USS Bogue 3D printed in 1/450 scale using Creality Ender 3 Pro and LD-002r printers

3d printed ship models

Update 7/4/2020

I chose USS Bogue to be my first upgrade project. She would be the test bed for incorporating high detail replacement parts printed with my new Creality LD-002r resin printer. I replaced her bridge, its radar mast and all the dual 40mm Bofors. While I was happy the Ender could do as well as it did, I was hoping the LD-002r would produce much finer detail. I wasn’t disappointed. Compare the work of the two printers in the new pictures above to the original build pictures below.

Original Post: 06/08/2019

This is the WW2, escort carrier USS Bogue, 3D printed in 1/450 scale. The link will bring you to her Wiki page where you can read about her stats and impressive service history (she was the most successful anti-submarine carrier in World War II). This page is primarily about making the model and the 3d printers used to do it.

Time for new hardware

I’d been researching a new 3D printer for about a year, ever since my first decent prints on my DaVinci Mini. I was loving it and knew I’d want to make more models and do them: better, faster, cheaper and easier. I was looking into resin based LED or DLP printers as the cost was becoming doable and quality is excellent. But the stars just would not align. Some are dirt cheap but have tiny build areas and all the affordable ones are a hassle and expense to maintain. Others have decent build areas with reasonable maintenance but cost a few grand… and they all seem to stink. Just about every resin printer seems to have odder issues to one degree or another.

Choice made

I chose the Creality Ender 3 Pro as my low cost, low risk upgrade and after just a few test prints I was glad I did. The print quality is noticeably better than the DaVinci Mini’s (it’s still PLA, so better could be better…) Its build area at 220x220x250mm is 46% larger, so I’m building bigger models in fewer parts, Its heated bed allows me to print most jobs without a brim and with minimal warping. The DaVinci’s need of a brim on every print was robbing me of 20mm on the X and Y axis, making the Ender’s effective build area increase 60%. I only needed to add 1 vertical hull slice! The DaVinci Mini would easily have needed 2.

Bogue in Blender and XYZmaker and the printed parts.

The Ender’s cost was almost as low as the DaVinci Mini’s ($220.00 delivered from Amazon). The only desired feature it fails on is speed. Its increased quality prints take a bit longer.

To be fair, the DaVinci Mini is a great starter 3D printer, it holds your hand. It’s self leveling with practically no assembly required. The DaVinci is unpacked, plugged in and printing quickly. Its software is simple and intuitive. Heck, I may never have tried 3D printing if I thought the learning curve and price were too steep. In short the DaVinci Mini was a gateway printer – and for me, well worth the money.

New hardware, new software…

I used Blender for most of the design work on Bogue. It’s one of the most capable and complicated pieces of software I’ve ever used and surprisingly bug/crash free (especially for freeware). However, I still made some parts with XYZmaker, as I just find it faster and easier to use. I used Ultimaker’s Cura slicing software to create the Ender’s GCode print files. It’s a tweakers dream come true with hundreds of configurable options. Unlike Blender, Cura has an “easy button” I just picked the Ender 3 Pro from a drop-down and used the associated default settings. That got me started quickly. Of course, I’ve since played with those settings 🙂

Everything took longer on Bogue. Designing, printing, building you name it, it took longer. I was able to use the Ender to create some of the finer parts that I would have previously scratch built from wire and such. The lattice mast, radar arrays, 5 inch guns and 40mm Bofors were all printed. I still used wire from twist ties for the 20mm AA gun barrels, and a bunch of photo etch rails but that’s about it. I hope the visitor sees this USS Bogue as an improvement over my previous efforts. Currently it’s my favorite 3D printed model but then again I’m biased.

The other models I’ve built on the Ender are CV IJN Hosho and DD IJN Akazuki. Both are printed, assembled and primed but need their proper paint jobs and finish work (small parts, P.E. etc.). They should be up in a month or so…

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