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Posted
11 hours ago, NotActuallyALonghorn said:

How big do you need to print? Any plans to one day print anything with engineering grade materials? 

1/72 so about an inch tall. 

Nah, just miniatures and maybe some buildings.

Wounded and KIA.

The diorama is only going to be 4x3 and show air support on the eastern front. We have a series we want to showing ground support across all WW2 theaters.

 

Posted (edited)
45 minutes ago, InkaUtexas said:

1/72 so about an inch tall. 

Nah, just miniatures and maybe some buildings.

Wounded and KIA.

The diorama is only going to be 4x3 and show air support on the eastern front. We have a series we want to showing ground support across all WW2 theaters.

 

Do you have the files or models you'd like in your diorama? Websites like cults3D have some really talented modelers and sculptors and you can get some great models there.

At an inch tall you can get some excellent detail with an FDM printer using a .2mm nozzle - I've printed D&D minis at that scale that once painted you can't see the layer lines. You can (could I guess due to tariffs) get a great FDM printer like an a1 mini for $250-300 that'll do one filament, or add another Benjamin for the filament switcher AMS unit to do up to 4 filaments.

If you've got files I'm happy to print em and mail em to ya from Houston if you cover the postage. Otherwise, there's some great print services with very reasonable prices to get your model printed in resin which ends up looking like a factory-made part.

Alternatively, check out a local hobby or model making store. They may have some correct timeframe and scale sets that you can buy off the shelf for more kitbashing parts

Edited by Captainant
Posted
6 minutes ago, Captainant said:

Do you have the files or models you'd like in your diorama? Websites like cults3D have some really talented modelers and sculptors and you can get some great models there.

At an inch tall you can get some excellent detail with an FDM printer using a .2mm nozzle - I've printed D&D minis at that scale that once painted you can't see the layer lines. You can (could I guess due to tariffs) get a great FDM printer like an a1 mini for $250-300 that'll do one filament, or add another Benjamin for the filament switcher AMS unit to do up to 4 filaments.

If you've got files I'm happy to print em and mail em to ya from Houston if you cover the postage. Otherwise, there's some great print services with very reasonable prices to get your model printed in resin which ends up looking like a factory-made part.

Alternatively, check out a local hobby or model making store. They may have some correct timeframe and scale sets that you can buy off the shelf for more kitbashing parts

My man! Yeah, I think it might be time to get a printer. Got a link? 

I will see if I can find files.

I am in San Marcos. We don't have model shops! All we have is hobby lobby and their overpriced snap tight collection of shitty cars.

Buddy recommended this site.

https://www.yeggi.com/q/wounded+soldier+ww2/

Thoughts?

 

Posted
1 minute ago, InkaUtexas said:

My man! Yeah, I think it might be time to get a printer. Got a link? 

Your timing is unfortunate, I just checked and everything is $100-200 more expensive than it used to be. I really like the Bambu printers but they're not the be-all-end-all, but they're pretty much push-and-go to the point where it's basically an appliance and not a tool

The other brands like Creality and Elegoo make cheap and decent printers but their software support isn't as good, and you spend a bunch of time tinkering and tuning instead of printing. Prusa is a really nice and open source printer, but they're not cheap. They write most of the open source software for slicers and printer firmware, and are deeply committed to repairability. 

If you're primarily just doing model printing I would recommend Bambu's A1 ($500, 10 inch³ print volume) or an A1 mini ($350, 7 inch³ print volume) since they're a cheap and self-level and self-calibrate and they're CRAZY fuckin fast. If you want to do multi-filamant you can buy the AMS separately later, or buy it as a bundle and save like $50

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Posted
Just now, Captainant said:

Your timing is unfortunate, I just checked and everything is $100-200 more expensive than it used to be. I really like the Bambu printers but they're not the be-all-end-all, but they're pretty much push-and-go to the point where it's basically an appliance and not a tool

The other brands like Creality and Elegoo make cheap and decent printers but their software support isn't as good, and you spend a bunch of time tinkering and tuning instead of printing. Prusa is a really nice and open source printer, but they're not cheap. They write most of the open source software for slicers and printer firmware, and are deeply committed to repairability. 

If you're primarily just doing model printing I would recommend Bambu's A1 ($500, 10 inch³ print volume) or an A1 mini ($350, 7 inch³ print volume) since they're a cheap and self-level and self-calibrate and they're CRAZY fuckin fast. If you want to do multi-filamant you can buy the AMS separately later, or buy it as a bundle and save like $50

Thank you. I will look into them and see what I can do.

