Err how many Gladiators is too many*? Blood Red Skies and the magic of 3d printing

I recently mentioned my first forays into the arcane art that is 3d printing here 3d-printing-world-turned-upside-down.html

and did a bit of an interview with Rich Carlisle about his new project RoCWorks here roc-works-is-taking-off-interview-with.html

So this is a sort of follow up to both of those as when RoC-Works started to put their .stl files on sale I decided to take the plunge and bought the Gloucester Gladiator.

I had a couple of failed prints, then shamefaced I read the instructions that helpfully came with the files, reset and levelled my print bed, and I'm now turning out Gladiators faster than the original factory! Moral of the story RTFM!

I think the key is the files come with the supports already in place, at a suitable print angle and tested on a Elegoo Mars (which is close enough to my Photon to make no difference). I can easily get three on a build plate. 

The prints are clean and well detailed, and although there is a lot of supporting material on the Gladiator, they clean up quickly and easily.

The file cost £11.25 (introductory price) and includes a licence to print for own use only - you can't sell them or give them away, but to be honest at that price it's an amazing deal, even factoring in the cost of resin and running the printer, so if a mate wants some I will tell him to buy the .stl and I will happily run some off for him.  

In fact it was so painless that I picked up the D520 file too. I thought I had zero interest in the French, however I'm now bugging Rich to do a Ms406! 

So this is all ok if you are a 3d printer owner, but what about the rest of us? RocWorks are making the physical models available for preorder now and are planning to ship on 17th August. Prices are more than the print your own, but still very competitive.  printed-resin-models-catalogue NB the prices are for multiple models not just singles!

I understand there are more models in the pipeline, and if so I will be running the printer for some time to come.

Musing time now, but with RoCWorks taking the hassle and strain out of the 3d printing process I suspect this business model may well start to gather some momentum. 

* Technically the answer is 8 if you are playing to the Air Strike force building rules......