LewZ, I used "Molotow liquid Chrome", but also have "Green Stuff World, Chrome Metal". They are Alcohol based, so the pigment lays flat as it dries. Easy to use, but not tolerant of any alcohol based cleaner or of added lacquers, where it lifts the pigment and turns to normal silver paint effect.

I’m using flashcloud and thier printer. They gave meds slicer software so I could cut parts I don’t need out. The support structures are a pain. I couldn’t make decent railings as I couldn’t get the garbage away. I use plastic as well as light weight filaments. Both have thier problems. In the end it works for ship parts. I did an entire sub it took days to get parts run.

Olly999, what did you use to give the parts a "chrome" finish?
Lew
Florida 😎, USA❤️

After several months of research and the inability to make a decision on make/model I finally took the plunge when Bambu launched their 2nd anniversary sale today. I was going to get a Creality Ender-3 S1 Pro, but the Bambu sale just about brought the A1 into budget.

So there’s a Bambu Lab A1 with AMS lite (for 4 colour printing) and a load of filament currently on the way to me.

Am getting to grips with MakeHuman and Blender in advance of delivery in an attempt to make some crew for various boats.

Having just read your last post re 3D printers I thought I would share with you what we use.
I am using an 'Anycubic Photon Mono M5s' 3D a printer to produce all the parts previously made by casting them in resin.
It does the job very very well.
Choosing the right resin took me a lot of testing but we are there now. Any of the 'tough' resins will do the job.
Adrian Gosling
Speedline Models

I use an Ender 5 Plus 3D printer and I am happy with it. Resin printer are too messy for me so I keep it simple. If you lokk in YouTube for videos about 3D printers you will learn very fast a lot that will enable you to the right choice. You will also learn about how to deal with the chioce of support structures required when prints have "noses" that need support to be printed. You will also learn how to achieve surfaces that are without the stepping structure by 3D printers applying the layers to your object in print. I have also recently learned that there are tricks to print minimizing the support structures. My 3rd print or so was so heavy supported by structures which I could not get away.

The trends in my opinion go towards more printing speed, multicolor prints and printing of more demanding materials of filament. More demanding materials require to replace the standard nozzle were the filament is melted to more resistant material that reduce the lifetime of the nozzle. But nozzles are inexpensive. and easy to replace. I am also learning the users are switching to a nozzle diameter of 0.4 to 0.6 mm.

If you want to use materials that require higher temperatures an enclosing of the printer space is required. Just starting 3D print I would go with an cheaper 3D printer that you can then later replace with a more powerful printer with enclosing.

I have just purchased a Sonic Pad from Creality to start learning and implementing and print faster using Klipper that runs on the Sonic Pad and uses the standard board of the printer to just execute the printing path. Normally the printers come with Marlin which is another OS in 3D printers. Once that works with the standard board in the printer I will try to replace the standard board in the printer with a board from Bigtreetech, the Octopus Pro and I have already purchased driver boards with a TMC5164 that allow to apply voltages to the stepper motors up to 60VDC and a power supply that delivers 48 VDC. This way the stepper motors can run much faster which supports faster printing speed.

The other task on my agenda is to replace the aluminum structure starting with the vertical onces of my printer which are 20x20mm onces light with 40x40mm heavy ones. The heavy onces deliver the profiles using thicker aluminum. This way the structure of my printer gets more rigid preducing the vibration that happens when the printer runs faster.

Below my printer I have a vibration damping tile 20mm thick and below a concrete tile also 20mm thick that adds to damp possible vibrations even more as the concrete tile is very heavy.

Finally I am building a drying chamber in which the filament spools are stored and kept dry feeding the printer from there in tubes so humidity cannot affect it.

Hi Steve

I make almost all my parts using either a 3d printer or small CNC machine. I have invested a huge amount of time to develop the skills in using the CAD software and my approach. I have included a photo of my Captain Class Frigate. All the fittings including boats, guns etc have been drawn and printed. I use Fusion 360 and as I said I have had to invest a considerable amount of time to develop some skill.
Now for the printing I use only FDM, I find it provides a reasonable result and after filling and painting the result is quite good. I also use only ABS to print with. This means that I can join parts to the HIPs plastic I use for the decks and superstructure. Also I only use one filament Esun ABS. I know how this prints with my machines and so the number of mis prints is kept to a minimum and I usually know how to orientate the more difficult prints. Also I use only one type of printer UP. I find their software easy to use and maintenance is simplified as I have a number of printers.
I enjoy 3d modelling and printing, it is a significant part of the hobby for me. Some people may regard 3d printing as a hobby within itself. My approach is to make the production aspect as reliable as possible. I hope my comments contribute to the disucssion.

One of the members in our rc tank club has a resin printer (and a FDM printer) and he pushes it to the limits like mixing resins. One down side to resin printers was durability of the parts but that has been changing recently.

I thought about getting a resin printer as well but the other down sides tells me no. So what I do now is use my FDM printer (a lot) for 95% of my printing an for the small stuff my tank friend will print them for me.

Lew
Florida ⛱️, USA 🇺🇸

I would also say that I use AutoCad Fusion 360 for fittings design, and Blend3r and meshmixer for figures. All of which have their free versions.

Hi Steve,
The choice of manufacturer is down to you, and I expect that you will hear of several good budget printers here.

I've found that resin printers match my requirements for fittings, because of the detail required. They do have an odour that means they may not be suited for in the home. They also need a little more clean-up and a separate curing machine.

My choice on budget system is the Elegoo Mars series. Anycubic also do a matching system. Both excellent.

There is a learning curve, but I'm not a young man and it's not too steep. There are plenty of helpful Youtubes, etc.

What ever you decide on, Best wishes.👍

Steve, had a large gap between work as a senior equipment designer retiring in 1997 and finally getting restarted in 3D modeling about 20 years later. Back in the 1990's the lowest cost 3D printers were in the $10-20,000 range and were quite large. Pro-E was costly as well.
Lew
Florida, USA 🇺🇸

Hi Lew. I think I was ahead of you having started in ME10 then ME30. Left the drawing office into an engineering role just as Pro-Engineer was coming in. Not played with 3D design since so I have a learning curve ahead.
Yes, my very brief research shows that I likely need to go resin if possible.

Steve d, I use an old 3D design software that is no longer supported. It is by Autodesk (Autocad) and is called "123Ddesign". I just like the way it works, and I find it very intuitive. There are some third party sites out there where one can get free downloads as tutorials on YouTube.

Back in my working days I used a variety of CAD software including Pro-Engineer.

As for printing I am currently using a QIDI X-Smart-3. This is my third 3D printer. It uses filament on a spool, (FDM).

For small parts with good detail, you might want to look into a resin printer.

Lew
Florida ⛱️, USA 🇺🇸