Appreciate the advice.

This is the type of miniatures I would want to print. And maybe some buildings, a bridge, etc.

image.jpeg.d02d1b550a734ad994f6519ddea06aa5.jpeg

 

Posted (edited)
7 minutes ago, InkaUtexas said:

Thank you. I will look into them and see what I can do.

Appreciate the advice.

This is the type of miniatures I would want to print. And maybe some buildings, a bridge, etc.

image.jpeg.d02d1b550a734ad994f6519ddea06aa5.jpeg

 

Just to temper your expectations a little - printing can be a little finicky and has a little bit of a learning curve. Once you have the models you load them into a program called a "slicer" and define settings like type of infil, % of infil, number and thickness of the walls on the model, supports, etc etc etc. Once you have all that set along with your filament and layer height settings, your Slicer turns the model into a gcode file that your printer uses to actually make the thing.

While you're thinking about what printer to get I'd strongly recommend you to download and get familiar with a slicer program like PrusaSlicer (the OG), or OrcaSlicer or BambuStudio (customized forks of PrusaSlicer). I've found that I spend more time setting up and slicing my models than I do printing sometimes when it's a small and detail-rich model.

Supports are tricky, and for the type of stuff you're doing I'd recommend "tree" style supports, which branch out and up and work really well with organic and complex forms

Edited by Captainant
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Posted (edited)

So, I applied for a Form 1 Friday morning, and the approval came back today before lunch time. So now I've got to figure out how to swap my hot end out and get everything dialed in for printing with PA6-CF. Soon, loud things will be significantly less loud. 

Edited by NotActuallyALonghorn
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Posted

3D printing gurus. We use a ladle that was made over 50 years ago. It is the greatest ladle design in the history of mankind, surpassing the design produced by the Mesopotamians at the Battle of Carthage. 

We have searched endlessly for over 20 years for a ladle that has the same or similar shape, angles, depth, size, and shape. We’ve never found anything close to it. It is bizarre. 

Do you think this could be produced by a 3D printer? Either just the head, or the whole thing, or parts? We are out of other options. 

The picture doesn’t do this ladle justice. It’s perfectly designed, for gravy, soup, etc.

 


 

image.thumb.jpeg.8ba35e1cf088778aae3814fa84f0763a.jpeg

Posted
On 4/28/2025 at 8:14 PM, NotActuallyALonghorn said:

So, I applied for a Form 1 Friday morning, and the approval came back today before lunch time. So now I've got to figure out how to swap my hot end out and get everything dialed in for printing with PA6-CF. Soon, loud things will be significantly less loud. 

What printer are you using? You'll probably want an enclosed and heated chamber to avoid any warping, on top of hardening your hot end and extruder gears 

Posted (edited)
4 hours ago, Dbeasy said:

3D printing gurus. We use a ladle that was made over 50 years ago. It is the greatest ladle design in the history of mankind, surpassing the design produced by the Mesopotamians at the Battle of Carthage. 

We have searched endlessly for over 20 years for a ladle that has the same or similar shape, angles, depth, size, and shape. We’ve never found anything close to it. It is bizarre. 

Do you think this could be produced by a 3D printer? Either just the head, or the whole thing, or parts? We are out of other options. 

The picture doesn’t do this ladle justice. It’s perfectly designed, for gravy, soup, etc.

 


 

image.thumb.jpeg.8ba35e1cf088778aae3814fa84f0763a.jpeg

I know this is a more serious answer than you meant, but if you can get a good side-on profile picture and provide a few critical dimensions it's not too hard to recreate something in CAD.

Print-wise you should never use FDM prints with food. The surface texture is inherently going to have all sorts of nooks and crannies that bacteria will grow in, not to mention that printers aren't food safe rated and use lubricants that aren't safe to eat. 

To recreate it, you could model it and then send that 3d model or CAD  off to PCBway or some other print service to actually make the thing in metal or food-safe resin 

Edited by Captainant
Posted
5 hours ago, Captainant said:

I know this is a more serious answer than you meant, but if you can get a good side-on profile picture and provide a few critical dimensions it's not too hard to recreate something in CAD.

Print-wise you should never use FDM prints with food. The surface texture is inherently going to have all sorts of nooks and crannies that bacteria will grow in, not to mention that printers aren't food safe rated and use lubricants that aren't safe to eat. 

