Lead Adventure Forum
Other Stuff => General Wargames and Hobby Discussion => Topic started by: Tom Dulski on 31 July 2025, 10:40:17 PM
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I had purchased a 3d printed tank and painted it up. It’s been sitting on my shelf for over 3 years now. I just noticed it somehow exploded. The turret split apart and there was all gunk and liquid inside and underneath it was as if some of it kind of melted. Has anyone heard of anything like this before?
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Yes; apparently, it's uncured resin trapped inside the models. When they are printed, the design does not permit the excess resin to drain out, and the post-printing curing stage is only "skin deep" so to speak. Making some small holes in the solid peices and flushing them through with some isoprop apparently helps afflicted models, and you can then fill and paint over those drainage holes afterwards.
It happened to Rick in his recent thread here (link (https://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=150136.0)).
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Ok thank you. It’s just so strange that it appeared fine for over 2 years
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Hot summer?
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Ok thank you. It’s just so strange that it appeared fine for over 2 years
If the print wall is thick enough it can stay together for a long time, but eventually if enough resin is left in the model it will burst. The more resin in the model, the worse the results will be. Perhaps this one only had a small amount of liquid resin left inside and thus it has taken a while for that resin to warp the outer shell.
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Hot summer?
It’s been over 95 degrees all week :-[
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Got a mate and this happened to his elephants.
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Yep - that looks awfully familiar to me. The surface cracking and pulling away from the rest of the model opening up the cavity. Mine were thinner walled so it took months rather than years but it does seem to be an issue with these hollow cast models. Someone suggested a uv torch to help with hardening up the model after clean-up which is a good idea (I usually just put them on a windowsill) then trying to glue them back together after that. First step, though, will be to get rid of the resin gunk - isopropyl alcohol if you've got it, water if you don't (but it will take longer that way). Good luck with the salvage work.
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As other folk have said, the model has been hollowed but without drainage holes (or insufficient holes) to flush trapped liquid resin out during the cleaning and curing process. The resin inside continues to produce gases and such so the pressure builds until the model inevitably cracks or explodes open. In this case there seems to be pretty big drainage holes so the model hasn't been washed properly and the unwashed resin has been trapped inside once it's glued, I'm surprised the resin wasn't oozing out during painting. Probably worth mentioning that uncured resin is nasty toxic stuff, wear gloves if handling it.
I'm kind of shocked this is the second thread here in a couple of days about professional printing services selling models that are exploding/cracking.
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This was not from a professional printer or anything. I purchased it from an eBay seller a few years back. Oddly I purchased and painted 2 of these tanks and the other is still fine.
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What is odd with this one, is those two large holes in the base of the turret - do they go through to the void that has split open?
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What is odd with this one, is those two large holes in the base of the turret - do they go through to the void that has split open?
Yes, they open up into the hollowed out turret.
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Got a mate and this happened to his elephants.
Bet that made his eyes water!
:o
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Bet that made his eyes water!
:o
The first four might just be ok, but the next one will be bad - you've really got to watch out for the fifth elephant! lol lol
Right, I'll get me coat.
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I have seen and heard of this happening with a lot of thicker resin pieces. I think as FDM gets better and better, less and less resin prints will be used.
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What was amazing was the shear volume of liquid that was underneath the model when I first noticed it.
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I have seen and heard of this happening with a lot of thicker resin pieces. I think as FDM gets better and better, less and less resin prints will be used.
Or folk can just slice and clean models properly... ;D
This was not from a professional printer or anything.
Sorry the word "professional" was doing a lot of heavy lifting there seeing as barrier to entry is a printer, an eBay account and a commercial licence (and a lot don't bother with the last). I guess I meant someone who thinks they know enough about 3D printing to do it commercially.
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Ah, yeah just like I commented in the 3d AI topic a few moments before, when it comes to 3d printing we also lack much of an established standard of quality at the moment. Its the wild west out there as they say.
