HMSLS "Improbable"

[Sangennaru]

i LOVE it! What did you use for the latest renderings, btw?

[The_Beast]

Many possibilities: a Tobsen gasbag as taxi. There's a gangplank in the 'barn.' etc.

Are you concerned the 'balconies' and tall boiler might make it look very top-heavy and unstable?

For the first, the supports of the 'balconies' almost look like ladders to nowhere; you might consider continuing the supports in the rear as ladders.

You are absolutely right on the final beast; the side pieces being in line with the rear wheels are makes it appear more stable than I first imagined.

...possibly even 25mm figures (though they would certainly have to crouch a bit down at the stokers' positions).

Now, lad, that's what stokers DO. Do think they're a bit 'exposed', though.

No doubt everyone will be getting heartily sick of it by now...

On THAT, I call an obviously massive fail. 

T'is GW pricing, I don't care for what I've gotten printed in the past, but STILL a painfully strong temptation. Tell us more.

Or, if anyone DOES try it, PICCIES!!!

Doug

[Sangennaru]

To be fair, i think you could sensibly reduce the price hollowing it to the limit. Shapeways FUD material has a minimum thickness of 0.3 mm, which is not as fragile as it might seem, expecially if reinforced with some beams. This way i'm certain you could reduce the price to maybe 30-40$ top.

[MaleGriffin]

I can find but one minor "flaw." It is 15mm instead of 28mm. 
Seriously, this is an incredible piece and if I didn't already have so much $$$$$$ already invested in 28mm, I'd want to have one in my collection.

Incredible job!

[Fitz]

i LOVE it! What did you use for the latest renderings, btw?

It's Blender's internal renderer, using a broad spotlight with ambient occlusion turned on.

To be fair, i think you could sensibly reduce the price hollowing it to the limit. Shapeways FUD material has a minimum thickness of 0.3 mm, which is not as fragile as it might seem, expecially if reinforced with some beams. This way i'm certain you could reduce the price to maybe 30-40$ top.

It's already hollowed out pretty much as far as it can be, and still be printable in WSF.

[Sangennaru]

Thanks for the tip, i just have to set blender properly next time then! ^_^

It's already hollowed out pretty much as far as it can be, and still be printable in WSF.

That's the problem then: hollowing for WSF right now is not that worthy, considering that the biggest part of the cost is on the "machine volume". If from .7 mm you reach .3 or .35, you can instead halve the price for the FUD!

But, more importanly, you could find a buyer for the production rights, a thing like this is too weird not to draw attention!

[Fitz]

That's the problem then: hollowing for WSF right now is not that worthy, considering that the biggest part of the cost is on the "machine volume". If from .7 mm you reach .3 or .35, you can instead halve the price for the FUD!

It would reduce the cost somewhat, but nowhere near half. There's a lot of places where any hollowing is impractical, and even in FUD the minimum unsupported wall thickness (i.e. not attached at three edges) is 0.6mm. Warping is an issue where you have large or long areas at the minimum wall thickness, so that has to be taken into account as well on a model this large. Then there's the issue of the fragility of the FUD resin: it's not so delicate that you can't touch it, but thin rods and walls do break easily if you're not careful, which makes it problematic for gaming pieces.

The high-detail acrylate currently being trialled by Shapeways could be a useful material — its minimum wall thickness is 0.5mm across the board, and it's considerably tougher than FUD. However, because it requires printing supports, the whole model would have to be redesigned, and would probably have to be printed in multiple parts — with the consequent increase in handling costs. Also, the material cost isn't much cheaper than FUD.

[james]

I want a unit of those in case the Mob attacks my palace to overthrow me

[Blodwin]

Lovely design - the wheels are fantastic - unsure of the flared funnels - but a mighty beast - in 28mm it would be even mightier 
Blodwin

[Stroezie]

That thing is awesome!!!

You need to get that thing into production somewhere, its too beautyfull to languish in shapeways.

Any idea what the cost would be to print it in 6mm scale?

[Brian Smaller]

Hi Fitz

That is stunning. Can't wait to see a production version painted and on a table somewhere.

Cheers
Brian

[Fitz]

That thing is awesome!!!

You need to get that thing into production somewhere, its too beautyfull to languish in shapeways.

Any idea what the cost would be to print it in 6mm scale?

Thanks

I have no idea what it would cost in 6mm, but it would certainly need a lot of redesigning to be printable. It would be pointless in WSF, but it might work in FUD.

[Fitz]

Any idea what the cost would be to print it in 6mm scale?

I did a quick test re-scale, and it looks like it would end up about $20-ish in FUD at 6mm scale.

Edit:
It needed less work than I'd expected, which was a pleasant surprise, and I've put it up at http://shpws.me/M8Xl. It's in beta at the moment, for $18.00 in FUD. For some reason, Shapeways' render doesn't resolve the rivets everywhere, for no reason I can think of — though I don't know how likely they'd be to be particularly visible in the finished print in any case.

I've resolved all the issues that showed up in their automated pre-production checks. That's no guarantee that they won't find any problems in the manual checks, but I'll cross that bridge when I come to it