1967 Camaro - 3d printed 'interpretation'

[shaunmza]

I lurk a lot here on the forums, admiring the level of detail and craftsmanship that get put on display.

This post has none of that, so I find myself wanting to justify why I am adding it. Suffice to say I am by no means an accomplished builder and am so anxious of messing up a kit that I have a few still in boces that have been that way for well over a year now.

I thought, instead of messing up a kit, let me print out a car and practice on that instead. At work we are under pressure on a project and I find the process of putting something together helps me relax a bit.

 

I say 'interpretation' of a Camaro, because I sanded away so much detail that its not really true to form anymore. I started with a 3d model that I downloaded from Thingiverse, scaled it to be roughly 1/24 scale, then printed it on a low cost 3d printer, again I bought it over a year ago.

I chose to print a Camaro because my father has one, I have never seen it in the flesh and only seen a single photo of it, in which it is not complete. The model is meant to be a 1967 Camaro, I don't know what year his is, so there is no point being too picky on details.

Here it is after a fair amount of sanding already, and some cheap rattle can paint. I found this paint did not try and melt the PLA in the same way it melts the plastic that model cars are made of.

 

There is no grill, because it broke out while I was removing the supports. I am to remedy this sometime in the future when I build up enough courage to cut the styrene sheet I have 

 

 

I decided to use different wheels to which the model came with, but printing the wheel out at this scale showed how it was not designed to be 3d printed! I set about learning a bit of Blender and created a rudimentary copy of that wheel. I split it into 3 components, so that I would not need supports, these proved to be very ugly and hard to remove on the original wheel.

2 of the 3 parts are identical, the outer 'rim' and tyre, of which I print 2 and glue them back to back. Then an inner rim, which is pushed into the glued up outer rim.

As you can see it took a few attempts to get something passable.

 

 

I want to highlight that I am aiming to have something to do and to 'complete' and that I am not shooting for perfection...

 

 

I first hand painted the wheels, but I could not stand the way they looked, so I redid them with more of the model kit plastic melting rattle can paint that I have. I used some of my kid's play dough to mask off the wheel. Not as clean as I had hoped, but I did not see chance to cut out tape, so this is as good as its going to get.

 

 

I comparison with a 1/24 scale Ford Mustang that my wife bought me years ago for my birthday, or Christmas? Who cares... she gets me 

 

 

As you can see, not many completed models...

 

 

I am still going to paint the windows matt black, maybe do silver trim around the windshield, and paint the tail lights.

The final job would be that grill, for now I have something to mess around with though.

Something I learned from this is that its possible to 3d print a car, but the prep work that goes into getting it ready for paint is so much more than a kit. The photo's do not show it but there are many angles where you can see a wavy pattern from the infill and the roof still has the pattern from the printing process. Despite this I am learning more and more of Blender and am planning to print this again, but as a shell, with no windshield, back / side windows etc, so that I can try do a chassis and interior too.

 

Thanks for looking!

[bbowser]

I love this!  You are well ahead of a lot of us with the 3D printing,  practice and experience will win out.  Thanks for sharing your experience. 

[Mike Chernecki]

Good Job, yours looks better than the new Revell '67 Camaro.

[Slotto]

Really cool. I want to try this but whats holding me back is all the sanding before paint. Nice job on the wheels too

[shaunmza]

That was definitely a lesson learnt.

Printing would have been more than 24 hours at a layer height of 0.06mm, so I printed it at 0.15 to get it done in 11 hours.

Having to sand so much meant I lost a lot of detail, so next time I am going to print at a much higher quality.

Then be VERY patient 

[Jantrix]

15 hours ago, shaunmza said:

I thought, instead of messing up a kit, let me print out a car and practice on that instead.

 

I'm curious. How much did you spend on sheer material for that Camaro. It looks like a solid block. 

[rickcaps55]

I can see the 3D printing for wheels and parts but not something like the hole car. Can't just the body be printed out.? and like you said you did lose a lot of detail sanding all the extra plastic off and 11 hours to print it took less time for my kids to come in to the world lol.!! I thought there was someone that was working on doing body's has anyone tried that would be great to be able to make the body you want and use the rest of the kit to complete it.

[shaunmza]

34 minutes ago, Jantrix said:

I'm curious. How much did you spend on sheer material for that Camaro. It looks like a solid block. 

Not as much as you would think, will give details below;

22 minutes ago, rickcaps55 said:

I can see the 3D printing for wheels and parts but not something like the hole car. Can't just the body be printed out.? and like you said you did lose a lot of detail sanding all the extra plastic off and 11 hours to print it took less time for my kids to come in to the world lol.!! I thought there was someone that was working on doing body's has anyone tried that would be great to be able to make the body you want and use the rest of the kit to complete it.

 

I realise the tone of the following seems defensive, please understand I don't mean it that way.

 

To put this into context, I LOVE 3d printing stuff, I have designed and printed a number of small things, so am enjoying the process of creating as much as anything else.

If you are thinking of 3d printing to make a model cheaper than what you can buy in store, forget about it! Once you take into account the cost of the machine, electricity, time etc. it's always a loss.

So how much did the filament cost me?

1. the car has a 20% infill, so it's not solid and is actually very light (156grams of filament apparently)
2. It took 52 meters of filament (https://www.gearbest.com/3d-printer-supplies/pp_423470.html?wid=21 A 340 meter roll of filament is probably less than $40 shipping included). That puts the cost of filament for the car at roughly $6

YOU can buy a model for $6, I can't.