I sometimes wonder, with people pulling tricks like this, and 3d stores coming and going like the tide... In 20-50 years a lot of the miniature scene of today may well be lost to time. Manufacturers claim how long their resin will last, but that is assuming correct printing and curing. I foresee a lot of cracking and crumbling armies in a few decades tbh. Then again, resin going of is nothing new, and lead rot has been around a lot longer than I have so its nothing new in the end.
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Ah, yeah just like I commented in the 3d AI topic a few moments before, when it comes to 3d printing we also lack much of an established standard of quality at the moment. Its the wild west out there as they say.
I sometimes wonder, with people pulling tricks like this, and 3d stores coming and going like the tide... In 20-50 years a lot of the miniature scene of today may well be lost to time. Manufacturers claim how long their resin will last, but that is assuming correct printing and curing. I foresee a lot of cracking and crumbling armies in a few decades tbh. Then again, resin going of is nothing new, and lead rot has been around a lot longer than I have so its nothing new in the end.
Also alot of these materials are really totally unknown, untested, shot in the dark mixtures from nameless factories that haven't done a great deal of long term testing. and much of the long term testing that has been done is done under the assumption that the print will be sat away from sunlight in a room temperature room with good ventilation in a house in California. the cheap resin and no name PLA most people use aren't being tested to see how long they hold up against british humidity and damp, or full blown Arizona sunshine, or the stuffy interior of a foam storage box.
The good stuff from the big companies will have gone through rigorous safety and durability testing, but most people aren't using the good stuff, they're using the cheap stuff.
Even high quality polyurethane resin will yellow after a day or two in the sun, and it'll go brittle after a few months if it isn't painted, and that's a resin that is generally considered to be UV stable. HIPs will go brittle in the sun over a few years. A UV resin tank left in sunlight might technically be fully cured, but I can imagine alot of armies will be more fragile than a hip joint at an octogenarian swingers party in a few years time, and will probably need to be handled with the same amount of caution.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U7gbFMWZWlo&list=RDU7gbFMWZWlo&start_radio=1
Research chemicals, they make 'em better every year. :D
Personally I'd be inclined to keep that tank as it is and just call it a range target. The effects of being hit with a 165mm HESH round.
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YPU and Mammoth Miniatures, good points and something I'm worried about.
Along with lead rot, I'm seeing the odd horror story of 1/72 fans finding their collections crumbling, admittedly that's over a linger time span!
Space is an issue for me, so unpainted models often end up in my garage. Temperatures range from zero to 40 deg Celsius, living alongside redback spiders. I haven't seen any damage yet. Some are from what I'd consider professional printers, some absolutely the cheapest I could find...
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YPU and Mammoth Miniatures, good points and something I'm worried about.
Along with lead rot, I'm seeing the odd horror story of 1/72 fans finding their collections crumbling, admittedly that's over a linger time span!
Space is an issue for me, so unpainted models often end up in my garage. Temperatures range from zero to 40 deg Celsius, living alongside redback spiders. I haven't seen any damage yet. Some are from what I'd consider professional printers, some absolutely the cheapest I could find...
That'll be vinyl/ plastisol slowly leeching out it's oil content and becoming brittle.
It's a perennial problem - most of these materials are new, often variations of older material, and whilst we know ecologically speaking they last for millennia, practically speaking their lifespans are super variable. And so much of what is used outside of major manufacturing is untraceable "trust me bro" unlabeled material.
I suppose it's worth us all asking how long something truly needs to last - do our figures need to endure 50/60 years, or is a decade enough? And if so, do we perhaps need to start thinking about a return to composite toy soldiers, or paper pulp, or more recent experimental materials like injection moulded beet sugar and cellulose fibre.
But when it comes to prints like OP it's the worst of both worlds - unreliable lifespan AND toxic sludge.
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Materials certainly is an issue. I experimented with casting my own figures in resin a few years back (it was awful, to be honest. So after I was through the first bottles of resin I stopped doing it). These still hold well, but it's a different material of course, and for the most part they've spent their time in boxes in the attic. That said, many materials used for 3D printing haven't had much in the way of long term testing and I also don't suppose that many companies do testing under more extreme circumstances like you'll see with materials used in, for instance, the automotive industry.
