CCClarke

I just finished 3D printing a half-dozen 1/144 scale models of the original and modified versions of the USS Seawolf (SSN-575) to take as gifts to our crew's reunion a few weeks ago. All were a hit. Attached are a couple of 3D renders and photos of the completed hulls.

Lots of good replies posted in response to your questions. 1. I bought a resin printer five years ago, (Phrozen Mighty 4K) along with a cure station, (-also from Phrozen, using a turntable with UV lights surrounding it, with a UV-proof plastic cover) for just under $500 during an Amazon Prime Sale. I keep a log for each print to record how long they took, and any lessons along the way. The elapsed time is important since decent LED arrays are rated to 2000 hours. I'm on print #297 with zero issues with the printer. Any problem prints were my fault and easy to diagnose. Depending on the size requirements for your needs, you may be able to get by with a small printer. Check the print volume before pulling the trigger. I'm at the point now where I need a larger one and will upgrade soon. I'll keep the smaller one for small parts. I printed a set of anchors yesterday that took six hours to design, and an hour to print. Each is smaller than my small fingernail. The quality is always amazing! As for cleaning, I use one plastic tub to spray the build plate/printed parts with 91% IPA using an old Windex bottle, let them soak for three minutes, dry them with my airbrush set to 60 psi, then repeat the process once more. This saves a small fortune in submerging everything in IPA -as many other do. I dump the leftover IPA from the cleaning tub (usually about 1/8 of a cup) into the plastic-lined trash can next to my bench with some paper towels to absorb it. The trash can goes outside where the IPA can evaporate. I went from buying gallons of IPA, (and dealing with the aftermath) per year to a few quarts using this method. A foam brush also helps when cleaning large parts. If I find any residue, I use an IPA-soaked cotton swab to clean it, and blast it with air to evaporate any remaining IPA. After that, I place the build plate in an identical plastic container with enough hot water to submerge the build plate to cover the surface the parts are adhered to. The hot water loosens the parts and expands a miniscule amount allowing the parts to be removed with a slim metal spatula. I let the removed parts soak for a couple of minutes making part support removal easy. For some smaller parts, (like the aforementioned anchors) I leave the supports on, since fishing them out of the water is a PITA. Once all the parts are out, I blow-dry them once more. Some people like the vortex cleaning stations, but again, you're dealing with a larger mess when trying to cure/re-filter IPA in bulk. Time is one thing I never seem to get enough of. 2. Resin is a skin irritant and any resin dust from sanding is not something you ever want to breathe. Nitrile gloves are needed when handling uncured parts. A respirator and is recommended when sanding large parts. Eye protection should be worn anytime liquid resin is present. Some resins put out stronger fumes than others. Unless you have a dedicated indoor space with a good way to ventilate it (via air extractor venting outside) the garage is the place to print. Spill resin on indoor carpet and you're in real trouble. Carpet should never be near a workbench anyway. 3. Temps. Resin changes viscosity (thinner when hot, thicker when cold) which can greatly affect how the parts print. Ideal temp is between 70-75 for most resins, but check the mfr's recommendations before ordering any. In New England, I was limited to printing during warmer weather. You can use a heated enclosure made for 3D printing but if the duty cycle is too great, print quality will suffer. I compromised when I moved to Arizona three years ago on a two-car garage (I wanted the extra work space afforded by a three-car garage) but changed my mind because this one came with a dedicated heat pump - I can print year-round now in comfort with consistent results. I had to replace the large, cylindrical hot water heater to a small, wall-mounted on-demand unit that is more economical, freeing up additional space. If you're on social media, there are plenty of manufacturer sites where members can bitch and moan, with lots of failed print pictures. Besides keeping a personal print log, this is another great way to learn from other's mistakes, or learn how to troubleshoot (very rare) hardware failures. Like I mentioned, my printer has been trouble-free. The majority of my prints take 15-18 hours, and it works as well as when I first started. A handy tool in my arsenal is a Phrozen Cure Beam. This works well to cure small parts in < 10 seconds or the inside of the hulls I build. A set of silicon mats, (resin doesn't stick to them are under my printer, (in case of a printer spill) and my work area where I clean parts. Any printer that comes with a hook to hang your build plate to drip dry is a bonus. It recovers a little bit of the excess resin and decreases the amount you need to clean off the top of the plate by hand. I used an FDM printer to make a hanger for mine that I found for free on Thingverse. When I switched from FDM to resin printing, (far less sanding and resolution you'll never get from a .2" nozzle extruding hot plastic) I didn't like the cleaning phase, but once you get used to it, (and see the quality of your printed parts) it isn't a big deal and takes 15 to 30 minutes - 45 min or so if you print fifty parts at a time like I sometimes do. If you have any more questions, fire away. Someone here will be able to answer them. CC

