I keep meaning to post my prints, especially to encourage Cassidy (who is, I believe, the creator of these designs) to keep it up. I love these prints, I love the engineering, and I love fiddling with them. 😅
So, I did first print a Fury Express, but my Ender-3 v3 wasn't doing its best work, and there were some things that didn't want to go together, and that experience actually convinced me to take the advice of friends and get a Bambu A1. That ended up being a very good choice. At any rate, I didn't get the Fury Express out to take pictures of it, but it's very pink and you're not missing anything.
Instead, let's start with my Bastion Engine "Landcrawler" which I am setting up to be an Ash Wastes vehicle for my Ironhead Prospectors gang in Necromunda. I used four tracked axles instead of wheels, and I love the way this looks. I did a few modifications though - I designed a spacer that is on the axles so that the tracks are further out, so they are more visible under the catwalk that surrounds the vehicle. I also didn't want it bristling with heavy guns - I wanted it as more in the direction of a civilian vehicle. So, instead of more guns on the front, I modified the Conductor's Thorns into simple spikes. And that's how we get here:
I want the Bastion Engine to pull tracked flat cars and maybe a tracked "caboose," but I haven't gotten all the way there yet. Nonetheless, I love the cargo stuff, so I did take a photo of what I've printed:
That's all the further I am on my Landcrawler, but I want to at least paint the main engine first before I print another flat car and a caboose. Painting the tracked wheels effectively is going to be an interesting experiment, but I'll let you know what happens. Next: The amazing Crawler Crane!
Okay, now on to my in-progress Slamtrak! I wanted this vehicle to be an off-track vehicle as well, so I decided it would be cool as a half-track. But in my mind, a set of wheels followed by three sets of tracks wouldn't look as cool. I also checked, and it turns out that mixing-and-matching off-track options doesn't work perfectly because they seem to be different heights. Darn. Well, I decided it would instead be a half-track - big wheels on the front, and a continuous track that goes over the rear three axles. I modified a track so that it was about the right length, and printed it. Of course, it was too loose. So I will have to actually offset the front and rear track axles so it's tighter (but more on that later). Now... the big tire conversion sits much higher than the tracked conversion. So I tried to make the big tires smaller to match the tracks. This turned out very ugly, which is sad because I spent quite some time messing with it. 😂 I looked again at the small tires, and I decided to go with them. I also added a spacer to lift the tracks to be even with the wheels. So, after all that, this is where I am with my SlamTrack:
But I have two problems - 1) I want the result to match what's in my brain, and 2) I hate waste. So, I don't love the small tires on this behemoth. That's fine - I can use them on another train or vehicle or whatever. Instead, I want to put big tires up front, because I think they'll look better. But the rear track is a bigger problem - with big tires, up front, the tracks have to be lifted more. But the tread is loose on the wheels, so I also want to tighten that up. So I am probably going to measure out and design a little piece to both lift the tracked axles and displace the front and rear tracked axles by about 5mm or so. Don't worry - I'll do the measurements. At any rate, this big monster is going to essentially be some sort of Space Marine or Imperial vehicle custom-made to carry the LocoChrono into battle. I haven't decided how many guns to add yet, but it'll probably be several. Next: My slightly customized OXKART!