Infinity Terrain

So I have now taken final photo’s of the last section of the project. It still feels good to finish it.

So that’s it, it’s all over. I am going to close this project it has been open just over a year. It has been great I have a full table of scenery for my infinity games. If I make more I will make another project but it wont be in this style.

I have learned loads while doing this. The last section in particular combining the laser cutting I learned at the start and then the 3d printing in the middle. It’s been real.

More to come, just not here 😀

I hate having things left unfinished projects. They are shameful (to me) I had to stop myself moving forward with my other projects until I finished the last building in this series.

I still have / had not got a lot of enthusiasm for this anymore. I don’t know why. I remember the good times, then I just lost it.

So for the past couple of weeks I put all off all my other projects and didn’t allow myself to have fun. the next two updates took way longer than it should. This should have been 3 days work. It took much much longer.

So I stopped recording what I done from this point. I again was not feeling it. But I continued until it was complete.

To finish the painting I highlighted and then used some streaking effects on the model in greens and oranges.

I then airbrushed OSL on the lights and on the console and then used water effects for the glass on the console.

More to come.

I should have finished this project by now. Unfortunately I appear to have lost any creative thought I have (hopefully just this project). I started to hit a wall. Making parts to fit on curves seems to not comply to any mathematical theory I can fathom.

I make parts mathematically correct that does not fit to the reality. It’s probably glue thicknesses but It seems to far out to be that.

I tried to push ahead making each component and placing it on to give better reference points for positioning parts. Nothing works cleanly and this isn’t usually a problem. Compromise, adapt and overcome is usually the order of the day.

It’s a wall a have been trying to hit for three weeks and almost no progress. I have no choice but to order the retreat and pick another battle. This project is regretfully going on hold for pastures new. I will come back but it will be when my moral has recovered.

So this is the last update for a while, this will however enable me to talk about my new project I have been side lining It will however be a new project starting from scratch.

Now what did I manage to do in 3 weeks?

Not much. I clad the building in 0.5mm card sprayed black and put on the stairs and some of the hazard stripes the window and door are put in position and the vents on the side. Here is some pictures of where it stands just now.

I may have lost the battle, but I am sure I will still win the war.

More to come, just in while.

I have procrastinated enough. It’s time to take this to the next level (or two). Sorry this will be a bit wordy but I wanted to get down all I learned.

This project is a test bed for lots of new equipment and techniques to find out where the limits are at this current time. Things do not always go smoothly and they shouldn’t but it seems to create a bit of apprehension in doing the next steps. If this was a job I would power through as a hobby I kind of let it get to me.

With the raised pads having rounded corners it was never going to happen that I could place a square building on top. It aesthetically speaking needs to be a design feature throughout the elements of the building.

I didn’t want to print 3D printed corners to the building (this was plan B).  I needed to come up with a way to do rounded MDF and card just like the earlier buildings. Luckily enough I didn’t need to invent a way but I had to do some research. I did try cutting someone else’s design about a year ago and started a very small fire. So I knew I couldn’t rip off someone else’s work. The problem then was the lines were to close together and the laser went over the straights twice which just caught fire (again small fire). I did however learn while doing this and thought I could do it so it would work on my laser (which does not have air assist). So I started my design.

So after I designed the base building, I made a grave error. I used the place holder building from the Fusion 360 model to base the dimensions on.  This meant a made a building that was to big on one dimension and to short on another. I also managed to mess up the bends but This did prove the concept would work. I also made a second mistake and measured the exterior length of the curve of the bendable flat sections. For some reason I though this dimension should be correct as this is the longest part. It was not the case I measured the interior curve and this was the correct dimension. This is because it flexes around the smaller interior dimension. In hind sight this was a stupid mistake but cost some time.

I didn’t want 1000 parts. I have made this mistake before this 7 parts but only 5 are really required (two stops and bottoms for the rooms). Which as far as I’m concerned is great to get this complex shape. The only issue was the 1st floor is lower than the rim. I wanted to keep this for gameplay but would have been easier to make it flush. I made a part that had the flex on the outside to match the rim. I used cove tail like joins as it’s quite springy. this helps to lock the sections in place for gluing.

