Bren

So I thought I'd show you EXACTLY what I'm doing as an illustrative example of what I'm talking about. I'm currently working on finishing "the bane of my existence" Pete 353 and The Trailmobile dual trailers. The Pete needed the fresh air intake to the turbo - and the crude kit parts look awful - and in any event - won't fit. So I printed two different elbow files, joined them and used CTM hose clamps to detail (pictures below). I'll post a few more examples after this....

Terrific build Ron. I know you had to climb a steep learning curve to get this one out - but you did it and hopefully will inspire others to dip their toes in the water! Well done my friend!

At risk of waxing too eloquent (at which point my wife rolls her eyes and mutters....again?) I think you have hit on a key point with respect to 3-D printing. The large truck body prints are impressive, and obviously encompass subject matter which will never be kitted by the manufacturers, but I think the real strength is in small parts. I have been following your sander truck build with fascination and you have next level scratch building skills. It truly is a tour de force. 3-D printing cannot approach the stuff you are doing. Nonetheless, where I find it most useful in my building is in printing connectors, rubber hose elbows, glad hands and the like. These are often not offered in the aftermarket, and they do not appear in any kits. I cannot scratch build a glad hand in 1/25 scale to save my life, and yet my printer can chuck out thousands of them. I have lost track but, presently, I have well over 2000 .stl files, almost all of them small truck components rather than large bodies such as pictured above. I think the true place of 3-D printing will find its way into most of our workshops just like our other specialty tools, for specific small jobs that we either cannot, or do not want to model. I looked at your sketch up diagram of the passenger side control module for your sander, and I think, with caution, one of the newer printers that have resolution down to .01 should be able to do justice to a lot of the detail. One of the most influential philosophies on my modelling was that expressed by the brilliant diorama designer, the late Shep Payne, who coined the expression 'creative gizzmology' in his book 'How to Build Dioramas'. This concept is that the eye cannot see detail below a certain level (remember he worked largely in 1/35 and 1/43) and it could be represented by odd spare parts that merely resembled the object we were modeling, without every nut and bolt being (almost invisibly) present. Perhaps pretentiously, I honestly believe that what we do on this site is art - constrained art to be sure, but art none-the-less. And the way we represent things that are very small is a mark of artistry, just as much as it is technical skill. (Pontification over...sorry? )

Sorry - I got so wrapped up in answering the rust question that I missed the 5th wheel one. This is a technique from Hunter at Showtime Studios on YouTube. I do it exactly like he shows here. The trick is not to overdo it - I suspect Hunter would argue I already did, but I think it looks okay. It’s oil paint, with the secret being to use a twitch of red. .

Yes Brian - it is definitely one of the challenges of 3D printing. I'm told one can fool with print settings to eliminate straight lines being a bit curved (sometimes) but it still seems to happen to me every so often. Print orientation is a big deal - here are the side skirts I just printed for the above. Look at the forward piece (yellow arrow) - the first one came out with a warped upper border. I re-oriented it and it printed straight. It's not the curing but the actual print that is warped. But yes, thin parts generally need to be clamped or weighted (I use 123 blocks) so they stay flat after UV curing. I find 24 - 48 hours does it - they don't warp after that. I'm having a blast with 3D - but it's definitely a labour of love - the parts need quite a bit of reworking (they call it "post-print processing") to look right. The more I do, the better I get. And resins are improving all the time - so I think we'll find it gets less of a problem with newer printers and resins.

Thanks Gary. All you have to do is wait about another 10 years and I'll be all over it!?

You bet. I find it's the texture that sells it - colour is secondary. I used Streaking Rust Effects by Ammo Mig (A.Mig-1204), and while it was still wet, ground some Tamiya weathering master - combination of Orange Rust from Item87085 - set C, and Rust from Item87080 set B. I try to make it rough texture without overdoing it. Then a dilute flat black wash to blend everything. I didn't do it here, but I've also sprinkled flour into wet rusty paint - looks pretty good too.

Thanks so much Jeff. Now I gotta do it!! ?

I hear you - these files are not cheap - but you can print as many copies as you like - so defraying the costs among 3 or 4 guys makes it much more manageable. The print above took about 1/2 a bottle of resin - so about $15 US - so not too expensive. Add in the file cost among 4 people and each could have this for about thirty bucks.

