1/200 Scale Japanese Destroyer 3D Print Project

Ok…  Found and downloaded the STL of the IJN Ataksuki…

Next, I imported the STL into TinkerCad…  because it’s free, and that’s how I roll…

Resized the file….  The ship is huge!  LoL

Nosing around the ship, I am seeing some spots where enlarging the file has caused gaps, and some spots where fine things like railings have failed.

So, a few things will have to happen…  I will clean up the fiddly parts that aren’t likely to print well…  I will fill gaps where the enlarging broke the file….  And I will sub-divide it into nice small bite sized pieces that my printer can handle.

First thing I did, was I trimmed off the bottom of the hull so it woud be a waterline model, and then created a slot all along the bottom of the ship…  It should be perfectly sized to take a 1/4 inch square rod.  This will help to line the Hull pieces back up after printing them.

Then I painstakingly subdivided the ship into 6 pieces of between 8 and 10cm in length, choosing the division points carefully to make printing easier where possible.

Then starting on the bow end of the ship….  Clean up….

I have removed the bits of railing that still existed and plug some gaps with basic shapes.  Then merge and continue.

At this point, I decided that if I am going to all this trouble, I definitely want to be able to turn the turrets!  So, those have to come off, to be printed separately!  Will probably install some magnets to make them easily rotatable.