What can you get for the price of a pint of milk nowadays? How abought a F4U Chance-Vought Corsair?

It has been a strange day at work - hanging around twiddling thumbs waiting to get a call out. In the meantime I decided to work out how much it cost to print a 1:200 scale model for Blood Red Skies*.

The answer is 52p in resin and electricity. About 12p of that is the supports which are discarded once the print is done. I'm printing the models in pairs which so far has meant no fails, but it does take longer to get a "squadron" of six printed - nearly seven hours a pair. I've printed in larger batches before, up to six at a time with smaller models (no Chance with the Corsair - geddit!), but that seems to lead to a higher change of a failed print, and I'm in no rush.

Just out of the printer

The file I'm using is from Roman Troyan's "Plane Printer" Patreon scheme - link below. This costs $7 a month. In the last month he released eleven models, though to be fair this is exceptional and normally it would be something like one or two a fortnight or so. You have to take pot luck here as he releases stuff on a whim - some of the releases this month are a Fw190A and a Nieuport Delange NiD-52 (I had to Google it!).

You still need to do some work on the file, add supports and check the mounting slot is ok. This can take a couple of tries to get it correct - or get someone else to do it if you don't have the "skilz". Then you need to clean up the model before painting, but that part at least is not much different to any other model. 

Ready for clean up

Obviously the printer, wash and cure station, isopropyl alcohol to clean up, gloves and the like, my time etc isn't factored in. Nor is the inconvenience (and smell).

3d printing isn't for everyone, and will never be. Overall it is still a bit hit and miss, but I have to say it is revolutionising the way I think of my hobby.

Link to Plane Printer


* Other WW2 dogfight games exist, they're just not as good.