We've all got one - the model that refuses to get finished - just sitting there on the bench glowering reproachfully at us. Well...I do anyway - this one's mine. And, as confession is good for the soul, I'm coming clean and posting it here - maybe it'll shame me into finishing it. This is the Revell kit 07464 Western Life Peterbilt 353. I bought it 10 years ago for a "fun quick box-stock build" - and promptly hit a brick wall and bounced off. Those of you who know the kit remember it is NOT a realistic 353 - the pit style fenders are molded to a tilt style hood. So I separated them and fabricated a proper frame attachment, and a more realistic front bumper. I scratch built a rear cab wall to turn it into a day cab, using Micromark rivet decals to replace the missing detail. Once I fixed all that, the perfectionism bug bit - and I started detailing or correcting everything. I used photo etch for the grill, radiator and stack heat guards. Replaced the too-modern style headlights with more period correct. Stole the Dayton style wheels off the AMT Astro - I thought they were more realistic for a 353. Made my own decals on a colour laser printer. Then plumbed and wired until my eyes crossed. Then I hit that darn butterfly hood and got stuck. So here it sits. Some day......

I like to post makes of new 3D file offerings so the forum users who don't haunt the 3D sites (and therefore have a life - unlike me!?) know what's out there. This is my latest print of a file from a new (to me) designer on Cults - VLAD-2. He usually does European stuff - but this truck is also sold in North America - hence of interest to us here. It is 1/14 - scaled down in my slicer to 1/25 - which are the photos here. Please forgive the crooked alignment - I just taped the parts together for the photo shoot. There is also no sanding or post production work - so you can see exactly what will come out of your printer. Excellent detail, and, although a bit pricey at $85.00 US, it's fairly priced given there are 114 files to print. So ...if you like your trucks looking like moving hotels (looking at you Roninutah!) this one might be for you. For those who are interested in the technical details, it was printed on an Elegoo Saturn3 Ultra with water washable grey Elegoo resin, sliced at .05mm.

I totally agree Gary. I’m aware, as the YouTuber Dr. Cranky noted, we didn’t get into scale modelling to manufacture parts - but to build. However those of us unfortunate enough to be infected with the model truck builder virus (no known cure), and are tired of 1970s kits showing their age, are forced to make our own. I, too, think the after-market is great and needs to be supported - but sourcing all the parts for a build can run to hundreds of dollars. Stl files are a few bucks, and resin is cheap by comparison. Building up a comprehensive library of ‘must-haves’ is not hard. I agree that a 3D printer should be standard for our model benches.

Exactly!3D printing excels at small parts - even things like wheels and tires. I use a Saturn ultra and find it excellent for bodies - with the provisos I gave above. I’m not skilled enough to design my own yet - but that’s coming.