Here is what turned out to be.

This is my first finished project using K40 whisperer for the entire thing. It’s a much faster workflow than using Corel laser. I go right from CAD to cutting. No need for reference marks. I did have some issues with so many individual lines on the drawing my laser cutter hates this and sometimes stops responding mid cut. I wasted 3 bits of wood due to this (probably about 50p down the drain) I used the rest for the tops and bottoms so not a complete waste.

You also don’t want to play with the curves to much. throwing them around like a floppy taco is probably not a good plan. I did break my test piece doing this. Glad it was wrong anyway.

There are loads more ways to bend MDF and wood in general. There are some weird methods but this seemed the simplest and the best for my needs on this project.

Now I need to design the exterior parts and get these cut and attached. I hope to get this done this weekend (ever heard that before?). Then I need to design and make the radar dish or tower for the top.

More to come, sorry for all the words. I don’t want to have to re-learn this skill. I promise more pretty pictures than this.

So I decided I would be painting all day and not doing terrain. My wife had other ideas and made me go shopping. Before we went I was on the infinity UK Facebook group (cheating on BOW). A guy seen a picture of a great scaled model car and was looking for the store it was purchased from. Everyone commented on where they thought it came from, it was perfect in everyway and I don’t have those stores near me. I found it in Tesco…

So I will be getting a couple more of these. They are the car of my tiny little dreams. It’s so perfect in scale but it distracted me from painting further than the shopping trip that’s the only downside.

Oh well off to eat the food I got.

More to come if I can stop painting and distracting myself.

Since I got over the roadblock that was the staircase I went ahead and finished the second platform for the landing control tower.

I started by 3D printing the sides I had the platform top and bottom laser cut already. The issue I had was I need to somehow assemble this onto painted components.  Yet keep it separate for painting.

I don’t this my making an assembly but somehow managed to make it quite accurate to fit after painting without snapping anything.

So I have my assembly. I primed this in black and then done a zenith filled again sanded and then primed again.

After this I went about painting. I wanted this to still be old but I wanted this to be newer than the other platform. This should have evolved and parts and spares brought in. I decided to try and make the paint slightly brighter. I don’t know if this will come out especially in pictures.

I left a peg at the bottom of the assembly and put plugs at the bottom of the platform as before to guide it into position.

I did need to use a hammer at a point as everything was too tight when glue was added but this brute force method seemed to work. Drying superglue waits for no man.

After everything was in place apart from relief I started to feel excitement.

This is extremely difficult to photograph I may need to get this onto a table to photograph properly.

My plans have changed, well the timings have. I want to get this table ready so I my miss off the vehicles for now and revisit this.

I want to move onto a new project but still have things to learn here and want to get this done.

I still have 2 more levels to do not including satellite dishes. A gangway to get dross the platforms more crates and storage to give hard cover.

Much more to come.

Long time no progress. I took a few weeks off from this. I burnt out on this project so moved on and messed around. Now I am back cutting and printing again.

Usually my burn outs happen when something doesn’t go right. This was no exception.

I cut out 100 parts it takes to build this staircase. this in itself is not slow or difficult. It was good to see I managed to laser cut the fibreglass mesh. I rush to assembly on my old GW brush that would make the core.

Problem was I was using superglue and going this (started in the light) in the dark. It was ok not great until about 2/3 of the way up. Then I glued a stair in bent and then proceeded to put the rest on and only noticed when I was done. I then broke it numerous times trying to fix it and in the end it was not very accurate and not up to my own standards.

So I did learn from my mistakes. I learned to play more and have more fun. I have played 4 games of infinity in-between then and now which is more than I have played all year. I am now no longer using the starter rules and am having to copy with the loads of special rules. I did miss not having the landing pad around to use to play on so I guess I had to get back to it and that meant dealing with the staircase.

I started with the banister one of the issues was even though I was kind of accurate with the rotation it wasn’t great. So last night while playing infinity I got the print on the go. This is the largest print I think I have done so far on the photon and for such a small part.

