Witness the birth of a new monster...the IS-4

[tank_me]

While working on the IS-7 I thought to myself it would be a good time to start printing his sibling...the IS-4. And I couldn't help but post one of the siblings after getting the side hull off the printer. The turret is currently printing and it's going to take over 9 hours, but it's printing all in one piece which is why even my speed demon printer is going to take a long time to print it with 0.16 layer height. There is a pretty large gap between the upper deck and the sloped sides, but that's because I haven't cleaned up the flash around the edge yet.



Some of the pieces are way to big or at the edge of my printer bed so the designer (Inkor) has kindly cut them up so most of these were printed in sections. The upper deck was in two pieces. Since it's printed in PETG, a little MEK was used to join the two pieces. After joined I used some failed flat print plastic, cut it into strips, and MEK'd it to the back of the deck for additional strength. The MEK melts the PETG pretty well. Just have to be really careful with the stuff it's pretty nasty.



Before:



After:



Derek

[ccarley]

Very cool! Looking forward to seeing the progress on this.

Clay

[cpt.chaos canada]

... next in line :)
thanks for sharing your project.
CCC

[tank_me]

And after 9.5 hours of print time and 195G (mostly supports) of filament later...a turret emerges. Yes, I tried tree supports and got two 6 hour in failed prints as the tree supports would come off the bed mid print.




Here it is almost all cleaned up from the supports which was a PITA BTW. PETG supports are notoriously hard to get off. The support surfaces are really rough, but they won't show in the finished tank.




And of course a side by side of the two brothers from two different mothers:



Printer is already hard at work on more parts.

Derek

[Elbee]

And after 9.5 hours of print time and 195G (mostly supports) of filament later...Printer is already hard at work on more parts.Derek

TM, Great looking 3DP parts. I like the way you think. Best, LB

[tank_me]

Made quite a bit of progress on this guy recently. At least most of the major components are printed. After doing the initial assembly I really didn't like the fit of the deck to the sides so I reprinted the sides from the new Sunlu PETG-G I got. The Bambu had a few firmware updates that seemed to fix the initial issues I had printing them so I was able to print them as one piece now. The fit is so much better. This is how she stands at the momemt. That pile is 160+ track pieces. Not a lot of post processing done yet. I wanted to get the mechanicals and physical build out of the way before disassembling it to do the finishing work.



Better shot of the track quality. Printed them 54 at a time and it took 6.5 hours per sheet at a 0.08 layer height. They were printed at an angle so that both sides had good surface quality. Only supports used were specified as "critical areas" and only touching the bed. They came out quite nice. I can't assemble them until my spring steel wire arrives on the slow boat from China.



Close up of the muzzle brake:



View of the suspension. I have some gearboxes arriving today so I can get the sprockets mounted soon.



Another side view.



Rear view.

[tank_me]

Worked on the IS-4 a bit today. Still lots of printer lines to hide, but it's coming along nicely. Got motors, elevation, recoil, high intensity flash, turret handles, and tracks installed. Just getting everything mocked up. Been adding the red glazing putty with an old paintbrush so it's going on more consistent and easier to sand down.

[tank_me]

Been busy working on multiple projects, but made progress on this guy. I have been getting much better with the Bambu slicer so I took advantage of that. I have always hated that Inkor's designs don't incorporate bearings in anything. The road wheels he designs also have saving filament in mind so the inner wheels usually have vast open spaces in them with small hubs. The hubs are usually too small for bearings in some cases. I decided to fix these "issues (for me)". First off, I filled in the backs of the wheel to give the bearing more support. Secondly, I modified the road wheel STL to accept a 3mm bore x 7mm x 2.5mm flanged (8mm flange) bearing. Then I reprinted the wheels out of ASA to get more detail with less post processing. Don't mind the secret project bogie truck in the picture... :shh:



With numerous successful resin prints under my belt, I added a bunch of resin details to the tank. They are not permanently attached at the moment. The new wheels run smooth on their new bearings. I will be updating the idler also. Currently I'm reprinting some of the upper deck parts in ASA to enhance the detail. I can now print ASA freely as the printer now lives in the garage. Makes me wish I hadn't printed so many parts before moving the printer. PETG is great for strength, but less so for detail. And also now that the resin printer is working, I'm going to be printing tracks for some tanks in resin.



That's all for now...