first major steps with my 3d printer/update 04.01

Well you're certainly challenging yourself! These are not easy guns to so start with! Great choices though and the results are definitely improving!

thanks mate, not much skill though on my part, it all depends on the quality of the 3d models.(when i say quality i mean if they are solid enough to print)

i tried to paint some zombie heads years ago and was quite happy with the result but somehow for the life of me i can't get guns right.
anyhow, just had a little mishap after 19! hours of printing. tried to remove the upper protectron torso only to have the bottom stick onto the printer and rip some layers apart.
nothing that can't be salvaged though luckily. imagine the rage .
but the lower torso is twice the size almost, that adds up to 35+hours straight printing. now imagine if i increase the infill % as well.
on the bright side i got 1 week off so i guess there gonna be some looong nights

cheers
tjolnirr

https://i.imgur.com/0xdFEks.gif

So Great ! Please make me a 1:1 one. I have a date at the Tax office

The Gatling laser is pretty cool.

thanks guys, glad you like 'em.

well technically i could print one in 1:1 but i guess  my grandkids would have to finish the job even if i died of old age .
got a 1/6 protectron in the making and a third of the upper body took 19+ hours to print, being one part of i guess around 15-20 after cutting them so the parts lay flat on the printing bed, i estimate the better part of my 1 week vacation babysitting my printer day and night
talked to the guy thats building them and he showed me a 1:1 new vegas ranger helmet. pretty cool stuff though he has the luxury of monitoring his printer at work and i guess he's got a few of them tasked with the same job.
only having 20*20*20cm to work with means you gonna break everything down into tiny pieces and bring them back together afterwards in a stable fashion.
i know some folks working for a company owning a "metal printer", sadly it's off limits for private stuff.
otherwise i'd be strutting around in my very own power armor


small headsup:

after 50+ hours of printing here´s how the protectron looks so far.


after realizing there´d be no chance to finish the project in 1 week vacation i put another small project in between, fallout 4 combat armor
so far so good, put a blackwash on the paint though it looks like the shoulder armor is a tad to small even if the scale is correct to the original size.
here are the links to the models as well as thankfull credits to the guys that made it even possible

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3094176 (armor)
https://www.myminifactory.com/object/3d-print-fallout-4-protectron-action-figure-15585 (protectron)

another small update on my neverending fallout project

just a little "in hand" look on the gatling laser, i think i got the scale about right. any bigger and the figure wouldn´t be able to weild it properly, even this is dragging him down severely even if the infill rate was about 30-35% so it´s 65% hollow.

on the other hand you can see how my combat armor from fallout 4 comes along, sadly i haven´t found any reliable 3d model of the classic armor so far, still looking though.




so far the magnets do the trick, luckily i get an abundance from packaging boxes at work.

cheers

Incredible work!
3D printers really are changing the world, not just in the 1/6 Hobby either.
That "dang blasted little plastic part " that breaks on EVERY product in the world is now replaceable from home!
You are doing great, I hope you look back on these pictures some day and say " I remember when I was just starting out....." as you 3D print your latest custom item!

thanks mate, today i finally finished my first bigger project. a fallout 4 protectron.




small edit for putting the thing together: the joints and places you put the single parts together are quite loose, what i found to work pretty well is stripes of fake leather or similar fabric you put in between joints, gives for a good portion of friction. tried super glue first yet due to the size of the figure it aint enough to keep the joints tight without locking them in place.


had some quirks and issues with the 3d models and my printer, some holes and incorrect lines but all in all it came out quite well.

for everyone considering getting a 3d printer i´d say do it.
material costs right now for the filament is crazy cheap, the whole figure (standing a bit taller than 12") was about 15€, 17,65$ tops.

add primer and spray paint you´ll end up at about 50€ for the whole thing and you´ll not using up the entire spray cans either so there´s plenty left for other projects.

here´s the deal though, time. you´ll need plenty of it, about 120+ hours went into printing + editing the models where needed.(the guy that uploaded it did a really good job, i had to cut some pieces down nontheless for i have 20 cubic cm printing bed and his design was scaled at 6" rather than 12")
plus it ain´t a good idea to leave a 3d printer to itself for the whole day. so i put the big parts in between sleep shifts while on vacation at home.

still i´m really happy with whats possible with this neat gadget, no more fiddeling with modeling clay ending up with something a 3rd grader could do better in art class with my skills

onto the next projects....
cheers
tjolnir

Really neat Potectron. I have a question, is he mobile? Or is it essentially a statue, due to the leather holding the loose parts in place?

thanks, glad you like it
the leather helps to tighten the joints, apart from that arms and hip are fully moveable and rotate very freely giving you lots of different poses. knees and legs have a lot smaller radius of movement, still you can bend legs and knees to some minor degree.

i guess the leather wears down after some usage but it's very simple to replace the stripes.the parts pop in and out nicely and tight, the knees and feet were a bit "cracky" when you shove them together but the filament is quite flexible it seems. guess it's due to the honeycomb structure inside.

it's lorefriendly though they move very clunky ingame as well, not unlike stilts.

