3D printed 15mm Numidians

[madaxeman]

I've finally finished some 3D printed, 3D Breed-designed Numidians I started back in April with a "wargaming standard" quick and easy paint job, and what a jolly nice - but jolly brittle - bunch of fellows they are too.



I've based some up as "Cavalry" at 3 figures to a base, and some as "Light Horse" at 2 to a base - they are great looking figures, but OMG these particular prints are really brittle.  So far I think I've completely broken 7 of the horses off their bases (ie legs snapped, superglue comes out..) simply in the process of painting and photographing them, and I've lost count of the number of spears that have pinged off, usually into god knows where.



The saving grace is that they do glue back together again very easily, but with this second batch I've deliberately attempted to position all of the figures such that they can be superglued to an adjacent model at some point, in the hope that it makes them a bit more robust.



Part of the problem is no doubt that they are so light, which means it's super easy to knock them off the table, or see them slide off a tray when you are carrying them around.  I've also ended up using far less magnabase on each base compared to metal figures, as otherwise I feared that I'd break them almost every time I tried to lift them out of the tin.

I suspect there are better, more flexible and robust resins out there that would make these a bit more survivable - and in future this will get even better as materials technology improves as well.   


I also saw that the eBay seller I picked these up from no longer has any items listed for sale, after what looks like a lot of negative feedback for late deliveries in recent months too. My guess is that suspect he's found the whole "setting up a 3D printing business" a little harder than expected, and has thrown in the towel - somthing I can imagine will happen with a number of other sellers on eBay and Etsy going forward.  Perhaps this brittle resin lead to a higher volume of returns than expected, and that also contributed to him stopping too - who knows?



But, despite the missing javelin-ends, and bits nipped out of some of the horses legs, all in all they are still nicer looking figures than any metal 15mm Numidan range I've yet found. Whether I am confident enough in them to pack them up and take them to a competition though is something that needs much more careful thought!

 

[LouieN]

Well done on the unit

[HerbertTarkel]

3D printing … I’ve recently had the opportunity to paint some 3D printing and BRITTLE is right. After I properly had to cure the models (the guy I was painting for got hosed by the 3D printer, in my opinion), I found out how brittle they can be! Two flying parts snapped like nothing during the cleanup and acetone cure.

A friend of mine who - THANKFULLY - helped me sort out the curing process told me that adding a certain amount of a grey resin which is “softer” (like 5%) will make the models more pliable. I really believe him now.

But your Numidians do look great! Keep that superglue handy, eh?

[VonAkers]

Hi Brittle , but they still look nice.
Question , is the brittleness Generic , or a by product of how they were printed and what resin / plastic was used?
Cheers

[Vis Bellica]

I have just painted and based some 500 or so 3D printed Arab Conquest figures: Red Copper sculpts printed by Baueda when Claudio still owned it.

They arrived with only one or two broken figures, acceptable in my viewpoint, and I had no issues with them in the painting and basing process.

They've been on the table eight times so far, and I have had two breakages: one from when I pulled the box out of the car without thinking, caught it on something else, and literally shook it like a maracas; the other when I dropped a base onto a hard floor from table top height. Both glued back on their bases with no problem.

I think the answer is therefore how they are printed and what resin etc is used. I find them no more brittle than, say, the old Freikorps figures from the 1990s, and their light weight gives them a "dropped" resilience as well.

I am all for 3D printing (the sculpts are fantastic) but, as Claudio is out of the picture, now need to find someone as reliable for the future!

[SJWi]

I don't 3d print myself but a several of my mates do and they say the choice of resin is a key issue.  I do have a Caballero Miniatures 3d printed army and have had several breakages there, but most have glued back OK. I did lose half a bow when it snapped and flew off into the wild blue yonder. I am however replacing longer spears with metal ones.

Since I bought my army I had noticed that several commercial £d operations have stopped selling this range. When I asked why they said the level of breakage both for them and in transit was an issue.       

[blacksmith]

Nice army. I have a 3D Breed Greek army and it happened the same; horses' legs and spears snap easily. I also have Cromarty armies and the figures are more robust and also come with integrated base that gives them more resitance.

The type of resin is also key. I got mine printed with a flexible resin that works really good compared to the old and cheap one I used before.

One trick I do that works great it is applying very small and thin bandages of toilet paper with white glue in the weak points of the figures.

Cheers,

[madaxeman]

Having posted these figures on FB and BlueSky the clear consensus seems to be that the printer who made these picked the wrong sort of resin, and that there are a number of better, more robust and more flexible options out there today that would have addressed the issues I’ve  had.

They do apparently come at a cost - but I guess it’s a question of time really until this all settles down and we all start to know what to look for and ask manufacturers (printers?) for when we are buying - which is a skill I didn’t know I needed before now !

[SJWi]

Madaxeman, I think you answered your own question when you said reasons that might make figures "a bit more flexible".  As well as the resin there is the sculpting style. Some of the figure son the market are chunkier and hence more "survivable". My El Cid "Caballero Miniatures" are quite slender and more delicate and hence prone to breakage I guess. Beautiful figures though! 

[madaxeman]

I've also got some of those, from back when they were going by the name of Reconquer designs - but mine are 28mm, which I think stand up much better, probably as the figures were (I think) designed for that scale.



Mine came with open hands, which meant I could add North Star wire spears* too - even at 28mm I don't have much faith in almost any non-metal spears !   I also based them up as a block, which meant they are all actually glued together in mutual support, giving them extra strength.

I've seen some of these same poses printed in 15mm, and IMO they don't look anywhere near as good at the smaller scales - they just look too frail next to chunkier 15mm metals, which perhaps underlines how important the experience of designers and sculptors are in the whole process when it comes to making figures that suite particular manufacturing and materials styles.

More pics here: https://madaxemandotcom.blogspot.com/2022/08/adventures-in-3d-prints-reconquer.html

(* gotta give Nick and the team a plug eh  )

[Ady]

I'll admit, I've recently changed from "Standard" Resin to ABS-Like resin which has solved 99% of the problems I had with brittle minis - I've found I can happily print spears safely down to 6mm scale, and things tend to bounce rather than break when I sausage-finger them...

[SJWi]

Madaxemen, my El Cid are also 28mm. I am using Pendraken metal spears but kept the resin javelins and bows. The open hands are quite delicate. I still had "casualties" with some of the horses where losing a few tails.