I have the 3D printed parts for the second platform printing just now as I type.  I have already laser cut the top and bottom  of the platform. I will be doing this over the next couple of days and then I will be ready to start assembly and then painting again.

I don’t think I have learned my lesson for making and designing things that are very complicated. Cant wait to get this finished though.

More to come.

Over the weekend I started to draw, designing the com tower that would fit onto the 4 pre done pillars. I am at the stage where I am going to stop drawing and start making again. I am home sick at the moment but my head is clear enough to finish the drawings that I need.

The design has taken a number of twists along the way.

I had to think about the roots of this project and what I wanted to achieve. Not only the end result I wanted to experiment with better ways to use the tools I have and develop or discover techniques. I have used a lot of old tricks but everything 3D printed here is pretty new to me and merging laser cut MDF and card into the mix is also a new combination to me. I still have not pushed the limits of the laser cutter or the 3D printer.

Time to start pushing those boundaries.

I started with the staircase. I looked at industrial staircases and existing 28mm ones . These were rather basic but easily achievable. Not exactly pushing the design or boundaries. I wanted to break up symmetry of the second section as the first is very symmetrical, this should add visual interest in the object but  in doing so I had some more room to play with.

I decided to scrap the boxy staircase and put something I have not seen done in 28mm before. A modern / industrial spiral staircase. I have been told by lots of people 15 – 20 years ago that this was one of the most complex objects to make and for it to be correct at any scale (including 1:1)… what do they know.

I started drawing and yes it makes your head hurt. Even with modern software to design in 3D, Making the shapes and have it work so you don’t have to crawl up the stairs is a challenge.

I ended up with a 28 degree section for the tread.  Each raiser should be 3 point something mm high, I rounded down to 3 to make my head hurt less. To draw you need to make all the steps and move them 28 degrees around the axis which in my case is a part of an old GW paintbrush. I ended up with 31 steps at 2mm each and 30 1mm spacers.

Even reading the above hurt my head. So I had my staircase. Great… or not. Still too simple. So I decided to make a tread for each step but I wanted to keep the industrial look. Great easy just laser cut some plastic mesh… not so fast. The type of plastic the mesh I was thinking of, will laser cut but it will also likely produce toxic fumes. No thanks. I have ordered some fibreglass mesh which should be much thinner and not produce fumes I cant deal with (still not going to huff it).

Still not enough. what if my little people fall over and die before they get to the top. People will most likely be ARO’ing anyone who runs up the stairs. So I needed a safety rail of course.  So I put balusters on each of the steps these will be paperclips.

That left me with a sore head. I still don’t know how I am going to print the handrail but even drawing it wasn’t pleasant but I did find an easy way after about an hour which was draw 3D curves connecting each of the balusters making the sketch into a pipe and then cutting out the holes that the balusters could fit into.

I then extended and cut the hole in the base to provide a lining.

To the left I will be placing a movable looking bridge over to the landing pad. and the basic shape of the building was set I wanted the edges curved and will be doing this on the laser cutter. but will finish the design later. There will be two ladders going from the first to the second floor.

That left the right section. I was still worries about my models safety. I will be placing boxes etc up there to provide actual cover for models but what if that stuff was not there. I know I needed another handrail. Thankfully this one was much faster.

Congratulations if you just read the ramblings above I am aware that this is quite long here is far too few pictures to balance the text.

So that’s the design so far. I hope to get some time this weekend to start to build this. I don’t think I will finish it to the same level as the other parts until the building is done. I am going to build it though.

I see lots of swearing in my future.

More to come.

So I didn’t manage to get this done on Sunday. It took a little longer and I am still not quite done but I am done enough to start to design the next section.

I took a look at how this was going to be assembled and I got to the stage where I had to glue the platform for the columns,

Before this was done I needed to weather this as I wouldn’t be able to easily get in.  There still will be a final weathering stage but I need to get the bulk of the work done.

I also liked and disliked how much each part popped and it felt like components stuck together and not a structure.

