3D-Printed tiny ship

**paperengineer** · #1 04-01-2015, 01:59 PM

The Detail on This Tiny 3-Inch-Long 3D Printed Ship Will Amaze You - 3DPrint.com
It's simply amazing! This ship blew my mind

So much detail. if I doubted these things' power before I definitely don't now! When can I get a 3D printer?

**ct ertz** · #2 04-01-2015, 02:42 PM

Cool! I wonder what 1/250 scale figures for navy models would cost?!

**richkat** · #3 04-01-2015, 02:42 PM

Now that is cool......Rich

**airdave** · #4 04-01-2015, 06:55 PM

yup, probably the best little 3D printed object I have seen.

But, 11 hours to print?
A fifty thousand dollar printer busy for 11 hours printing this one little thing is gonna cost big time.
1/250 scale Navy figures?...how many you need?
Can you handle a second mortgage?

**Mike1158** · #5 04-02-2015, 02:03 AM

The 'normal user' printer types give some pretty poor results from what I have seen, very poor surfaces. Give them twenty or thirty years and they might be usable otherwise you will spend many hours sanding and polishing. Not worth the points imho.

**NimitzFan** · #6 04-03-2015, 09:25 AM

Are both free (from PaperShipWright.co.uk) or quite cheap off eBay. Look them up under Architectural Figures. I have purchased bags of 300 from China or the UK for less than $10. They are plastic and unpainted - but that's no problem.

**airdave** · #7 04-03-2015, 09:37 AM

I think at that scale (1/250) it wouldn't matter if they were molded or 3D printed.
At only 6mm tall, they are going to be much the same in look and detail.

But molded plastic items are going to be considerably cheaper than 3D printed.
Once you have a mold...which is the costly part of molded production.

It basically comes down to whether you need ONE or one hundred.
3D printing is definitely a valuable asset that allows you to see the final product
without having to go through the whole molded production process.