MV "Europic Ferry" -1971 - by Ian_Grant - 1/96 Scale - 3D-Printed - Ferry

[Ian_Grant]

Hello; While finishing final details on my HMS Lion for RC, I was looking around for something different to build and also looking to try a 3D print of an entire ship. I decided to call it a "kit" as I am merely assembling components, albeit components 3d-printed by moi.

 

The website "CGTRADER" has several very nice candidate 3D builds, but I settled on this ferry named "MV Europic Ferry" which was built in 1967 and plied the North Sea initially between Harwich and Rotterdam in the 70's. Her capacity was 60 passengers in cabins, 50 cars and 60 commercial trailers, or 295 metres of cargo.She had all superstructure forward, and two vehicle decks aft; one on the upper deck and one on the deck below. It seems there was a hydraulic ramp between the two vehicle decks. Interestingly, apparently, she only had a stern vehicle door so somehow they had to turn around while aboard......not sure how that worked!

 

As an aside, she was actually expropriated by the UK government in 1982 for the Falklands war, sailing with the fleet carrying stores, troops, and equipment such as helicopters to the south Atlantic. \she returned with hull damage and grey paint blotted all over her as a home-made camouflage scheme.

 

In 1993 she was sold to a Cypriot company who operated her for ten years with a large superstructure added from midships to stern.

 

She was beached in India for scrapping and broken up in 2005.

 

Here are a few pics:

In her early days - 

Returned from the Falklands with damage, and home-dabbed grey camouflage - 

in later years after being sold-

 

I like the red hull version, and so did the 3D artist who made the files, so that's what I will be building.

 

I've had my Bambu A1 printer for a year now, but up to now I've only printed various small bits for Lion.

So far I have printed four hull sections, the first three at the bow and the last piece at the stern.; it's a new experience for me as two of them took more than 20 hours each to complete.

 

Here are the three bow sections just dry assembled.

In this second pic the stern section can also be seen.

 The printed surface is pretty good, no large "waviness" but I will be using Bondo spot/glazing putty to fill in the minor ridge line artifacts.

According to the slicer, the finished hull should consume 7 pounds of plastic; that's without the superstructure. She'll have twin motors and twin rudders.

Finished length is 1470mm, beam 200mm, height 400mm (don't tell my wife!).🤫 I plan to illuminate her, and have not yet thought about storage implications. 🤔

Edited 15 hours ago by Ian_Grant
corrected log title

[72Nova]

Ian I have a feeling you won't be able to hide this one from the wife. Looks like another epic build in the making👍

 

Michael D.