The final result should be a well maintained and used facility, not abandoned and not entirely safe/ A few bodge jobs done to keep things running. This will be the oldest building of all as I imagine this was built to allow the delivery of building materials for the building of the industrial complex.

The first thing I done was paint the exposed panels.

I put on some thinned oil paints black, brown and orange, rubbed in with a rag and then went in with another rag and removed a lot of that was put on. This had the effect of making the stark white paint muted and giving everything a more uniform tone.

I added some streaks using AK interactive streaking rust and streaking grime. I then went in with a brush and neatened this with some thinner. this gives a subtle rained on effect I done this to the columns and on any vertical surface.

I then got the chance to start to add some cables.

First I needed to glue down the platform. This was done with superglue into the peg and holes I created earlier.

These are not “plugged in” in the same manor on each of the robots. some have been connected in serial and parts cut and swapped ports. Generally anything to make them work. I used solid core ethernet cable strands so when these don’t droop naturally as this would have been a nightmare if I used stranded wire. This may need a little touch up before I am done as it required lots of touching. Also the positions I chose should not get bashed.

This is where I go quiet for about a week while I start to design the com tower. I have a few ideas but I have also had more ideas for more buildings which I may start on but cant start yet until I finish this.

I am still very much open to ideas. Specifically what type of doorway I should have from the building to the platform. Should this suggest a kind of draw bridge, an old repurposed airlock from a bigger dock or something else?

More to come.

So I have been sanding… I mean building the landing pad. This was last weekend and this weekend. Turns out making lots of 3d printed and laser cut parts means Sanding if you don’t truly understand the chemistry and tolerances involved. It actually wasn’t that bad a result but it was uneven around the rim where the 3d printed parts met the laser cut.

This was further exacerbated by me printing directly on the printed without supports. meaning the flat sections are a little smaller than the curved which were printed with supports.

I didn’t take any pictures of the unpainted platform which is my bad. to be honest I didn’t see this as a stage I assembled everything by gluing it with superglue into slots. I filled in around the run and got to the point I couldn’t see what needed filling again. So I primed the platform and this also acted as a fine filler and filled again on top again sanding down each layer until I couldn’t be bothered anymore and started to paint.

A tip if I could give any would be to take your time sanding especially if you are using Vallejo plastic putty if you go to fast it tends to bead and roll up under the sand paper and rip it out from deeper sections.

I turned my attention to the hazard lines around the loading opening. I tried 3 times to 3d print these. It didn’t go well. I tried unsupported each time and my bed while level enough to print off of is not level enough to print something so thin and flat.

I turned back to the laser cutter. I am known for spending hours on hazard lines but I honestly couldn’t face anymore (for the moment). First plan was to make 3D ones. This would have used up most of my hobby time but would have looked cool.

I cut out a jig of sorts as I wanted two one for the bottom and one for the top. This was two pieces of card. One with the hole for the base of the hazard stripes and another for the yellow sections.  these were half stuck with double sided tape. I then primed the two rectangles and slotted them into the jog and sprayed grey then yellow while holding the template down.

The next step was to start to fully paint the planform. I wanted to use more stencils so decided to keep it as flat as I could and didn’t glue down the hazard lines.

I wanted this to be quick. I cut out my mask. I used liquid mask to stick it down on the platform which is my favourite technique. I also wanted multiple colours but only one mask.

I prayed white then masked off the white over the stencil and the follow and again masked over than then went in with black.

The whole idea of this was to add colour and from a functional point of view give something for the automated drone to lock onto to land.

After this some hand painting was required to paint the emergency kit. I am very please the explosive text came out on the large box. This is an explosive foam that would envelope the landing pad in the event of a failure. along with first aid and a manual fulling station/ spares box.

So I am not finished yet but couldn’t resist putting everything together. So happy so far. Last section needs to be designed, everything weathered, pipes put in, more painting to be done, automated truck and aircraft. Lots to do.

Closeup of the container. I will probably need to make one more of these for this model but this is just for the moment.

That’s where I am at the moment. I hope to get more done this weekend but drinking is too alluring to keep going. I want to get to the design stage of the control tower next week which involves finishing the painting and adding dressing to the platform.