Very impressive and inspiring progress. Keep at it!

Mighty damn cool.

another quick update, the robco terminal and radio turned out fine.
the terminal is put together from various parts leaving room for improvement like a real display in the far future.

on the other hand i´m printing some skeletons right now with only a 40/60% sucess rate. all the small parts/bones stick to the printing bed and stabilizing beams like crazy ony to be pulled apart piece by piece. time for some super glue  


kind regards

Really cool old school computer. Thumbs up.

Yes, very nice set up.

thanks again, right now i´m onto a couple of skeletons, if i can get my 3d printer to produce anything more than a chunk of single bone pieces.

who knew that printing every fine little bone in your foot with support beams would lead to peeling off the pieces from the foot instead of said support

oh and molerats on the way as well.... ok ONE molerat to be specific... lets not get ahead of myself.
only a few more hours waiting to see if the molerat turns out fine or horribly disfigured blob

cheers


ps:
first batch of bones is done, with a so-so result



as you can see "ed" is having a pretty crappy afterlife  

it is (supposed to be) articulated, which i don´t doubt given the proper size and material. as for pla the small size of the ball joints make them prone to breaking, not to mention removing the support material without pulling off the single finger and toe bones.

guess this would be a prime example where abs is needed to make it moveable yet durable, as the details are on par with the coo model skeleton.
and the later ranging at 50-70€, where it´s still available the printed one is about 5-10 € in material both pla and paint.

the hair dryer trick is useable to some extend, for the material gets much softer quicker than we are used to from hands and head sculpts of professional figures, yet when cooling off they remain "floppy", not regaining their tightness.

so either risk breaking off the joints by stuffing them in cold(happened with one arm and a foot) or heating them and having lose joints afterwards. oh and cracked rips, lots of cracked rips*ouch*
didn´t have the problem with the protectron due to it´s size as i learned now. bigger joints mean more material, friction and overall strength.

but let´s not complain, its a 1/6 skeleton for 5€.... and i need a lot for a proper fallout background

Are you selling these, they are amazing

I agree, very nice results, considering the trouble you mention.

MerylAkiba wrote:Are you selling these, they are amazing

GubernatorFan wrote:I agree, very nice results, considering the trouble you mention.

hi folks and many thanks for the huge compliment. unfortunately selling them wouldn´t feel like the right thing to do at the moment, the results of a print to another vary far to much due to my lack of skill.

for example the ribcage has several issues where the printer misaligned some 8+ hours into the print. this resulted in some ribs being shifted to a side midway while others are sticking more to the support material than the object itself.

so far i salvaged what i could, it´s gonna be background corpses anyway.

joints on the other hand pop in tightly yet when moving the limbs they´re prone to breaking right off the balljoint. something different filament could solve, i´ll look into that further down the road.

don´t get me wrong, i´m flattered that people consider buying what i make, yet the quality of the prints right now in hand are not what they appear on picture.
this and the fact that the hobby is a kind of resort for me where i don´t have any "pressure" of success, whereas if i sell something the quality has to match the expectations.

the skeleton as a whole takes roughly 14 hours to print and you should be at home in case something goes wrong. so i only can print bigger objects at a day off or on weekends.
on the other hand i had to print several feet and hands only to get 2 pairs that didn´t break to badly when removing the support material.

again, my thanks, i take it as a huge compliment, though the folks that create the models did the real work.

btw here´s another update.... i got rats.... yay....  


dogmeat for scale =)

unfortunately its not poseable, just the real model ingame converted into something printable. but dogmeat isn´t articulate as well sooooo

oh and "ed" got a bleach, forgot to paint the teeth.... the don´t "rot" the same way as bone does afaik


hope you like them, gonna give my printer a break.... don´t even wanna see my electricity bill

cheers
tjolnir

Very cool stuff.

And, most importantly, it looks like you're having fun.

It might have only cost you 5€ in materials but it also cost you 14 hours of printer time as well as wear and tear and electricity. You'd need to build all of that into your price once you iron out the bugs and consider selling them.

I think you should concentrate on getting the skull right. There is a good market for low-cost 1:6 skulls; the only ones I can find are overpriced resin ones.

Don't waste the ones that don't turn out. A proper Fallout (or Fantasy) diorama needs plenty of detritus scattered on the floor. Partial skeletons are perfect for this. I usually use chicken bones but including a few distinctly-human bones such as a skull, pelvis, or ribcage would make the result look more convincing.

