12/23/2020
The hard parts are done, now my favorite aspect of model building starts, the finish painting and weathering.

If I ever make this model again I’ll definitely make some design changes. shown is my third turret design and I’m still not 100% happy with it. Also missed a flaring out of the tread covers on the rear insides. The treads and wheels were a pain to assemble and I wasn’t able to pull off functional treads as I had hoped, ended up gluing them all together, oh well, in a larger scale it would have worked!

All in all though, I like the looks of her so far.

Update: 1/1/2021
My m26 Pershing is now complete, visit the new project page for more details and the finished model pictures.

M26 Pershing Project, 3D printed parts using Creality Ender 3 Pro and LD-002r printers

WW2 US Pershing Heavy Tank model 3D printed parts
WW2 US Pershing Heavy Tank model 3D printed parts
WW2 US Pershing Heavy Tank model 3D printed parts
WW2 US Pershing Heavy Tank model 3D printed parts
WW2 US Pershing Heavy Tank model 3D printed parts
WW2 US Pershing Heavy Tank model 3D printed parts
WW2 US Pershing Heavy Tank model 3D printed parts
WW2 US Pershing Heavy Tank model 3D printed parts
WW2 US Pershing Heavy Tank model 3D printed parts
WW2 US Pershing Heavy Tank model 3D printed parts

Posted: 12/21/2020
Printing for this project went smoothly, even though the LD-002r bits were printed in my unheated shed with temps in the mid to upper 30s. The turret shown is my 3rd printed – due to poor designs on my part and no fault of the printer. The first just looked too fat and the second one’s rear extension was all wrong. As I mentioned in an earlier post much of the hull assembly is already done so, initial build pictures may be up before Christmas.

Update: 1/1/2021
My m26 Pershing is now complete, visit the new project page for more details and the finished model pictures.

Blender M26 Pershing

WW2 US Pershing Heavy Tank blender design
WW2 US Pershing Heavy Tank blender design
WW2 US Pershing Heavy Tank blender design

Posted: 12/19/2020
I’ve been working on my M26 Perching design sporadically since I finished the King Tiger. Every time I thought I was done I’d find a picture online that told me I wasn’t. This incarnation, while nowhere near perfect, I feel I can live with. I find designs in armor scales need to be more precise than those of ships. Small errors and intentional design simplifications are hardly noticeable in 1/450 scale but seem glaringly obvious in 1/35.

Most of the parts are now printed. As with my latest ship models I used both my Ender 3 Pro and LD-002r printers on this project. With winter here to stay, I won’t be using the LD-002r again till it warms up. Much to my surprise, I was able to keep on printing with it out in the tool shed, while outside temps were only in the upper 30’s. So if you have a garage (and a sensitive spouse) you’ll probably still be able to print year round – even if you live up north.

Much of the assembly is also complete, so more posts are sure to come.

Update: 1/1/2021
My m26 Pershing is now complete, visit the new project page for more details and the finished model pictures.

LD-002r Printed Fine Detail Parts for 1/450 Scale WW2 Warship Models

Posted:11/3/2020
Because a picture is worth 1000 words, text for this post will be brief!
The ability to easily create accurate, detailed, replacement parts for model kits is something I’ve wanted to be able to do ever since I started work on my Hasegawa USS Missouri.. If you’ve read some of my other LD-002r posts you may have seen me struggle to get consistent results with high detail. Well I finally feel I’ve got a good grasp on what the Creality LD-002r 3D printer can do and how to go about doing it. In short I’m in scale model heaven!

And just for the fun of it, some close up pictures of an old favorite of mine: the US 40mm quad Bofors AA gun mount.

This post was a long time in the making – I’d intended to do multiple posts of the various objects but time got away from me, so here they all are in one big exposé. However, while there may be plenty of LD-002r output pictures, this post is short on “how to” information, you can find quite a bit of that in my Creality LD-002r First Print Examples, Experiences, Fails post.