To recreate it, you could model it and then send that 3d model or CAD  off to PCBway or some other print service to actually make the thing in metal or food-safe resin 

Thanks. This one is finally breaking down and if we really can’t find a replacement, I may seriously look at doing that. 

Posted
17 hours ago, Captainant said:

What printer are you using? You'll probably want an enclosed and heated chamber to avoid any warping, on top of hardening your hot end and extruder gears 

QIDI X Plus3. The capability to print CF Nylons was a requirement when I bought my printer. 

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  • 2 months later...
Posted
On 4/30/2025 at 9:42 AM, Captainant said:

I know this is a more serious answer than you meant, but if you can get a good side-on profile picture and provide a few critical dimensions it's not too hard to recreate something in CAD.

Print-wise you should never use FDM prints with food. The surface texture is inherently going to have all sorts of nooks and crannies that bacteria will grow in, not to mention that printers aren't food safe rated and use lubricants that aren't safe to eat. 

To recreate it, you could model it and then send that 3d model or CAD  off to PCBway or some other print service to actually make the thing in metal or food-safe resin 

Thanks for the detailed info! Quick question what key dimensions would you recommend measuring first for the CAD model? Also, have you tried any food-safe resin services yourself?

Posted
On 7/8/2025 at 9:36 AM, Uditdev said:

Thanks for the detailed info! Quick question what key dimensions would you recommend measuring first for the CAD model? Also, have you tried any food-safe resin services yourself?

I just realized I never got back to you, I would focus on the dimensions that "bound" the geometry you care about. So like for the ladle, I would get the diameter and length of the straight section and then the length, width, and depth of the spoon section. If you use tracing techniques with your design, you basically just drop in a picture of the thing, trace/sketch it, and then add your critical dimensions back as constraints to your sketch to ensure it's correct where it matters, and good enough everywhere else.

I haven't tried any food safe resins, but it's an available product that's used for sealing counters and food service uses. If you FDM print something, you can make it "food safe" with a thin resin coat to fill in the gaps and nooks and crannies.

 

What sort of printer/materials do you use?

  • 1 month later...
  • 4 weeks later...
Posted
1 hour ago, NotActuallyALonghorn said:

hMNagWJb_o.jpg

 

lw384sbl_o.jpg

 

More details on the Gun Owner's Thread. Also decided to learn CAD and pumped this out over the course of a couple days on Tinkercad. 

 

WUxdQXtT_o.png

hida ya dogs, hide ya wives, ATF is gonna come knockin'

 

But seriously, that meets the legal definition of a suppressor under the NFA, even if it would only last for a shot or two - it would still suppress for a shot or two. You probably don't want to be posting pics of that unless you've got your forms and paperwork in order

 

Cool print and model though! Impressive work to put together on TinkerCad, I've always preferred the AutoDesk Fusion tools since that's what I learned back in college. I need to learn some more modeling tools that are faster to use, Fusion360 can be a bit overkill at times

Posted
36 minutes ago, NotActuallyALonghorn said:

Oh, I got the form 1 approved a while back, so everything is in order when it comes to my dogs. I wouldn't be printing in PA6-CF if that weren't the case.

Nice! Does the form cover just that one device or any future ones you print? I just can't see any polymer holding up to multiple shots in any sort of close timeframe

Posted

You have to file a separate Form 1 for each device you print, but with the efile system, if you get your electronic fingerprint file done and submit everything electronically it only takes like a day or two to get approved. 

This suppressor design has actually been able to withstand several hundred rounds of supersonic .308 when printed out of PLA+, so it should last much longer when printed out of PA6-CF. Check out r/fosscad to see a lot of the work done to develop stuff like this. 

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Posted
12 minutes ago, NotActuallyALonghorn said:

This suppressor design has actually been able to withstand several hundred rounds of supersonic .308 when printed out of PLA+, so it should last much longer when printed out of PA6-CF. Check out r/fosscad to see a lot of the work done to develop stuff like this. 

That's absolutely wild that PLA+ can withstand those sorts of temperatures and pressure. Does it warp at all? Ive just seen too much PLA melting in the heat to even think of it for a high temp and pressure workload, after a shot or two it'll pass glass transition temp and get wobbly wobbly?

10 minutes ago, NotActuallyALonghorn said:

...and over 24 hours into a 32 hour print, a storm rolls through and cycles the power just enough to cause my printer to reboot when it was this close...