FDM printing is ideal for those who enjoy sanding and aren't interested in small, detailed parts. Using wood-like material is irrelevant since it's going to be painted over anyway and usually requires a larger nozzle diameter, reducing details further. I cut my teeth on commercial FDM printers that cost thousands, and bought a $350 Phrozen resin printer just to see what it could do. I was immediately blown away by the intricate details it could produce. Minimal sanding was the icing on the cake. My time is the most important commodity I have control over. Cons: Resin printing requires a dedicated, well-ventilated space and parts cleaning can be messy, despite the vortex cleaning stations available. 91 IPA is one consumable along with resin, but I've learned how to minimize how much IPA I need, using a discarded Windex sprayer, foam brush, and compressed air (60 psi from my air brush) to blow the excess resin from the .1 to .4 mm details. A half quart bottle of IPA lasts weeks instead of submerging the entire part in a plastic bin and contaminating a larger volume of IPA which becomes less and less effective over time and then has to be disposed of. For test fixtures and jigs, I still like FDM prints and farm those out to friends to produce my designs. Learning how to properly orient parts in a slicer takes time to acquire -usually through multiple failures (part of the learning process.) Resin printing is not plug-and-play as advertised despite new advances in printing technology. Being able to create parts with injection-molded precision at home is pretty darn cool though, and worth a look if that's what you need. My first resin model renders (for an RC submarine project) and the printed results were virtually identical.

I highly recommend this guy: Josh at BedlamCreations.com. He's my go-to guy for waterslide (white) draft marks. I told him what font I needed, and he scaled multiple sets for me. Easy to work with and reasonable pricing. CC

There could be as many recommendations as there are different software applications for beginning CAD users. Two of the most powerful and popular CAD applications: Fusion 360 has a free version and there is a lot of free training available. The same goes for Blender.

Jeff, Are you a proficient SolidWorks modeler? If so, there is unlimited potential for use of a 3D printer in this hobby over "old school" fabrication, which is another art form. 3D printing vs established model building methodology has and will be debated for years. I believe there is more than enough room in our hobby for both techniques. A digital fabrication workflow from design to finished part has advantages that are hard to beat, especially being able to up-rev a design and repeatability. I know one master modeler who makes his own propellers the old school way, then makes a mold to cast metal parts. His excellent skills produce a first part measured in days, sometimes weeks as he solders the brass blades onto the hub with a template, then files the filets to a smooth finish. While I certainly marvel and appreciate the skills to produce parts this way, the time required to get the same effect with perfect tolerances can be drastically reduced with a digital design workflow, which is another form of creativity once digital design (or CAD) techniques are mastered. Time is one of my two most precious dwindling commodities, (the other being my health) so I prefer using the newer technologies available to enable me to make the most use of it. The additional time saved translates to more model-building opportunities. Once painted, I doubt most observers can tell the difference between a hand-machined cannon or cast part or a digitally printed part.

This is her in her second Ocean Engineering revision on the day she arrived for her homeport change from Mare Island to Bangor, WA in Nov '94. I rode her in when this picture was taken. As you can see, the hull is covered in SHT, (anechoic tiles) which ought make 3D modeling fun. The extra lengthening of the hull required larger fairwater planes for better depth control, so a pair of Los Angeles class planes were installed, higher on the sail.

Just checked their website and it says the veteran's $20 fee is not renewable. The license period is a one-time deal for one year. CC

Final set of 3D model renders in submerged configuration with all masts and antennas lowered. And it's on to the next project!

I use Phrozen ABS-like resin (compatible w/8k) exclusively. It flexes without shattering and handles reasonable (110 direct sun in AZ for hours) heat without warping. Highly recommended.

Added another set of US SSN submarine masts and antennas. They are paired in their relative positions, with one slot for future growth available. The radar and snorkel at each end are located by themselves, fore and aft on the sail. These print out nicely in 1/72 scale and larger. CC

If you like that, consider: Command Modern Air/Naval Operations: Fully immersive, excellent graphics, with customizable, real-world scenarios and weapons.

This guide might be of interest to anyone painting WWII U-boats. CC https://www.u-556.de/images/pdf/uboat_colours.pdf

Just found this site hidden in a folder. When manually orienting a print, the first question that comes to mind is, what angle is best? I often opt for 30/30 (pitch and roll) but sometimes it isn't suitable because the part is too large and those angles would have it extend beyond the build plate. Here's one way to determine the best print angle for a resin printer that might be of help: Angle calculator for smooth surfaces in resin printing – RC87

Since the OP is using resin printing, I'm trying to avoid discussing FDM printing in detail, but comparisons are useful for anyone on the fence regarding which technology is best for their needs. I've attached a few shots for comparison for the same shapes but with differing numbers of sides to illustrate polygon faceting. Each set shows the mesh on the surface and the surface without the mesh. (Multiple display modes are essential to object modeling. I hope the all-quad polys in the examples are large enough to show the differences. The sphere on the left has 24 sides with 12 segments. The one on the right is doubled with 48 sides and 24 segments. If you look at the edges closely, you can see the faceted surface more pronounced on the sphere on the left. The cylinders have 24, 48, and 180 sides from left to right. Increased geometry creates a smoother surface. At some point, adding additional geometry becomes overkill. If you print tiny parts, you can get away with less geometry, but large parts will show the difference clearly. It all depends on what look you need based on the part being printed - unless you're a masochist that enjoys sanding. All STL (and OBJ) files are triangle-based, meaning a four-point polygon is halved diagonally. Th eg-code printers use is triangle-based. Triangles also eliminate non-planar polygons, since a triangle can't be "bent" no matter how the three points are connected. Non-planar polygons don't render properly, but that's irrelevant to this discussion. When modeling, I always use quads, (four-point polygons) and they're automatically converted to tris, (three-point polygons) if the file is exported as an STL or OBJ. If I need to reverse-engineer an OBJ file, the triangles must be combined into quads for ease of mesh manipulation.