My Adventures in 3D Printing and Leather!
Posted: Tue Jul 12, 2022 7:48 pm
I'm back! It's been a year (or three) I'm always building something, it just hasn't been models for a while.
Back along I started working with leather and found it was something else I really enjoyed. And then, during the first lock down I found a plastic stahlhelm on eBay for £14 so with some leather and a bit of drain pipe, some plastic elbows 2 coke cans and assorted junk that I had lying around + lots of weathering. I made this! ( It's full size and wearable)
Fast forward a couple of years and I went back to work after Xmas 2021, and one of my workmates was talking about a 3D he had got, and how easy it was to use. I knew nothing about 3D printers so I liked the idea of a machine that just worked out of the box, and my Birthday is in mid January! So a Fortnight later I had a Monoprice Delta Mini!
A tiny little machine that cost £140 It worked really well, but I soon got bored of printing things I didn't really need or want so I started looking into 3D cad software so I could design my on stuff.. I didn't want to spend too much as I didn't have any idea if I would be able to use it. I loved technical drawing at school ( it's the only thing I'm actually qualified in) but I have never even opened a CAD program. I choose FREECAD because as the name suggests it's free. However I have to say it was a steep learning curve and the software is pretty temperamental . Luckily there are plenty of Youtube tutorials so I started making some Very basic bits - trays, boxes, some new knobs for my toaster. Every design was a little more complicated and used a new technique and 6 months later I'm now at the stage where I can design most things.
But the print detail I could get was never good enough to use for modelling. And then it hit me! If I can't make fine detail for scale models, WHY NOT MAKE BIGGER MODELS!
So I started looking at making a 1:1 scale pistol.
Originally I was going for a sci fi ray gun. But then I remembered the mask and thought that a sort of steam punk Nazi pistol would match. Using such small printer I had to make it in sections and then glue them together. Of course every thing has visible print layers but with some setting tweaks and a lot of sanding some car filler and plenty of paint. I came up with this..
I was quiet chuffed, so I made it a leather holster.
Now I'm thinking "What can I do next?" and the idea of a steam punk rifle started to evolve, but I wanted to stretch my CAD skills a bit more. The pistol was mainly made of shapes that I could already make, and being imaginary, whose to say that I had done it wrong. I decided to try and make a faithful replica. ( At least as faithful as I could). I thought I'd stay with the German theme and I was still keen to do a rifle But then I remembered the MP40 and I was smitten.
Of course I had no idea how to make it! So I started collecting pics and found an American company that made a working replica. And they had a really nice side profile drawing that had the measurements for the length of barrel and the distance between the sights. Using this I printed out a full scale image so I could measure everything else and started making the barrel collar and the front sight. Laying the parts on the plan ( Like a balsa wood glider) as I made them. Still only being able to work in small sections ( about 3 inches at a time) I sanded and filled everything as the next piece was printing. I got the whole of the barrel and the magazine made before I realised that, this is kind of my thing now, so I might as well buy a better / bigger printer. Enter the Ender 3 S1 which certainly made the bigger handle parts a lot easier . Though no quicker.
This is what I ended up with......
There's a few curves that I still have not mastered making in Freecad and the folding stock had to altered a bit as the mechanism is internal so I had no clue how it worked. AND it turns out that the American replica has a none original bolt slide making it shorter that it should be
But overall it's pretty convincing ( the bank teller thought it was real 
)
Total time to print.... not really known, I'd guess about 6 days! I made both the large side pieces together and it took 24 hrs just to print them. Over all it's taken me a bout 2 months of evenings and weekends.
Total cost ... Filament is pretty cheap, this is probably less that a whole roll which cost £14. Paint however was about £60 not that it was hugely expensive, just that I didn't realize how much much I would need! I do have some left but not much. There's nearly a whole bottle of Primer and gun metal used here.
Well this is certainly a long post, but if anyone is still reading and is actually interested, I have lots of build photos.
Oh and I updated the mask!
Back along I started working with leather and found it was something else I really enjoyed. And then, during the first lock down I found a plastic stahlhelm on eBay for £14 so with some leather and a bit of drain pipe, some plastic elbows 2 coke cans and assorted junk that I had lying around + lots of weathering. I made this! ( It's full size and wearable)
Fast forward a couple of years and I went back to work after Xmas 2021, and one of my workmates was talking about a 3D he had got, and how easy it was to use. I knew nothing about 3D printers so I liked the idea of a machine that just worked out of the box, and my Birthday is in mid January! So a Fortnight later I had a Monoprice Delta Mini!
A tiny little machine that cost £140 It worked really well, but I soon got bored of printing things I didn't really need or want so I started looking into 3D cad software so I could design my on stuff.. I didn't want to spend too much as I didn't have any idea if I would be able to use it. I loved technical drawing at school ( it's the only thing I'm actually qualified in) but I have never even opened a CAD program. I choose FREECAD because as the name suggests it's free. However I have to say it was a steep learning curve and the software is pretty temperamental . Luckily there are plenty of Youtube tutorials so I started making some Very basic bits - trays, boxes, some new knobs for my toaster. Every design was a little more complicated and used a new technique and 6 months later I'm now at the stage where I can design most things.
But the print detail I could get was never good enough to use for modelling. And then it hit me! If I can't make fine detail for scale models, WHY NOT MAKE BIGGER MODELS!
So I started looking at making a 1:1 scale pistol.
Originally I was going for a sci fi ray gun. But then I remembered the mask and thought that a sort of steam punk Nazi pistol would match. Using such small printer I had to make it in sections and then glue them together. Of course every thing has visible print layers but with some setting tweaks and a lot of sanding some car filler and plenty of paint. I came up with this..
I was quiet chuffed, so I made it a leather holster.
Now I'm thinking "What can I do next?" and the idea of a steam punk rifle started to evolve, but I wanted to stretch my CAD skills a bit more. The pistol was mainly made of shapes that I could already make, and being imaginary, whose to say that I had done it wrong. I decided to try and make a faithful replica. ( At least as faithful as I could). I thought I'd stay with the German theme and I was still keen to do a rifle But then I remembered the MP40 and I was smitten.
Of course I had no idea how to make it! So I started collecting pics and found an American company that made a working replica. And they had a really nice side profile drawing that had the measurements for the length of barrel and the distance between the sights. Using this I printed out a full scale image so I could measure everything else and started making the barrel collar and the front sight. Laying the parts on the plan ( Like a balsa wood glider) as I made them. Still only being able to work in small sections ( about 3 inches at a time) I sanded and filled everything as the next piece was printing. I got the whole of the barrel and the magazine made before I realised that, this is kind of my thing now, so I might as well buy a better / bigger printer. Enter the Ender 3 S1 which certainly made the bigger handle parts a lot easier . Though no quicker.
This is what I ended up with......
There's a few curves that I still have not mastered making in Freecad and the folding stock had to altered a bit as the mechanism is internal so I had no clue how it worked. AND it turns out that the American replica has a none original bolt slide making it shorter that it should be
But overall it's pretty convincing ( the bank teller thought it was real ) Total time to print.... not really known, I'd guess about 6 days! I made both the large side pieces together and it took 24 hrs just to print them. Over all it's taken me a bout 2 months of evenings and weekends.
Total cost ... Filament is pretty cheap, this is probably less that a whole roll which cost £14. Paint however was about £60 not that it was hugely expensive, just that I didn't realize how much much I would need! I do have some left but not much. There's nearly a whole bottle of Primer and gun metal used here.
Well this is certainly a long post, but if anyone is still reading and is actually interested, I have lots of build photos.
Oh and I updated the mask!