Well I can, $6 for the model and $20 to ship it to Portugal 

Or I buy here in Europe and pay €10 + €10 shipping. My point is I have looked for some time to try and find cheap models to practice on. Here we have a 23% tax on items such as model kits, making them that much more expensive. In the model shop close by, a model car costs at least €20 new, and getting models secondhand is not much cheaper because of shipping.

Then I mess the whole model up... because I am impatient, or just make a mistake

 

If you are planning to buy a 3d printer to make bodies cheaply, don't.

 

That being said, I have a 3d printer, and I enjoy watching it work. I have wanted to print a car since before I bought the printer, so it made sense.

With this I gained experience, and a better understanding of how to work with Blender / Cura / my 3d printer. I enjoyed the whole process.

 

I am going to print another one, I am still hacking away at the 3d model, trying to make it such that I get a cleaner print, not to save money, but to gain experience.

@rickcaps55 You have to start somewhere right? Once I have worked out the kinks I can print my own body for an existing kit / chassis, but first I need to learn how it all goes together!

 

Thanks for your comments!

[rickcaps55]

1 hour ago, shaunmza said:

Not as much as you would think, will give details below;

 

I realise the tone of the following seems defensive, please understand I don't mean it that way.

 

To put this into context, I LOVE 3d printing stuff, I have designed and printed a number of small things, so am enjoying the process of creating as much as anything else.

If you are thinking of 3d printing to make a model cheaper than what you can buy in store, forget about it! Once you take into account the cost of the machine, electricity, time etc. it's always a loss.

So how much did the filament cost me?

1. the car has a 20% infill, so it's not solid and is actually very light (156grams of filament apparently)
2. It took 52 meters of filament (https://www.gearbest.com/3d-printer-supplies/pp_423470.html?wid=21 A 340 meter roll of filament is probably less than $40 shipping included). That puts the cost of filament for the car at roughly $6

YOU can buy a model for $6, I can't.

Well I can, $6 for the model and $20 to ship it to Portugal 

Or I buy here in Europe and pay €10 + €10 shipping. My point is I have looked for some time to try and find cheap models to practice on. Here we have a 23% tax on items such as model kits, making them that much more expensive. In the model shop close by, a model car costs at least €20 new, and getting models secondhand is not much cheaper because of shipping.

Then I mess the whole model up... because I am impatient, or just make a mistake

 

If you are planning to buy a 3d printer to make bodies cheaply, don't.

 

That being said, I have a 3d printer, and I enjoy watching it work. I have wanted to print a car since before I bought the printer, so it made sense.

With this I gained experience, and a better understanding of how to work with Blender / Cura / my 3d printer. I enjoyed the whole process.

 

I am going to print another one, I am still hacking away at the 3d model, trying to make it such that I get a cleaner print, not to save money, but to gain experience.

@rickcaps55 You have to start somewhere right? Once I have worked out the kinks I can print my own body for an existing kit / chassis, but first I need to learn how it all goes together!

 

Thanks for your comments!

Hi ok I understand a little better now thank you for the reply don't get me wrong I think the idea of doing things with the 3D printer is awesome I guess I'm looking at a more useful way to use it in modeling I'm in Chicago and I am 65 I have been building for 55 years I did my first model at 10 in 1962 it was an AMT 3-in-1 62 Ford Fairlane it was $1.49 the paint was 10c a bottle and the spray can was 59c today the kit is between $ 22.00 to $49.00 the spray cans are $4.95 to $6.95 each and the little jar's $3 to $4.00 each so I fully understand.

[geemoney]

very cool, now dis mantle the mustang and shove the wheels under the Camaro!

[shaunmza]

3 hours ago, geemoney said:

very cool, now dis mantle the mustang and shove the wheels under the Camaro!

That would take some major surgery on the Camaro! I could always print another one though, right? 

[shaunmza]

3 hours ago, rickcaps55 said:

Hi ok I understand a little better now thank you for the reply don't get me wrong I think the idea of doing things with the 3D printer is awesome I guess I'm looking at a more useful way to use it in modeling I'm in Chicago and I am 65 I have been building for 55 years I did my first model at 10 in 1962 it was an AMT 3-in-1 62 Ford Fairlane it was $1.49 the paint was 10c a bottle and the spray can was 59c today the kit is between $ 22.00 to $49.00 the spray cans are $4.95 to $6.95 each and the little jar's $3 to $4.00 each so I fully understand.

I built one model as a kid, an El Camino. No idea what manufacturer it was, I had no paint, so it was all white.

My dad taped it up and painted the lower half black with some rattle can paint that he had lying around! 

I was pretty reckless with my toys as a kid so that model is long gone, I do wish I had kept it though!

I am hoping to print the body oly and make a simple chassis out of styrene. I will upload an image of the 3d model in Blender when I get a chance.

 

Thanks again for your comments

[Spex84]

This is very cool! You made that (rough!) 3D printed body look really good! I can imagine the time and patience all that bodywork must have taken. I think it's incredibly encouraging to see modelers taking the step towards fabricating their own models using new technologies. 

I've entertained the thought of buying/building a 3D printer, but as you've pointed out, the learning process is a hobby in itself, and it's not exactly cost-effective! Still, I'm impressed by the relatively low cost of filament to print your Camaro. Food for thought!

 

 

[shaunmza]

Here is a screenshot of the model as I printed it.

Here it is as I am working on it.

Many finer details have been removed, I am going to remove the hood and trunk lid too. Then I should be able to print them separately, saving filament that would have been used as support.

[shaunmza]

It has taken me weeks of messing around and learning the program to get to this point.

[misterNNL]

Congratulations on the sheer determination it took to build this model. This proves that if there's a will,there's a way. Please keep up the excellent  work.