Friday 3 April 2020

3D-printing tanks... Pt. IX: T18 Boarhound

I love printing unusual and less-used vehicles, and while Thingiverse is a true treasure-trove not everything I am looking for is available there...

One of the vehicles I have been looking for, is the T18 Boarhound armoured car...

I really love the design of this vehicle... 
I wanted to add this armoured car to my platoon of Staghounds or have it serve as a command vehicle in a British armoured car company... It's initial version was armed in the same way as the Staghound Mk. I and is't a nice miniature to add some variety.

As with the Staghound, this is a very large armoured car...
With a Sherman and a Staghound for scale...
Not only is it almost as big as a Sherman, it weighs just about the same too... This is one impressive armoured car!

I found the Boarhound on Shapeways and contacted the designer (Kampfflieger) to ask him if the stl-file was available for download. He quickly responded and directed me to his Patreon: Panzer Printer... Apart from the Boarhound there are a lot more cool designs, mostly of rare vehicles. The designs themselves are pretty good and there's a wide selection of models to choose from.



I had to re-scale the design from 1:72 to 1:100 and I have adapted the model to accommodate a set of small magnets. As an added bonus, the design itself is already hollow and open at the bottom; resulting in a rather economically effective print, despite it's size...

However, that proved to be something of a hindrance, too... The walls of the hull are so thin, the vehicle started warping, even after I had cured it. I think it's because the design was originally intended to be printed by Shapeways, and they use a different technique...

It might be hard to see, but the thin sides are flaring outwards...
Above you can see the first two printed hulls. At first I thought the warping was caused by the supports I left inside the hull (I didn't bother removing them as you wouldn't be able to see them anyway), but the second print suffered from the same problem, despite having all of the internal supports removed. I took extra care while cleaning the model, but it started warping even before I got the chance to fully cure it...

Screenshot made while in Tinkercad...
To counter the warping I thickened the walls of the rear half on the hull and I inserted blocks to connect the axles and strengthen the overall construction.

The model on the right features the strengthened frame...

Here you can see the adaptation I made to accommodate a small magnet.
I also added a few pieces of stowage...
The stowage is from Thingiverse. The pieces are designed by TigerAce1945 and can be found HERE... Seeing how easy it was to add some detail to the (already awesome) model, I regret not trying it any sooner...

While cutting up the file and re-scaling the model I forgot I had already re-scaled the turret... Hence, the first turret came out much too small, being scaled down twice instead of just once... For the second print I replaced the file and printed it in the right scale...

The difference in size is obvious...
The warping and the re-scaling error are all part of the learning experience... In the end the Boarhound turned out great and I will be printing a couple more!
I really, really, really like this model; it's a clean design and nicely detailed. You can expect to find many more of Panzer Printer's designs here in the future!

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