What is 3D Printing?

3D printing is becoming more widely known about although I expect many people either know nothing or very little about it.

This page is not meant to be a definitive guide to all of 3D printing since it is a very diverse subject and there are many different types of 3D printing techniques. Instead I am going to simply describe what we do.

Our printers are a Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) printer (look this up on Wikipedia if you want an in depth explanation).  In simple terms a plastic filament (think long plastic wire) is melted to print a layer of plastic exactly where we want it.  A model is made up by printing one layer at a time on top of each other.

We print with PLA plastic in 0.1 mm thick layers which is more than good enough to produce highly accurate models.

3D printing produces a rougher surface finish than plastic injection molding (which is how most plastic things you own were made) so don't expect your model to look or feel the same as conventional plastic models.  Once painted it can be hard to tell the difference for most models when viewed from typical distances during a wargame.

High Resolution Resin
This is a different type of 3D printing to our standrd FFF prints.  It produces much high resolution prints with a smoother finish but costs more to produce.  We have begun to make some products available in high resolution resin.  The smaller the model the more it benefits from being produced in resin.  The material is a photopolymer which is very different to the PLA used for FFF prints but is still a "plastic" and can be undercoated and painted in the usual way for other plastic models.