The wheels

I’ve modelled up the wheels in more detail ready to be printed at Shapeways. Unfortunately it’s still coming out rather expensive, so I’m playing with the scale slightly. Also trying to hollow out the armoured ‘feet’ to use less material. Not an easy process when you’re as rusty with 3d software as I am. Plus Sketchup is hardly Maya 😉

An alternative I’m considering is to have just the feet printed out, the rest of the wheel could be modelled easily. Well ok so could the feet, but there’s no way I’m making 48 of the same thing in two scales, I lack the patience and consistency to pull it off.

Finally I could just abandon the idea of 3d printing all together, make one foot at each size and cast them in resin. Which is eminently doable of course, but lacks the ‘cool shiny’ of 3d printing, which I’ve never played with before.

We’ll see. If I go Shapeways route I’ll put up a link so other people can buy them if they wish. Might be useful in various projects. If it works I might do a few other random parts through shapeways too, could be fun..