Much more to come.

I continued my progress on the first floor. At this point I have a stair case that needs to be designed and built but this is pretty much it without scatter terrain on the model (which there will be a lot of.

I do have more cables to be suspended from the landing platform and feed the robot arms and the motors. This is getting to the point where I am happy with the progress. Cant wait to finish this but I am enjoying the progress so much I don’t think I want to finish.

More to come.

So in the past couple of days I couldn’t keep drawing. I enjoy it but I prefer building and painting and I was starting to get a mental block of how things should work or look and the overall feel of the model.

So I decided to start to build it since the first floor was done apart from add on parts.

I started to use green clear resin as it’s much faster then the grey. I still have not done the test model on my 3d printer. but the green resin came with it. Spoiler alert I much prefer it to the grey.

I started on the columns I have two types one with a gear inside it and one without. I started with the one with the gear and had my first major print failure. I Went to bed and didn’t top up the resin. Stupid mistake probably a £4 mistake.  Not the worst £4 I have wasted but now I have some bits or my bits box. It takes around 7 hours for 4 columns to print this was done overnight so didn’t mater much about the wasted time.

After the prints come out the are covered in goo I split them up while covered in uncured resin place them in a jar of alcohol and put them into my ultrasonic cleaner.

After they come out they are not tacky they are kind of like a hard gum but easily scratched. I remove the supports which on the bottom surface most of the detail is gone and it sort of balloons I then sand this to flat with wet and dry and keep the dust down  then do this more until flat enough. The parts closest to the fep the film at the bottom have great detail.

I also went onto laser cutting the base and printed and placed the hazard stripes into the board.

This was done with superglue and then going in with Vallejo plastic putty. I also filled in unwanted lines on the board and glued it together with PVA.

At this stage I also laser cut the lifting platforms and started to print the components to the robot arms.

The robot arms turned out to be a pain but that was a learning pain of using a 3d printer. I know the tolerance of 3d prints is make things 0.2mm bigger but when you also include the end of the bed this can be more and the orientation of the print matters as well and I cant calculate for this built it is consistent but it may take a bigger brain than mine to work this out.

Parts, resin to resin do not line up as they should but 3d print to laser cut do. I think this is because when the laser cut objects which are crazy accurate it is a 0.02 deviation that I can account for but 3d print to 3d print may be 2x 0.2mm accuracy difference which is. regardless I just make it work in the great old modelling style.

Each robot arm has 16 components and 6 axis of movement making them very posable and complex. I made 4 of them and they do work and roll up and down the column with the rack and pinion and the guide rails. This was a tight fit band stayed in place but now with lots of play are a bit loose. they do need cleared more and then fixed in place but they seem to work well.

Don’t know how I am going to paint these but I know it’s going to be basic.

I also base coated the base board in Poundland spray paint black this showed where I filled and where I didn’t which isn’t a great look.

I couldn’t let the finish on the base stop bothering me. I sprayed over a gloss coat (again Poundland) this made it look great but then when I went over again this came through again.

I carried on regardless and airbrushed a light dusting of black then grey then some blue and silver and some green and bone. All Vallejo primers. this looked good to me as a base concreate I will do more to this finish later.

I then masked off the ramps and sprayed white primer down went in with orange at the top and bottom then went in with yellow and then a stripe of white across the middle.

After this as this was 3D I went in and hand painted the stripes in black.

I need to put some text and details onto this like a robot working area warning on the ground.

This will also have a lot of clutter placed on it  creates and pipe coils and spare parts. and a autonomous vehicle getting a container placed onto it by the robotic arm. Should provide a lot of cover through it . there is also a staircase to go in for the other building but I have not designed that yet.

I still have my drawing open and am working on the landing pad at the moment. This is supposed to look a little on the used side but not total disrepair. This is one of the first buildings on the site and part from flat materials all comments will fit into a container.

