I started this blog quite some time ago with the idea of charting my progress in designing and printing some 3D terrain items. And to be fair, until recently, that’s where it kinda stopped, a hiatus of a year with very little progress, or at least progress that was shared or recorded.

When I posted Antietam 3D and Dunker Church I it was done with the idea of keeping a record of research as I tried to turn a real building into a facsimile that would be representative on the tabletop. I wanted to adhere to the idea that building would be “usable, printable and accurate”, pretty much in that order all while knowing that I would very often get “hung up” on the accurate…probably the reason I put it last.

So this is just an update post, after many prints and much research, I finally have a design that I think represents my ideas and “looks about right” for the tabletop. It went from being a two part print to a three to avoid overhangs when FDM printing, and was recently reworked to include bevelled sills to avoid the hanging (or drooping) threads while printing* after a test print for my Greek Galley found it worked great. Added to which I recently changed the colour of the PLA I was using and have to say, “I love printing in brown” (or grey). The pigment used to colour the plastic does have an impact on the strings and hairs that adhere to a print, just as much as room temperature and humidity can also have an effect on print quality.

So while I would like to create a battle damaged example, at the moment, I am content to move onto another project for a bit, just to help satisfy my inner wargaming butterfly. But for now, a teaser, and some waiting, as the roof will take 12 hours to print with the settings I use, and then I still have those limbers, before I apply some paint.

* If you print with a SLA printer this will not be a real issue for you, but you get to deal with resin and UV hardening.