Small scale airplane and ship

Hello everybody, greetings from Brazil,

I just received my first order from Shapeways. These are my designs:

One tugger model in aproximately 1/350 scale:



One Embraer/Aermacchi AMX aircraft in 1/144 scale:


Some nozzles for a F-15 aircraft (they were supposed to be in 1/144 scale but I made a mistake and they are a little larger)



I also bought a little spaceship from one of the shops:



I ordered these as a test to see if it would be feasible to use this process in my hobby (plastic scale modeling). I have some comments (some positive and some negative).

On the negative side:
1- When I buy abroad and receive it by standard mail, I get a 50% chance of paying custom taxes, as customs officers select by sampling. When using a courrier service such as UPS, it's 100% chance of paying these taxes. Which is ok for me. The problem is that UPS charges an additional fee for adminstrative services. In the end, for an order of around $40 I paid another $40 in taxes and fees for UPS. A little more than what I was expecting.

2- The surface finish of the parts are a little rough. I don't know if it is because of the material (White Strong & Flexible) or the process itself. But I think that it might look better after a layer of paint and some light sanding.

On the positive side:
1- It was fast.
2- I am amazed with the level of detail that was achieved in some of the models, specially in the tugger ship.

Conclusion:
It may be a little expensive (specially for us in South America), but I really enjoy the results. I plan to refine the models and eventually open a shop and make them available to whoever enjoys small models. I already have a few other airplanes in 1/144 scale in my mind that I want to turn into physical replicas.

Regards,
Luis

Well done.

WSF is porous, not silky smooth as white detail.

As for UPS.. welcome to the club :
https://www.shapeways.com/forum/index.php?t=msg&th=3224&a mp;start=0&

They charge a flat rate for clearing the package at the customs office - so if the package is valued low, their charge could be well over the package's price .. :confused

Thanks for the comments, Dizingof.
I think I will try white detail on my next order.
Regarding UPS... What can I say? I hope Shapeways offer other shipping options in the near future.

Regards,
Luis

Hi,

These have arrived some time ago and I have been experimenting with priming and painting them:

A new version of the AMX with landing gear and cockpit details. I printed the fuselage in WSF and the wings and caopy in transparent detail:


More nozzles for the F-15, printed in black detail and transparent detail. I really liked how these turned out:


A new airplane. The Aermacchi MB.326:


And here the models after some layers of paint:


I used Mr Surfacer 1000 primer first. Then after some light sanding I applied a couple of layers of Tamiya paint.
For the first model of the AMX, I was able to obtain a somewhat smooth finish after sanding and painting a couple of times.
The second AMX model is quite difficult to sand because of small details, specially around the landing gear, so it still looks very rough in that area.
For the MB.326 I first applied a layer of Future/Pledge in the hopes that it would seal the surface and turn it less prone to absorb the paint. I did not see much difference, but maybe I need to add more layers before painting.

I have ordered a few more models and I want to experiment a little with the detail materials. They do seem easier to paint.

Regards,
Luis