Some panels are missing and there will be hanging cables in places.  plugged into ports on the exposed side panels. The big green building is the control/coms tower which I have not finished the design and this will also somehow link to the landing pad. I am liking linking MDF laser cut to 3d printed parts. I am learning a lot and may have to go add tolerances to all parts or I may just cut and sand them.

So that’s me so far. Still got a lot to do. A frankly daunting part. I am still excited to get a landing pad that I think would work in real life with an actual reason to be on a platform.

More to come. Hopefully soon.

Next more painting, assembly and drawing. Keep making awesome projects, I place more likes than comments due to time but I still love seeing everyone’s work! Glad I am not the only crazy one.

So I am back at the drawing stage of a large model. Quite enjoying this one I have laser cutting in mind along with 3d printing and some hand skills as well.

The next project within a project is my landing pad I wanted to do. Always want one of these but never liked how they have been done. The standard is a circle or octagon on stilts.

I like stilts but why would you have them unless you were trying to protect the ground, surly this makes it harder to load cargo and it makes much more sense to have it on the ground…

Unless you have some sort of cargo system to load of offload cargo, this got my ideas flowing. So I decided to start to build my landing pad and have taken far to long and have 1000 components already to start to print and cut. I think I am going to start to print some components soon.

So far I have designed a column 😀 this has taken ages because it pretty much works. All the components have ball joins and material tolerances so they fit together when printed. The robot arms can move up and down etc. I wanted this for possibility. I also have numerous ports on the parts for power and cables (added later). This is going to be the well used first landing pad the enabled the rest of the buildings to be put up.

There will be an automated truck, a cargo container (which I done before) being raised up into the cargo slot of a drone flyer, along with some kind of control tower.  Quite involved and should be fun.

The only point for scale is the white sections. They are sections of  plastic lollipop sticks 4mm diameter.

Here is what I have so far.

So that’s this so far. Will continue to work and post as I progress. I will be working on the structure holding up the control tower. then will move onto the platform. And possibly start printing the arms and columns.

More to come but possibly just more drawings.

So what have I been up to? Painting boxes mostly badly but still painting. I refuse to have a pile of unpainted grey plastic especially as I can print some. But I am in the planning stage at the moment. By this I mean I have hit a creative road block of my own. I have a big project planned ticking a lot of the boxes bellow. I cant seem to finalise the design of anything. Everything I do is re-done or scrapped.

So I painted. And Painted, oh and painted.

I have now found a new problem. More detail = more painting.

So far so good. Learning lots and more design needed. I don’t want to talk to much about the big project but it will be the Landing pad but with an aircraft, vehicle and lots of window dressing. It will be in a different style from the rest of the buildings due to this being the first building on the site to help build the rest.

I had a moment of clarity last night before I went to sleep and the design was perfect. I was happy with everything I thought of and it was going to be great. This morning I cant remember any of the details. Morel of the story? Don’t sleep.

More to come but I may step into a fuller project rather than scatter terrain fully combining laser, hand and 3d printing. That’s the goal anyway.

No sci-fi setting would be complete without barrels. They have been a staple for years but sadly I only own 1 GW barrel. It’s some of the objects that money does not come out of my wallet for but I have always wanted them.

I decided to try and make a more sci-fi barrel. I don’t think it’s all there yet I may come back to this but there is not much you can do with a barrel unless you are prepared to change the shape to not a barrel.

I done some sketches and just used the tools to make some shapes on the software.  The only design part I wanted, in case I wished to use these or embellish them further. I wanted a way to link the barrels via hoses this could be to mix and output the contents. This was fitted with 0.9 mm holes the same as the gas cylinder so I can use the solid core ethernet cable wires I have to fit in to pretend there are hoses I may also make connector sections for this to really ramp up the detail. I don’t know why I went with 3 possibly one for beet one for gas, connected to a mixing barrel and a tap for a sci-fi beer scene!

So there I have it. Finished barrels to join the ranks of my terrain. The bottle mounting system made this very quick to paint just spinning the lid meant I could paint without stopping due to constant movement.

Very quick project this was done today. Quite happy with this but there may be another barrel resign in the future as I learn more I may revisit this.

