USS St. Louis (CL-20) by highlanderburial - 1/200 scale - 3d Print

[highlanderburial]

So I have been playing the game World of Warships for quite sometime and I have been begging them to release some of their warship files so people could print and model them. Last year they did just that with the 1905 USS St. Louis CL 20. It is a 426 fool US armored cruiser which fought in WWI and was built in Philadelphia, PA. I have been printing for some time but this is the first full on ship print I have attempted. I just got a very good new Fused Deposit Material (FDM) printer and it is working wonders on printing the parts for me to assemble so far.

[ccoyle]

St. Louis' sister ship, USS Milwaukee (CL-21), stranded on the beach at Samoa, California, in 1917 while trying to tow off a stranded submarine. The submarine, H-3, was subsequently hauled over the North Jetty of Humboldt Bay, refloated, and eventually placed back in service. 

 

Photo in public domain, courtesy of Wikipedia

[highlanderburial]

  On 7/22/2024 at 12:09 PM, ccoyle said:

St. Louis' sister ship, USS Milwaukee (CL-21), stranded on the beach at Samoa, California, in 1917 while trying to tow off a stranded submarine. The submarine, H-3, was subsequently hauled over the North Jetty of Humboldt Bay, refloated, and eventually placed back in service. 

 

Photo in public domain, courtesy of Wikipedia

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 This is a great photo and having been to that part of the world up to Humbolt and Crescent City, I can see how that part of the coast is super unforgiving! This design has kind of grown on me since I started.

[highlanderburial]

A video of the printing of the bow section!

[highlanderburial]

An interesting thing happened a few weeks back. A person stopped by our ship model club meeting and donated an S D model of the St. Louis done up in her WWI camo. The model was busted up from shipping. I started restoring it in addition to building my 1/200 scale St. Louis.

[highlanderburial]

Work on my 1/200 scale St. Louis continues. I finally got the decks looking like I wanted. (Mostly)

Edited March 6 by highlanderburial
Forgot pics!

[hollowneck]

Impressive recovery work CWO Highlanderburial.

I can't wait to see your restoration in person at the next Philadelphia Ship Model Society's monthly meeting!

 

Nice - ah - nice...

 

Ron

[highlanderburial]

All except for the anchor fluke work on the 1/150 ish St Louis is complete!

[highlanderburial]

1/150 ish 1917 version vs 1/200  1906 version unfinished size comparison

[highlanderburial]

Close up of the 1906.

[Azzoun]

Excellent work recovering this damaged model Todd!

[KeithAug]

Fascinating model and build process. I know nothing about 3d printing. Can you select the print quality to get very fine detail or does the extrusion head dictate how fine the detail can be? 

[highlanderburial]

  On 3/11/2025 at 9:36 PM, KeithAug said:

Fascinating model and build process. I know nothing about 3d printing. Can you select the print quality to get very fine detail or does the extrusion head dictate how fine the detail can be? 

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Keith,

On the printer I am using you can adjust the settings from draft .2 mm to fine .08 mm. There are multiple settings in between. The advantage with some is to give your piece strength vs detail. 

I have both a resin and FDM printer. The resin will give you details down to the 10 micrometer range. It will not give you much strength however. The FDM which in the past has never been great for details has come a long way and I am using it almost exclusively for this build.

 

Cheers!

TW

 

[highlanderburial]

Back to my build. Work on the pedestals, case, and side gun mounts . I managed to router some scrap wood and find some UV resistant acrylic sheet which I welded with poly chloride bonding agent. 

I painted the base gray and layered on 3 coats of polyurethane. The pedestals were printed to fit and painted bronze. I then layered over brass wax paint with sealer. The model was screwed into place using 3 inch self tapping.

[highlanderburial]

More progress. I quickly printed off 4 of the larger long boats. I realized after I tried to fit them up that I forgot to shrink them down to 1/200 scale which was a 81% (hard to see in the pic but the boat on the far left is the right size and the top four are too big.)

 

The other photos show the new Gatling gun mounts and test fitting the boat mounts.

[highlanderburial]

There be anchors here. Of all the unique features on this vessel the fact it carries both stocked and stockless anchors each on their own chain is very cool to model. I also started on the ultra fine stack rigging.

[highlanderburial]

The complex web work around the stacks complete and test fit of the forward hand rails.