10 Problems with 3D Printing I have really been enjoying this forum, and the excellent conversations with many of the folks here. There is so much talent and knowledge here – awesome (and a little intimidating!) As you may know if you have been reading my posts, I have been talking about 3D printing - and some of you have been saying that you are considering it. The interests of fair play, (and to show you that I am not completely fanatical!), I thought I would make a posting giving voice to “the other side”. I am sorry if this evolved into more of an article than posting, but I wanted to capture some of the discussions I have been having with various members. 1. Most 3D designers are not scale modelers- the ‘lump’ problem. It is terribly important to remember that 3D files had their origins in the world of video games and CGI. Actual objects only came later, and even then, these were usually manufactured products designed to be used as printed. The idea that one would print accurately fitting model parts that assemble into a fine scale replica is only a most recent development. As such, you will find a lot of 3-D designers publish files designed to print an entire model as a ‘lump’. Or not scalable to 1/25. Or look like a crude toy. These are, unfortunately, of little value to us. It also needs to be clearly understood that, although your slicer program can shrink or magnify any file infinitely, it will not create greater detail as you enlarge. Scaling from 1/32 up to 1/25 is about the practical limit as the walls of things like cab start to get very thick. Going the other way scaling down from 1/14 to 1/25 is also the practical limit, caused by small parts getting excessively thin, and being too fragile to survive the print process. 2. Most designers lack accurate source data – the “THAT’S not a Freightliner” problem. We know how often large model companies, with their huge budgets and a team of engineers get some rather surprising details wrong. Imagine how much more difficult that is for a designer, who may never have seen the actual item he is modelling, to create a faithful replica. It is very much “buyer beware” out there, and what a designer may represent as being a replica of a particular truck, actually is not. I have found that moderate to radical scratch building is required to correct these deficiencies, and that is something that one should take into account before jumping into 3D printing with both feet. 3. Straight lines sometimes aren’t. Now we come to the limitations of the medium itself. For various technical reasons, 3D printers will sometimes struggle to produce straight lines. There are various settings that can be tweaked, and some tricks played with print angles, but the problem remains. The bottom edge of a cab may be slightly curved. Even if the object prints completely straight, resin is prone to warping, particularly in humidity shifts. This means sometimes reinforcing with brass shim or rod. 4. Other technical problems – layer separation, unwanted lines, failed prints. Just as with any modelling skill, 3D printing has some art associated with it. You can expect a fair number of failed prints and you will be surprised by some of the things that can happen along the way to maturing your skills. Layers printed flat to the print surface will sometime separate, and the fix for that is to print at about a twenty degrees angle. Large solid objects sometimes create so much suction that they stick to the print film (that cellophane-like stuff where all the action happens), and pull the entire print off build plate. I find this happens in our hobby a lot with fuel tanks. Hence, I always print fuel tanks hollow. There is a lot to learn. 5. Just because you can doesn’t mean you should. 3D printing is well suited to producing complex shaped small parts, typical of what we work with an engine or suspension assembly, and large compound curves such as fenders or cabs. They are not very good at producing thin lines such as bolts or large flat surfaces which tend to warp or distort. Nothing will ever beat fabrication in sheet styrene, or brass rod/sheet. There are some truly awesome fabricators on this forum, and 3D printing will never produce anything better than what they are doing. Scratch building, IMHO, is still the gold standard. 6. Cost. Many of us on this forum are older and retired. We do not have limitless funds. A good 3D printer will cost in the vicinity of $350-$500, which is better than a lathe or milling machine, but it is still a lot of money. A bottle of resin which will print about 10 average truck bodies runs about twenty dollars. We need a few other sundry items such as an ultraviolet curing light and ultrasonic cleaner, so the whole setup is going to run you the better part of a thousand dollars. Not chump change. 7. It’s messy and it smells Well, yeah. But so do a lot of other things we do, like painting with lacquers or using acetone -based solvent. I think this part may have been a bit exaggerated. Water-soluble resins do not smell that bad and most modern printers now come with fans or attachment ports for venting them to the outside via a window. Resin needs to be handled with gloves, but clears up well with isopropyl alcohol or water as the case may be. It is no worse than many of the other materials we work with in scale modelling. 8. Resin isn’t styrene – and clear isn’t clear Happily, those of us that are seriously into scale modelling understand about aftermarket resin parts. You cannot treat them the same way you treat styrene. The same thing is true of 3D prints. They tend to be more brittle and prone to breaking if mishandled. They tend to warp, so construction has to take that into account. While many companies advertise that their brand of clear resin prints transparently, I have not found anything that actually does nearly as well as clear styrene or acetate. This is likely coming, and as the medium matures we will get better results. In the meantime, I would count on printing the “glass” in any model as a buck and using it with a vacuform machine to vacuform acetate windows. 9. You need to learn a new skill – and have some basic computer chops. While many writers, including myself, have stressed that anyone with very basic computer skills can do this, it still demands that you have a reasonably modern computer at your disposal, know how to download things off the Internet, can work your way around learning the slicer program, which is very user-friendly and simple, however still requires some knowledge, and is not intimidated by transferring print files onto a thumb drive to get them into your printer. It is not hard, but you may need a ten-year-old kid to help you! 10. Did you get into modelling to build? Or make parts? This is a profoundly philosophical issue which was vastly better discussed by Dr. Cranky in a YouTube video (https://www.youtube.com/@DoctorCrankysLabRATory/videos). I get that many of us, with very limited hobby time, want to spend it getting glue and putty under our fingernails, not 3D resin. Even if you decide not to print, you can still download files that intrigue you, and fairly economically have them printed by aftermarket printing companies that are set up to do small orders. Alternatively, there are some small companies on this forum that print 3D files and sell them as complete end products. The more you patronize them, the more files will become available for us. So – I think the sum total is – 3D printing is just another modelling tool. Some will love it, some will hate it – and most will learn where it fits in their own approach to our wonderful hobby. Thanks for indulging me – as always – comments/brickbats are welcome.

I'm going to hazard a guess and say no Brian. That is very beautiful detail fabrication you've done there - and nothing beats brass and nut/bolt hardware. I print at .05mm resolution - very standard - and some of the latest printers go down to .02mm - but many .stl files are coarser than that - so the point has been made that greater resolution for these files accomplishes nothing. The other challenge is that, as 3D surfaces get thinner (the brass braces above) or narrower (the long bolts on your hydraulic cylinder), they tend to warp or simply fall apart. Things like rear view mirror braces are best done in brass rod. Use 3D printing to pop the mirrors, but use brass for the thin/strong stuff like mirror mounts. As with all tech (and being enthusiastic as I am about 3D print possibilities) one has to recognize that "just because you can doesn't mean you should". There is much that other techniques are better suited for in modelling. I like 3D for small parts (rubber hood latches, air horns, air relays, hoses etc.) or truck bodies/trailers - curved parts that are difficult to fabricate. Detailed sub assemblies like you've got above would be very difficult to make look any good in 3D. Hope this helps. Can you post a photo if a 1:1 Western Star that represents what you're looking for?

Very nicely done. I’m always impressed by your design chops Jurgen. I have yet to tackle the arcane world of file design but it is on my do-do list. The first thing I’d like to try to get my toes wet is to modify the wall thickness on some of the files out there to produce a more realistic print.