Love the molerat. When I started playing the game they scared the crap out of me the first time one jumped out at me.

I’m with shazzdan. Keep all the parts. Cool stuff.

thanks mates, glad you like ´em

don´t worry i don´t toss anything away, they´re still usable in some way. got another ribcage printed and it´s ready for cleaning.
hope this helps getting you a better idea of the printing result and what needs to be done to remove the support material.




this time only 2 ribs below the "left" clavicle are broken by removing it from the printing bed.
i´ll try the hair dryer trick with the next batch to heat it up slightly before pulling it from the printer, maybe it helps reducing the damage.
though it heats up/softens a LOT faster than you know from your original figures/heads. plus the material warps in some way not regaining its full form afterwards.
so only slightly warming it up it is then.

well in i few moments i´ll know if this torso comes out more intact than the last or if pulling slightly with a plier got out of and in rip and tear  
cheers
tjolnir

I'm thinking a small set of side cutters would help a lot. I have a few pairs of these at home and they work on plastic flumes.



To clean it up I'd try the nylon polishing wheel on a Dremel.

thanks for the tip, gonna get my hand on a set of those next time i hit the hardware store. together with a 3d "pen", for i´m running out of super glue and after i saw one of them in action it seems the better option of "glueing" those broken parts back together since the pen melts pla just as the printer does.

as for the figure, well....

patient was declared deceased shortly after removing of the support material began. 3 ribs broke straight after touching with the spinal column following *ouch*
half a tube of glue and countless rubber gloves later i painted the parts and tried assembling them together, left arm joint broke right after inserting into the socket (again, seems a problem with the model, the other arm broke at the exact same place) and needed to be glued as well.

after that i had to replace the head socket for the ball joint did fit the spinal top only for the head to turn out to big, so i cobbled together a new neck out of chicken wire.
guess what, after setting the head into place, the neck broke....  

all in all though the figure turned out ok..... got a coo model in comparison in the pic.
the 3d author claims the model to be 1:6, strangly the limbs do seem correct while the head appears slightly to big. nothing that can be redone. thing is, where the coo model looks cartoonish the 3d printed is spot on except for size, so i call it a success in the end.
the limbs are articulated to a degree.
popping in the joints on the hip work ok cold, but you´ll need a hair dryer to soften the hands, feet, lower legs forearms etc. BUT heating it up for just a sec to long warps the structure, maybe you´ll spot it on the collar bones and upper rib cage.

impossible to pop in the arms into the shoulder cold without breaking the torso, heating it up though losens the joint.... its a hit and miss for now.

got different filament in stock that need higher temperatures to melt, maybe they´re more resilient to the hair dryer trick.
anyhow, hope you like it

cheers
tjolnir

Every one of these projects just emphasises to me how cool and clever the COOMODEL skeletons are. I want to stock up on them but can't find anyone who has them available for sale.

ironically he had his first shelve dive and survived unharmed since i was to lazy to put him down while uploading the pic there was an italian company named fattel selling pretty good skeletons in 1:6 but the price was rather high and i didn't see anyway to order them from germany.
they should be availabe as "army builder packs" 10 pieces / 100 €..... sadly i dont think that would even cover production cost, but one can dream

oh and don't get me wrong, coo model skeletons are great but not without their own issues. i had 2 joints stiffen after being in a fixed position for a longer time and one break immediately after moving the limb. not even by force, just trying to lower the left arm, the shoulder joint broke right off the peg. kinda like "mego-melt" i suppose but in a lighter form. luckily i had white small pegs for replacement and made one fit. and even with the joints intact the range of motion is a little bit weird, ball joints would have been better imo.

second the head form and hip section seem off, cartoonish almost.

aside from those minor nitpicks its a solid skeleton, where it's still available for an affordable price.
just my 2 cents

Fascinated watching this come together. Skeletons really are looking awesome, and agree that even broken bones are great for fallout backgrounds. Hell, even "horribly disfigured blob" won't necessarily look out of place in a Fallout scene.

Your dios have always looked fantastic, but all this extra debris and detail are just taking things to the next level.

thanks mate, appreciated. well as for the "blob" fallout 1 and 2 / cross crit overhaul mod for fallout 4 to some extend, all had some interesting plasma death animations, they really stood out. basically in the end its all goo and mush

maybe i'll melt one skeleton on purpose and add some gore to it. in the meantime i'll re arrange the sidewalk and buildings, add a bit here and there.
oh and there's a great deathclaw model just waiting to be printed. if i'll find some spare time thanks to my crappy work schedule that is.
again, glad you like it
cheers
tjolnir