Edited April 8 by highlanderburial

[highlanderburial]

I got through some more of the very thin rigging. I saw somewhere that much of the support cabeling stays were 5/8 inch or 3/4 inch wire rope. This would have put much of it on the model at about .004 inches or .10 mm by my math. I used super nylon line and Lycra rigging for the model in roughly those sizes. To my eye it seems small though.

[ccoyle]

  On 4/13/2025 at 1:05 AM, highlanderburial said:

To my eye it seems small though.

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At scale viewing distances, most wire rigging is nearly invisible.

[highlanderburial]

Thanks Chris. I guess I am just used to seeing a lot of models using the classic thick sewing thread or dense stretches sprue. I am almost going blind comparing the model rigging to photos and I feel it matches, so your comment is very validating.

[mcb]

Looks good to me.

I think too small beats too big for this work.

 

mcb

[highlanderburial]

Finished the remaining rigging. Let my eyes rest and then installed the four massive steam cranes on deck.

[Hank]

Keith (I hope that's the correct owner of this thread) -

I just saw your build tonight and looked over what you've accomplished. Quite impressive, to say the least!! I'm currently designing (3D Design/Print) the parts for a 1/200 scale USS PURITAN (BM-1) and after looking over your photos I see that there are quite a few common parts, such as small cal. deck guns and various fittings. I know there's a 1/350th scale 3D printed kit available (Iron Shipwrights), but I wanted this to compliment my 1/200 scale USS NEW JERSEY (BB-62) model (bookends of a sort - 1st "battleship" and last (IOWA Class) battleship). I'm doing mine waterline as my 3D program isn't real keen on hull design (or maybe it's me!!). I've also noted some possible discrepancies in the kit and don't want those to be incorporated into my project. 

 

Anyhow, I normally post on The Ship Model Forum but look into NRG from time to time, so I'll keep my eye on your continuing project. I'll ask a question - what references are you using for your weapons/fittings? I've found a few drawings online from NARA but some are very hard to read (faded due to age). TIA!

 

Hank Strub

 

 

[highlanderburial]

Hank, 

 

The entire kit is available here:

USS St. Louis - official 3D printable model from WoWS by World of Warships | Download free STL model | Printables.com

 

The price is FREE!

This was a trial by the very popular game World of Warships to see if there was interest in them converting their digitized designs (which are fantastic btw) over to 3d printable models. I have BEGGED them to make these files available. As to your request on the weaponry, I am afraid the 3d kit maker left a LOT to be desired. Most of the parts were VERY vague and I had to even resculpt a few of the smaller weapons to look decent. 

If there are parts that you need or can use than they are all there!

 

Thanks for commenting. I love these buff and white colored vessels, but this is my very first attempt at this kind of ship modeling and so far it has been pretty positive.

 

V/R

Todd

[highlanderburial]

A little different line of effort tonight. I wanted to put on a bow ornament decal at some point and event though it will be microscopic, it was distinctive on these types of vessels. 

I found a photo of the bow ornament and then altered the photo. I then used AI software to colorize it. I will now convert that into a decal which will go on the front.

[Hank]

Todd (Sorry I got your name wrong on my first reply!),

Well, not being into the WoW stuff, I had no idea that they were producing kits - perhaps if this entry kit is popular, they will consider posting this fact on the various ship modeling forums, etc. I'll check out the link you provided. Thanks for the reply re. the weaponry - can I assume that their deck fittings are crude as well, or have they provided decent detail on those?

 

I do my own 3D design and printing - I use Design Spark Mechanical (free version) for the 3D design and currently print with an AnyCubic Photon Mono X 6K LCD printer.  The available drawings on NARA of PURITAN (NARA has more that are still not available online) do provide ample information to make detailed parts for a model but some items are a bit doubtful as to accuracy (guesstimating from photos).

 

BTW, your bow emblem looks fine - a very nice design for adding the "sparkle" to the model.

 

Hank

 

[highlanderburial]

Handrails installed. The actual ship had some very high bow and stern rails with a high rail that presumably supports canopies. Coming up on a finish on this as the Joint Show is in a week!

[highlanderburial]

Last of the parts on the ship build. I put on the decals and they came out way better than I thought. Life boats and davits installed  Bridge signal arms and davits lines on life boats. I am now 3d printing some display case guides to hold the case to the base.

[highlanderburial]

Welp. I torched up the acrylic glass and put the novis polish to it. I 3d printed the rest of the guides and painted them steel silver. I added the info plate. I then secured the rails to the base and added the ensign and jack. I think this is a wrap. I will take some photos up at the Joint Clubs Northeast Conference and maybe a few after it gets to its final home.