6Uka70eL_o.jpg

Hopefully there is enough left on the roll still, because this stuff isn't cheap. 

Oof! You may be able to save the print if you can find which step it stopped on

Posted
2 hours ago, Captainant said:

That's absolutely wild that PLA+ can withstand those sorts of temperatures and pressure. Does it warp at all? Ive just seen too much PLA melting in the heat to even think of it for a high temp and pressure workload, after a shot or two it'll pass glass transition temp and get wobbly wobbly?

From what I've seen, it does experience some deformation under high rates of fire, but not enough to render the suppressor unservicable. For slow rates of fire like it would see from sighting in and hunting with a rifle I believe it does pretty well. Of course these suppressors were designed with it's limitations in mind, so they are pretty beefy. This PA6-CF stuff I just pulled off, however, is pretty rock solid, even without annealing or moisture contioning. I'm not sure I could smash it with a hammer. I'm hoping I have enough left on the roll to reprint it by the skin of my teeth. 

Posted (edited)
9 minutes ago, NotActuallyALonghorn said:

From what I've seen, it does experience some deformation under high rates of fire, but not enough to render the suppressor unservicable. For slow rates of fire like it would see from sighting in and hunting with a rifle I believe it does pretty well. Of course these suppressors were designed with it's limitations in mind, so they are pretty beefy. This PA6-CF stuff I just pulled off, however, is pretty rock solid, even without annealing or moisture contioning. I'm not sure I could smash it with a hammer. I'm hoping I have enough left on the roll to reprint it by the skin of my teeth. 

It's hideously expensive, but keep an eye out for any Tulomer filaments that go on sale if you find yourself needing more strength and temperature resistance

https://www.dynamism.com/z-polymers-tullomer-500g.html?

https://all3dp.com/4/new-tullomer-filament-put-to-the-test-is-it-really-an-easier-alternative-to-peek/

 

Edited by Captainant
Posted

So, for some reason, the Polymaker PA6 spools have a meter scale on the side cutout instead of a gram scale. I had a little over 50 meters left on the spool, which at the 2.81 grams per meter that Google's AI calculated for me, means I'm gonna hit the runout sensor about halfway through my reprint. I've got more filament supposed to be here Friday, but it will need to dry (my dehydrator that I bought for this died, so I guess I'll just have to bake it in the oven) for half a day or so before I can even start the print back. Fingers crossed that there aren't any power issues or one of the kids doesn't unplug it, because I don't think there is a way to save you spot if you kill power to it, and this stuff is already $40 for 500g.

Posted
35 minutes ago, NotActuallyALonghorn said:

So, for some reason, the Polymaker PA6 spools have a meter scale on the side cutout instead of a gram scale. I had a little over 50 meters left on the spool, which at the 2.81 grams per meter that Google's AI calculated for me, means I'm gonna hit the runout sensor about halfway through my reprint. I've got more filament supposed to be here Friday, but it will need to dry (my dehydrator that I bought for this died, so I guess I'll just have to bake it in the oven) for half a day or so before I can even start the print back. Fingers crossed that there aren't any power issues or one of the kids doesn't unplug it, because I don't think there is a way to save you spot if you kill power to it, and this stuff is already $40 for 500g.

The resume functionality is a nice perk of my X1C - I've only used the feature once but it worked and saved a 10hr print when a storm came through. 

You might consider getting a UPS to plug your  printer into though, you can get one at Costco or micro center for $120ish and it'll give you 30ish minutes of buffer. 

Posted

Lol, I originally bought this printer with a gift card I won through a United Way raffle at work. I had been interested in 3D printing for a while, and given the option of choosing a $600 Walmart gift card or a $600 Amazon gift card I realized that if I got the Walmart card it would pretty much go into the general family fund. Of course I noped out of that and chose the Amazon card so I could do some 2a prints for cheap and make a suppressor for little more than the cost of the filament, as I'd been monitoring the development that other folks had been putting time into. 

Now, I've bought a dehydrator that crapped out after the first use, a filament dryer that suffices to keep nylon blends dry enough for the time it takes to make prints of sufficient accuracy, and you're very reasonably suggesting a UPS. 

I don't think I've saved any money at all. Now I'm left with the consolation that I could get an FFL and an SOT so that I can work on designing and developing suppressors to make all this worthwhile. 

I don't think the wife is amused, she already thinks that basically PPE is some kind of boogeyman. 

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