Another issue that has also been pointed out repeatedly is that 3D printing often isn't done under very controlled circumstances. Lots of people do it at home, which naturally leads to a huge variety in settings, temperature, humidity, pollutants, and everything else you can imagine that you wouldn't see in any kind of factory. Many professional printers also don't really do much in the way of that. Everyone can open up a store and start selling (and printing) as long as they have a printer and files. Quality control also is hard. It's very easy to basically be a cowboy in a way a traditional company can't. Bad experiences mean that you just have to start over with the same files and everything. You can't really do that when you're a casting operation and you're the only one with those sculpts.
I however don't think that many professional printers will do things like we see here. It costs a lot of extra resin and that means an additional expense. It's more something that people who are more on the starting out side of things experience. But even then, it's only one of the many things that can happen.
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I'm wondering how much temperature plays a part. I store everything in my basement which is much cooler than the rest of the house. This Tank exploded while we were enduring a week long heatwave. Even in the basement temperatures were pretty high.Assuming we had normal summer weather that week the tank may have remained intact. As I said there were 2 identical tanks printed by the same seller on Ebay. Only one exploded that week while the other remains fine.
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I'm wondering how much temperature plays a part. I store everything in my basement which is much cooler than the rest of the house. This Tank exploded while we were enduring a week long heatwave. Even in the basement temperatures were pretty high.Assuming we had normal summer weather that week the tank may have remained intact. As I said there were 2 identical tanks printed by the same seller on Ebay. Only one exploded that week while the other remains fine.
An increase in temperature can certainly cause issues like that. So that probably has a part in it. That, and chance. Chance is something that's horrible underestimated in how much of an effect it has (or can have). Just a slightly different position can already make a huge difference.
That said, I'd be very careful with that other tank from now on. It would really suck if it were to go as well. One thing you might do is to take it out (wearing gloves) and make a few holes in the bottom and then letting the resin leak out. Outdoors to avoid any air quality issues of course.
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I suppose it's worth us all asking how long something truly needs to last - do our figures need to endure 50/60 years, or is a decade enough? And if so, do we perhaps need to start thinking about a return to composite toy soldiers, or paper pulp, or more recent experimental materials like injection moulded beet sugar and cellulose fibre.
One thing starting to wonder for myself, is whether everything of mine needs to last that long. It's awesome I have stuff I bought 30 years ago. Does every I buy today need to?
I hesitated putting together for forces of paper miniatures and scenery. Now I don't care, if I get enjoyment out of them today that's enough (mainly due to the cost, mind).
Other hobbies either I'm into or people around me have similar problems - early video games, vintage toys and movie props. These things just weren't intended to last so long.
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What was amazing was the shear volume of liquid that was underneath the model when I first noticed it.
Yeah, I bought a whole painted 3D resin printed scifi army/game off ebay once, it didn't ship well at all but for $1.00 it seemed like fair trade lol and yes one of the tanks burst to the point where its causality terrain now with tons of resin at time leaking out, honestly I thought all the larger items in the lot leaked, even the seller didn't know what was going. I put all the models in treys full water first thing and left them outside, then found out that was probably exactly the right thing to do to cure the buggers (but I may want to drill some holes in the other items I got just in case lol).
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Hmmm. Reading through this thread now has me wondering if my selection of 3d printed bits and bobs are going to start going off like fire crackers lol Oh well, they only have my tomb to look forward to either way eh!
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Happened to a terrain piece of mine. Had it for a year+ then came into the game room to find a tree top exploded open like a melon, goop everywhere.
Rinsed it out, cleaned it up, and finagled a repair.
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Well all this should serve to teach you young whippersnappers that METAL is BETTER lol lol
I am joking of course, we are all going to die anyway and leave our precious armies at the mercy of folks who don't care, the fugitive time span of our toys is nothing to the universe.....
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So speaks the Harbinger of Doom!
>:D