As most of you know, Tom has been working on a cargo plane for ants, the An-225 in 1/144 scale. He asked me to duplicate some of the photoetch parts to make some assembly easier and to make the ladder less fragile.

It’s taken a few attempts to get things right and they’re still not perfect but I wanted to post an update because I know a few of you have shown interest in 3D printing and what can be achieved. Below are some photos showing Tom’s PE parts compared to my printed parts.

The PE parts are about 0.14mm thick if I remember correctly. In order to get these to print correctly I had to go a little thicker to between 0.2mm-0.25mm. I think it will be a few more years before printing can be as thin as PE, but there are some obvious advantages to a printed part already. The printed parts don’t bend and they don’t need to be assembled or bent or any of that. Trimming the supports is a bit of a pain, but I can also print lots of extras so it matters much less if you damage something.

I’ll have these parts with me at the next meeting so in anyone wants to check them out let me know. Have a great weekend, everyone!

– Chad