Gun Emplacement Mk. II - 4

The latest prints for the gun emplacement arrived a week or so ago, but I’ve just not had time to do anything with them till now.

I tried the White Detail material to see if the surface texture was good enough for project such as the emplacement.

The result is mixed. The surface texture is good enough, especially after a light sanding with wet and dry paper in some place but the detail on the hatches on the gun mounting plate was just too fine for the resolution available, also some of the rivets didn’t come out well. I gave it a coat of grey spray as in its natural colour it isn't very clear.

The mounting plate is salvageable as I can fill in/cover or replace the hatches and replace the poor quality rivets as required.

So far I have started looking at the hatches and redoing those: One is going to be filled and have some plating over it (perhaps) while the other I am doing a new recessed hatch.

While I have the pieces to hand this is how the gun base fits onto the mounting plate:

Moving onto the two other pieces the news is again mixed. The texture on the top surface including the treadplate and rivets is spot on. No problem with that at all. The problem is on both pieces they is a ‘drop’ in the material around the edge, almost like a thumb has been pressed into soft plastic. It is hard to know why this has happened.

The pieces before
getting a coat of spray paint.

The tinted areas highlight the edging which is the problem.

 

I will be dropping Shapeways an email to see what has caused this in the hope of avoiding the issue in future. Looking into the hollow pieces it doesn’t look like the upper surface has ‘fallen’ into the hollow mould. The picture below isn't that clear but you can just about see that internally the piece is as it should be.

I am going to try and repair the damage, not sure if I will have any luck but it is worth trying to save them.