20mm British WWII armor

[Nathaniel Weber]

As my 20mm British paras for Arnhem project winds down, I’m slowly starting 30 Corps. Here are some 3-d printed vehicles, 2 Stuarts and 2 Shermans. The Stuarts and the standard Sherman are from Butler’s Printed Models in the UK; the Firefly is from FastArmour here in the US. Overall I prefer the Butler’s prints but I have another Firefly and 2 standard Shermans from FastArmour and they’ll certainly be getting to the table. (I think the Butler’s minis are 1/76, whereas the FastArmour vehicle is 1/72. The size discrepancy doesn’t bother me.)

[deephorse]

I’d be interested to hear why you’ve gone for 3D printed rather than the conventional resin/metal/injection moulded plastic?  I’ve just had a look at Butler’s website and their price for a Sherman seems to be no cheaper than some conventionally produced rivals.  I also have to say that the quality of their prints that I’ve seen is not exactly encouraging.  Your photos show the issues that I have with some 3D products at the moment.

Having said all that I have bought several printed models from MiniGeneral in Portugal.  The models I chose are only available in 3D printed form as far as I am aware, so buying a metal or plastic version was not a possibility.  A little faint ‘banding’ is visible on one or two of them, but I treat that as the price to pay for something unusual to go on the table top.

Play is what makes life bearable - Michael Rosen

[Harry Faversham]

I’ve had a couple of refunds from Butlers in the past for crap models. Those woeful looking Honeys would have had me in rant mode quick-sharp!

"Wot did you do in the war Grandad?"

"I was with Harry... At The Bridge!"

[Nathaniel Weber]

I really don’t like assembling vehicle models—plastics with lots of parts (and I’ll be honest—even armourfast and pegasus are more trouble than I want) and resin models that never fit properly and are often fragile/pitted/have bubbles–and 3d models are ready to prime out of the box. I find that the time saved from assembly is worth the 3d print layers. Worth it to me, at least.

I rather like both the Sherman and the Stuarts and don’t see anything wrong with them as gaming models.

[deephorse]

Now I usually enjoy the process of making a kit, it’s all part of the hobby for me.  Do Butler’s come in just one piece?  I ask because my MiniGeneral models all consist of a separate hull, two track assemblies and a turret.  There are various supports to remove too, which I see that Butlers also mention on their website, so nothing is ready to paint straight from the box.

I said ‘usually’ above because all products can and do have issues as you said.  Resin and metal often need a degree of ‘fettling’ to make them fit together, though EWM’s latest one piece resin models are excellent.  I’ve just spent a less than enjoyable week assembling an injection moulded artillery piece by RPM models.  It had about a hundred parts, with the majority being almost microscopic in size and incapable of surviving being removed from the sprue.  The plastic it was made from didn’t readily ‘weld’ together with Revell’s cement, and small assemblies had to be left overnight to harden before I could proceed with construction.  Many times I considered binning it and buying an EWM or SHQ offering instead.  Thankfully I only need one of these large guns for my French forces, and now that it’s done, and soon to be painted, no-one will know how much trouble it was to build, and that 90% of those small parts are still on the sprue!

Play is what makes life bearable - Michael Rosen

[Nathaniel Weber]

Well, removing the plastic support material is rather less work than trimming sprues and gluing. But otherwise yes, the Butler models are one piece (seperate turrets). Their website mentions seperate gun barrels, but I haven’t encountered one of those yet (and one of my items was a JagdPanther, which I assumed would have a seperate gun).

[NTM]

BPM give the option to increase the 1/76 models to 1/72.

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