Sure thing Brian. Check out these: https://cults3d.com/en/search?q=Western+star there are some 4900s in there. Now…a word of warning. Not all 3D files are equal in terms of detail - some are churned out by mass-content creators and the quality is iffy - but if that’s all you have to work with as a base - and are willing to scratch build detail to get to where you want - these could work. My printed truck bodies you like (above) are designed by a guy named Alfa Centauri. He’s on Cults too - and most of his stuff is available printed by Global Scale Models - they are here on the forum. The issue of wall thickness is tricky. Most of Alfa’s files are 1 /14- which I print at 56% scaled down in my slicer program (Chitubox). That makes the walls acceptably thin. Some of his files are 1/32 - and when I scale them up to 1/24 the walls get pretty thick. Still acceptable - but thick. For individual parts - think tread plate or mesh - the X, Y and Z thickness can all be individually selected in the slicer - and thin parts are easy to produce. For complex shapes like a truck body, this trick won’t work. There are some guys on here with a lot of CAD experience that might be able to edit the file to thin out the body or various parts - but that’s way out of my league. Designers tend to frown on guys editing their files - but my view is you bought it - you can do what you want with it as long as it is for your own use only. If you are interested in a particular file of the ones I pointed you towards, let me know, and I can print it and see how it actually comes out. Bren

It sure is Brian! Firstly - welcome back - we need every truck modeller we can muster! As a relative newcomer to 3D printing, I fully acknowledge it isn’t for everyone - but the rewards are worth it - I feel like a kid in a candy shop - able to print how ever many of something I want, to any size, and access unavailable subjects - like new (or classic) trucks. I feel parts are the most useful for this technology. Absolutely- filament printing is not that great for us - heavy print lines, not enough detail, persnickety to master - however, good for big stuff like trailers. As far as smell - the water based resins are not too bad - and there are filter fans which drop the smell still further. The problem is similar to paint fumes - an outside exhaust fan like in paint booths could easily be rigged. Printers are about the size of a blender - so they can be enclosed in a fume hood structure and vented to the outside. You might want to check out Karl at Global Scale Models - he sells 1/25 prints of a popular 3D designer. He is on this forum. Check out his website. And do go to Cults3D.com. That’s where most of the scale modellers live. My profile is ‘Heavyhaul’ and I have several thousand files I’ve downloaded that are truck-relevant - and made them public access so you are free to scroll through them at your leisure. Have fun - and if I can help in any way just drop me a line.

Hi Ron, I'm a PC guy - but the actual downloading of 3D files takes almost no computing power (i.e. RAM, fast processor) - just hard drive space. Which is cheap these days. It is the designing of 3D files in various CAD programs that chews up processing. Since you just want to print 'em - not make 'em - you should be fine. Note - if you're not in a hurry the Saturn 3 Ultra is just about to be replaced by the Saturn 4 - with some nice features - like a tilting FEP tank to ease the print in not sticking to the FEP film - a problem you'll find with (solid) fuel tanks. You might want to wait. Meanwhile check out my profile on Cults3D - I'm 'Heavyhaul' there - and click on downloads. I've been combing that site for the last 2 years+ and found most of the files a model truck builder would be interested in. Can't say they are all keepers - but lots of good stuff there. The rest of the advice I already gave to Dys in my comment above. I hope you do it - you'll have lots of fun!

You are very welcome Ron. Great to see you charging ahead with this project! Well done!

Oh I subscribed as soon as I found out about you. I see 3D printing and offering finished product to those who have no interest in printing their own, as the future of our hobby. The styrene based big companies are not interested. What we need now is a full array of modern diesel engines - I’ve asked some of the most active automotive engine publishers to consider truck engines - but no joy so far. This would be a big seller for you - I notice the aftermarket guys are almost always sold out of their engines. The other possibility is to package useful parts in “parts packs” like AMT did back in the day. For instance Alfa’s Kenworth 2000 has a great sleeper interior - and his Cascadia doesn’t. Selling the Kenworth sleeper parts separately seems like an idea. I don’t know if he would let you market groupings like this - or not. A collection of fuel tanks is another thought. Anyways, best of luck to you and your company Karl!

Not to be redundant - but just…wow! This is the type of build one sees as “best in show” or on a magazine cover. Kudos sir. I’m blown away.

That is great to hear Karl. It helps explain why Alfa’s designs are accurate and look like they were made with scale modellers in mind. Not like some of the many shapeless lumps out there purporting to be scale accurate. I think you have a great niche there - 3D printing requires the equipment and motivation to learn - many customers would just like to buy the finished result. I hope you succeed. Now try to convince him to do a Western Star 57X!

Thanks so much for your help - this is great! Bren

That’s exactly what I was looking for - thanks Hakan!