Update: 7/27/2020
My USS Texas project is finished, for now anyway. I ended up painting her as she currently looks in measure 21: Navy blue on all vertical (and non deck) surfaces and deck blue on all decks. I’m very happy with the result and think she’s my best looking 3D printed ship model to date. Using my new Creality LD-002r LCD printer on the smaller parts worked great. I ended up replacing the Ender 3 Pro printed cranes with LD-002r printed replacements as the detail was just so much better on the resin printed parts. Also printed with the LD-002r were the small boats and all AA guns: Quad Bofors, 3 inch and 20mm AA. Everything else was created with the Ender 3 Pro. I’m also very happy with quartering the ship hull for printing the way I did, it has the pleasing effect of leaving no stepping marks on the deck as deck elevation changes and as a bonus the fine print lines look quite a bit like wooden planks. Why I didn’t try this sooner I’ll never know.
As I mention in an LD-002r post, I’m still planning on making a Texas V2 that uses even more LD-002r parts but it may take a while to rework all the hull elements. For now this Texas is the pride of my 3d printed fleet.
Original post: 5/3/2020
Texas is a work in progress. I started her a couple weeks before my foray into armored vehicles And while working on assembling her I started printing my latest ship design IJN Nagato. On Texas I stumbled once again on getting decent looking small arms to print, the 40mm quad Bofors and the 3 inch and 20mm Oerlikon AA guns. I tried all sorts of different approaches with marginal success. Looked on line for inspiration and found it in the form of a new printer! 🙂
I ended up buying the new Creality LD-002r UV resin LED 3D printer (the link will bring you to https://www.creality3d.shop which is where I ordered mine). It hasn’t arrived yet but with this change of events I decided to hold off on the fine details for both ships until I can give the LD-002r a chance. This could be a game changer for me as I’ve had to toil with the fine parts on my FDM printers from day one. The Ender 3 Pro with it’s large build area is amazing on the larger hull pieces and even the main guns of my 1/450 scale warship models but has struggled on finer details at that scale. Using the LD-002r for them could be the answer. I was leery at first to order from www.creality3d.shop as they seem to be posing as the official Creality retail store (and they are not) but after a fairly length search on line for bad news the only real problem they seem to have is with service – and with 3D printing frankly I expect that… There were no claims of “I never got my printer” or “it’s a scam site”, etc. Some gripes about long shipping times (I can vouch for that) and of things breaking (hope not!) but at their price point I can wait and was willing to take a bit of a chance… I’ll keep you posted.
So for now my Texas and Nagato projects are mothballed, I do like them so far.
(Update: 10/11/2020
I received my LD-002r printer shortly after posting this and it has performed perfectly for months now. You’d be hard pressed to click a recent link on this site and not read about it 🙂
(Update: 1/8/2022
I just noticed that I never included a link to my improved TX2 on this page.
Everything but the hull was printed with a Creality LD-002r resin printer.
Link to great drone footage of USS Texas’s current 2022 dry dock overhaul https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzAzoOc9N2w
Will this model be able to download from you? Or even bought to 3d print?
Unfortunately no, as I mention below, my Texas model’s design was based on someone else’s work. While I needed to do a ridiculous amount of Blender editing to make it printable, I still don’t consider it mine to give away or sell.
Would like to find where you got that Texas model. Been looking everywhere and most that I see do not have the bottom hull
I found it on sketchfab a couple years ago but haven’t seen one in a while. if I were to do a full hull USS Texas today I’d start with the waterline model you’ve found and try to graft the lower hull of this USS Nevada: https://sketchfab.com/3d-models/nevada-4f0c7d1de5e840bf806f35327bb7c661
It would require some work but the general shape is excellent.
Joe-
Thanks for the advice, actually working on this now in Blender
That’s excellent! No idea how well you know Blender but you’ll know it better for the effort. It will be a hard task for a newbie for sure but doable with a lot of trial, error and YouTube!
Good luck and please let me know if and when you post pictures. If you get stuck I may be able to help out too. I know enough to be dangerous 🙂
Joe –
where did you find the files to print the Texas at?
I have been trying to find the files for several yrs now.. as a disabled vet build ship models is what I do to keep busy..
I’ve only ever downloaded 3d files from Sketchfab.com they seem legit and have an excellent selection of free and reasonably priced models. The 3D files you’ll get for something as complex as Texas are not directly printable. You may need to modify the downloaded 3d model for printing as it may have been designed for use in computer games and just can’t be printed as is. You may need to break a model down in order for it to print well or to fit in the build area of your printer.
There are some simplified designs, like 1/100 scale armor or 1/1200 scale ships, that are intended to be printed as is and make excellent starter projects. But I know of no way around the need to learn some design skills in a 3D editing program such as Blender before you can begin to make a ship model that
approach the quality of a halfway decent kit.
I understand that hearing the above may discourage many (It did me) but it really shouldn’t. I got my first 3D printer just 2 years ago. I started with a DaVinci Mini that held my hand and came with super simple design software that eased me into making my own models. Within a couple months I’d designed, printed and assembled my first destroyers, an Allen M Sumner ship and the IJN Yugumo. As I got better with the Mimi’s bundled design software I became more and more aware of its limitations and started messing with Blender (it’s free). No hand holding there but by then I was familiar enough with the concepts that I could at least understand what the many people on youTube were were trying to teach me… YouTube is the best for budding Blender users.
Over time I started using Blender to do more and more of my design work and the Mini’s bundled software less and less. My designs eventually got better than the DaVinci Mini could reproduce so I bought an Ender 3 Pro, such an improvement! but a bit more complicated. It still couldn’t do the tiny AA of my 1/450 scale ships so I bought another printer, the LD-002r to handle the detail work. Now I do all my design work in Blender and between the two printers I can make just about anything I want. The learning curve wasn’t a piece of cake but it was fun and so worth it.
Baby steps is key.
Some day I hope to make a video that goes over how to prep a reasonably complex Sketchfab model for printing, someday…
Heck, someone may already have one out there.
PS: Just looked on Sketchfab and while there is currently no Texas there are some good looking free ships!