Next will be the roadblock but this may be next weekend or a during the week project. I have made these but they need painting and is the first time I have used Laser and resign prints together (even though this is very simple in this case).

More to come!

I will show everything from my working through to completion for the water road block.

I hate my drawings as I am not very good at it unless I spend hours and hours this is not a natural talent but a means to an end in this case so please save your judgements.

I find when using 3D design tools only a lot of time is wasted “thinking” before trying to get the software to do what you envision.

For me not being very proficient in the tools I am using, it’s beneficial to have a plan before I open up the software. I often do very quick sketches I have found these are not normally detailed enough. I have a weird head thing with black on white so sketching on white paper is difficult I lose focus and quite often give up in longer sessions. It’s the same with reading which is why I read on my kindle with white text and black background.

The great thing was I drew a rough plan for this on Friday night. 3d Designed this on Saturday morning and printed and painted in the afternoon.  Quite odd thinking about something, going to sleep and having it in your hand within 24 hours. That’s probably quicker than most delivery services and faster than I can make a decisions on spending money on models.

I don’t think this is ground breaking but this is the workflow I am following with the 3D printer. I am trying not to just print a large amount of unpainted grey.

The model is simple but then so is the object. I think any more detail would be to much hence the removal of the list that I stated MUST HAVE! These will look great on my infinity table and should give a good narrative to why there are no vehicles going down roads mid play. Also not something I have seen you can buy which makes me happy.

More to come next is barrels but not as detailed on the process as this could get dull fast 🙂

More to come.

After the inclusion of a 3d printer and getting used to this. I have decided to do a street furniture pack for my infinity boards. The box and gas cylinder was a good start but I think more is to come and as this is the first post of the project in 2019 I think it’s a good time to set out my plans.

First of all a catch-up on this week.

I have had the resin printer learning curve this week with a fair few failures / issues with prints. This has mostly been trying to get more speed out of the printer and resin combo, I pushed it past the point in which more time was required due to layer height I think I have found the sweet spot/compromise for speed and quality for the grey resin I am using.

I think I am giving up on angling my prints for printing as well due to more supports being required and the marks this places on the surface. I still use supports but this tends to be thick bottom supports and very thin (0.20mm) supports higher up. Seems to work well.

The redesign of the cube has completed. I got out a few ok prints but changed the angle back to vertical and this fixed most issues. Only occasionally I get the odd clogged vent holes on the top of the cube, I have not pointed any yet but have 15 of these made so far.  Still to paint but I think these will be coloured tops and grey bottoms with the colour indicating the contents.

I have made traffic barriers. liquid drums and road blacks so far but I will show these on a separate post.

Onto my Plans for 2019 infinity.

I wanted a plan set out so if I go “what should I make next?” I have a list to pick from. I think with this it will finish off this set and give elements for other sets. This may not be an exhaustive list. I want to make the kind of things that are either expensive to buy, I don’t like the ones I have seen or that are very niche and not available.

Things to design / Build in 2019
Gas cylinders – Resin
20mm Box – Resin
Barrels – Resin
Bins – Resin
Large water road blocks / cones – Resin
Road bollards / rails – Resin
More different box / package – Resin
free standing consoles x3 – Resin
US style road blocks – Resin
Smaller gas canisters – Resin
Truck – Resin
Dumpsters – Resin
Gas cylinders container – Resin
Rectangular boxes – Resin
Small Food shops – Resin/Laser
Com Tower Resin/Laser – Resin/Laser
Large Billboard – Resin/Laser
Small Free standing advertising – Resin/Laser
Landing Pad – Resin/Laser
Small shuttle / dropship – Resin
Armoury / Security office – Resin/Laser
fuel / car charging station – Resin/Laser
lamp posts – Resin
Pleasure / suicide booths – Resin/Laser
Fire Hydrant – Resin
Tree / flower planters – Resin/Laser
Road dividers – Resin
Civilian drone / delivery system – Resin/Laser

Underlined objects have been done already.

This is not an exhaustive or binding list I am sure there will be more but this is something to be getting on with.

More to come, Very quickly this time.

