USS Atlanta CL51, LD-002r 3D printed in 1/450 Scale

3d printed ship models

Posted: 11/8/2020
This is my second attempt at building the USS Atlanta. My first was made using a DaVinci Mini. I liked it at the time but my recent efforts using the LD-002r to print fine details, blow it away and I like the Atlanta design too much to settle.

This was my first LD-002r print using opaque resin, I’m still on the fence about it. In Chitubox I increase the level exposure time from 6 seconds (that I used with clear resins) to 8 seconds but I still found that the most delicate parts failed to print and some layer de lamination was occurring. To my understanding that should signal increasing the exposure time a bit more, however the larger superstructure objects still came out just a tad larger than they should have and that suggests too long an exposure time… Perhaps the opaque resins are not as good rendering filigree design elements as the clear?

Below are the LD-002r prints I used to create USS Atlanta. I was very tempted to print the hull with the LD-002r as well, but chickened out. I decided to stick with what I knew and used my Ender 3 Pro. All said, no big surprises during the printing phase.

A few parts aren’t 3D printed: the main radar and crane cabling are both combinations of photo etch and stretched plastic sprue, the doors on the superstructure are photo etch, the jackstaff and flagstaff are both stretched sprue as is all the rigging.

One fail I experienced on this build was an attempt to drill (by hand) port holes into the bridge of the main superstructure. I didn’t think I could pull it off but wanted to try… They were not precisely equidistant, of uniform size or level and the defects were glaringly obvious. You can see the necessary repairs in one of the built but not yet primed shots. Over all though, this project went smooth and fast. For a fairly small amount of time and effort this version of Atlanta is head and shoulders above my first.

My first USS Atlanta attempt made with just the DaVinci Mini, spare PE and wire.

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