The Galleon Printed Well! Notes on the experience :) (Patreon)

Hello friends! I'm proud to report that my Galleon model printed well! This took a little over a month to print due to lots of wood pla being needed, my Prusa i3 MK3 dying, and eventually getting replaced. The largest pieces took days alone to print. Like my previous ships this model is an FDM only situation, given not everyone has access to massive resin printers that can handle something this big. 

Some notes to share while printing this. One was that the sail masts were too thin to be stable with regular PLA. I recommend when you print the masts for the sails to use something stronger like PETG or ABS. For my situation, I printed these hollow so was able to use a drill to make some holes in the masts then inserted a copper wire from a wire hanger, and it was then pretty sturdy. 

I did update the file after observing this, so the updated Galleon masts are thicker and have longer insertion slots while the sails are a little thinner. When it comes to supports I've found the Prusa MK4 (new printer) can print things pretty much at any angle. And this is needed given the sails are so tall most printers can't print them upright. Also you need a good printing space to keep things stable, so be sure to angle things forward so the supports needed to print them keep the whole print stable. The one sail that could be printed upright failed because it was so tall that the slightest wobble led to a print failure. I have oriented all the pieces already for optimal printing.

For fun I also added a canoe rack that you can line up next to the center sail mast to give it more stability. I made a barrel you can use for the front mast to give it some stability too. Use blue tack to keep them on the ship. However if things break, and for me a few things have during this experience, I highly recommend using Gloop. Its an AWESOME glue that is made specifically for 3D printing materials. 

All in all I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I still need to paint it obviously haha. I also need to tie on some rigging ladders on the sides of both sails. That's what those little rings are for. Tempted to model the ladders and print them cuz I don't wanna tie the little ropes manually haha. But hey, this is a crafting hobby right? Sometimes  you gotta craft ;)

Anyway just wanted to share. I've uploaded the updated files here. Full files are in Terrain, Ships & Scatter Models - Galleon. Obviously not to be confused with the Space Galleon in Spelljammer as that ship is... uh... in space. Yeah :P