I thought this year was over. Well I will be right in over 6 hours my time. But I spent my Sunday evening designing my next 3d object to try to print. I put it on overnight went to work this morning and then came home to see what I got.

So 4 of these printed. Surprisingly with all the designed details visible though I am calling this V1.0

This needs some work:

• Some supports adhered to the under hangs on the sides and some caused issues and weaknesses on the bottom lip.
• I messed up just plonking this in my sonic cleaner you can see the basket marks on the model. (not so much when painted)
• There is absolutely no need to be able to run a scalpel under the handles these could be a part of the main body and fix the support issue.
• The holes on the top are so fine. I need to exaggerate the detail to make it look better
• I need to thicken the bottom stackable lip to make this more ridged and make it larger to accommodate paint thickness better. I may make the top detail more pronounced.

Still very pleased with the outcome The finished updated versions will be much better but this will need to wait until the new year.

Happy Hogmanay and lets get smashed 😀

So I thought I was done for making sceanery this year… Turns out that’s something I don’t know how to do. I got my 3D printer for Christmas (arrived yesterday) but before it arrived I had a look at what I could print. Turns out I am either very picky or the quality of objects available is quite poor, I think it’s a bit of both.

So I turned to software I have not used before and started to try and learn. I used YouTube tutorials and read. None of it went in but it was a good way to get some sleep. I do have an ambitious aircraft I want to make for a landing may but my skills are not there yet.

I needed to do something simpler. There is a reason when I learned CAD 20 years ago we started by making cubes and pyramids starting with an aircraft was very naïve but I have learned a lot and put this to better use starting with some garnish terrain to go with my existing stuff.

I looked at gas bottles seemed to bit with the theme of the moto-tronica set.  This took a bit of time and I didn’t know how detailed I could make this. There are lots of details that didn’t print clearly due to the scale but there are hints of them which add to the overall aesthetic.

So I had my model and I got my printer delivered to work yesterday.

I got an Anycubic Photon but along with this I got another ultrasonic cleaner and nail lamp to finish off the curing along with lots of IPA (alcohol).

I added supports and sliced my model. This was angled at 45 degrees to help the print.

I started it off and boom! 4 hours later I had 9 gas bottles. These printed better than my expectations and used next to no resin. The only issue I found is where the supports meet the model. To the naked eye I cant see layer lines but in these photos you can just make them out.

After cleaning and curing the print I went ahead and undercoated it and zenithed it.

Here you can see the layer lines but again these are not visible when just looking at the object.

I went ahead and painted as normal. This didn’t seem any different from painting a resin or plastic model.

So that’s it a quick project to finish the year with. Its a good starting point with new software, hardware, material and processes. Good thing is that I can make as many or as few of these as I need. Looking forward to getting deeper into 3D printing, mixing this with laser cutting and hand crafting some more terrain and models. I can really see the potential in this!

More to come!

It has a name and it is Automated Factory! Didn’t do anything midweek on this but did find some time today to finish it up.

The name which was laser cut and then glued with PVA this didn’t go as well as I wanted and I ended up with some slime like residue around some of the letters. I think this was soot from the laser cutter mixed with PVA. I cleaned most of this up but this left some scratches on the paint.

The main additions are the transfers as described on other buildings bellow. After this everything got a satin varnish to protect it.

I cut some masks for the windows and also made some screens for the control screens again by printing this out and using some gloss varnish on them.

I used my airbrush to go around the base of the model and in the corners as well as add soot from the exhausts.

I then airbrushed the lights by going in with white then blue then white again.

Finishing everything of with some weathering powder on limited sections.

So this was quick, which was planned. It didn’t go on for 3 months or a year in some cases. It was quite fun and will add some height to my table.

It is a pain to photograph as it’s so large. I will need to think about this in the future but I don’t think I will do such a large footprint for a building for this set again.

Overall think it will be a good addition to my Moto-tronica set. I want some kind of communications building this may end up being tall but smaller then all the other buildings.

I think this is it for this year I need to paint some models instead, infinity and others so this may take a back seat at least for a time.

More to come, at some point.