M3 Grant (Lee?) scratchbuilt... or that's the plan anyway...

[Rob1970]

Aaaaand just when you thought it was safe to go back on the forum...






So, what have I been up to? Well, a lot of therapy and healing, because it turned out I was a bigger mess than I (or the doctors) suspected. But now I am on the mend, and getting back to doing things other than therapy and rest.

While I was away from my projects and the 3D-printer some things happened. First my computer died, then one of my 3D printers. It all put a major crimp on my motivation...

Last May everybody in my company got a big bonus and a large chunk of profit, which was nice. Just around that time Creality announced their new K1 and K1Max printers. And boy did they look shiny!! And they promised to be hassle-free, plug-and-play machines. Just what I as a 3D-printer-user needed. I'm in no way a 3D-printer-tinkerer after all.

And then the reviews started to show up from the 3D-influencers on Youtube, and the K1 seemed to be a bit of a lemon. A lot of teething problems, some of them rather bad. All the negativity steered me to the printer the K1 was supposed to be competing with; The Bambu Lab X1. So I spent a healthy wad of cash on one of those...

Aaand I have never been happier with a 3D printer...

So I dusted off my Tinkercad account, discovered some new functionality (Yay!) that solved a few problems I had run into while working on the Grant the last time. And it all ended up leading to this;



A completely 3D-printable hull. Better fitting parts, and a bunch of other stuff.
Also wished I had gone for a welded-hull variant...


I took down the uploads on Thingiverse (because the files are horrible compared to what I have done with the new parts) and will be uploading the new files "soon".

Well... that was the plan anyway...



I had surgery last week (which was planned... 2-sided inguinal hernia, one morning in-and-out surgery that went well) and I contracted covid (probably in the hospital, NOT planned!). And let me tell ya, coughing with inguinal hernia or while recovering from the surgery to repair aforementioned inguinal hernia is NOT fun!

So my fever-addled brain has been busy sorting my files because they were a mess and I lost track of which was the final or at least most recent version. Mainly working on getting it all printable with minimal supports and sorting which parts would be best printed in resin. Also seeing of I can do several version with minimal fuss by making different engine decks and rears...





Tinkering about with getting parts I think are "done" (are they ever?) printed and putting them together, tweaking here and there to get the fits nice and snug. Messing around with the rear between fever spikes...


TTFN,
Rob

[MrChef]

Excellent return.

And cool for you to share alot more pics of 3d printing. I still dont understand it all but it's cool to see how you guys work, rework and produce these magical items.

[RichJohnson]

What are you going to do about all the print lines?
I built the kit Vandra offered. It was quite nice and fit right onto thenglong after changing out the tranys. I wound up trading it for a Tamiya Sherman I needed for a build project.

[Rob1970]

What are you going to do about all the print lines?
I built the kit Vandra offered. It was quite nice and fit right onto thenglong after changing out the tranys. I wound up trading it for a Tamiya Sherman I needed for a build project.

Well, the print lines should be minimal when printing in resin when needed, or by upping the resolution. The prints in the last pictures were done at 0.2 or even 0.24 which makes them huuuuge. When done at 0.08 most print lines will either vanish after a minimum of sanding and a coat of primer. Or you could print in ABS and do a vapour-smooting with acetone which makes the parts as slick as a duck's arse. As for the vandra kit... I looked at it and the glaring undersized turret and wrong shape didn't do it for me. That why I am designing my own.

[Rob1970]

The dreaded 'rona seems to be slowly dying, so I've been up to some more shenenigans...



...meaning the single piece that was the rear deck and sides of the Grant has turned into multiple pieces, allowing me to do various versions of the engine deck (the pink squarish part in the middle) to allow for different engines and whatnot. Same is going on with the arse-end which will have multiple versions with diffent exhausts and filters.

I've gotten into the habit of searching for Grant and Lee bits on the various 3D-depositories, just in case there's something I can *cough* borrow. I found a reasonable gaming miniature that actually scaled up pretty well to 1/16 scale and decided to print it out just for Schlitz and giggles...



Printed it out in "draft" settings (0.24mm layer height) for speed and to see how it would look. You can rrrreally see the layer lines at the resolution...



Love the X1C and the support settings. They rip out with minimal fuss...



Might as well do the rest of the turret too...



Watching that first layer go down never gets old...

Nice...



Again, "Draft" settings. In the end I would probably print these in resin...



and yet it is nothing I think a little sanding and some good primer won't fix...



Sureley looks like a Lee... and a lot less malnourished than Vandra's offering. (No offense...)



TTFN,
Rob

[Rob1970]

Needed a little break from tinkering with the arse-end of the Grant, and someone asked me if the 3-piece transmission cover I designed could be modified to fit on a Sherman.

Bad news is; it can't. The lower StuG gearbox gets in the way.

Good news; I designed one for the Sherman in particular... including templates for cutting the gearbox and the hull.



When I've ran a few test prints, it will go up on Cults.

TTFN,
Rob

[Rob1970]

Sometimes the rabbithole runs deep when 3D designing parts. What was supposed to be a quick excursion from the main build turned into a full-on tinkering bonanza, resulting in two types of 3-piece differential covers for the Sherman, complete with cutting templates for the Heng Long hull and gearboxes. Working on a manual for easy installation, all the parts optimized for ease of printing and minimal supports.



And while the last test print is running, I am wondering if I could do a version for a resin printer that could include casting marks...

TTFN,
Rob

[Rob1970]

So yeah, the rabbithole is deep and winding...

So this is a thing now...


Prints well enough at 0.08mm layers...


...and looks nice!


TTFN,
Rob