T92 Light Tank. 3D printed model

Well hello everyone it has been a little while since my last post. However, rest assured I have indeed been hard at work, slowly chipping away at that mountain of plastic and metal. Oh and adding to it significantly of course. Particularly because I am back at it painting modern miniatures. Including some rather experimental projects. Here then is the product of one of these utilising (one of) our flats 3D printers. A T92 light tank. I think it is rather nice but I will let you decide.

So let's get straight down to business how does a 3D printed tank look? Well not too bad I think.

So first I must give thanks to the creator of the model itself. User: Jarek Lang on Thingiverse link here: https://www.thingiverse.com/JARLANG/designs Jarek has many interesting and unusual designs. Many of which do not have a 1/72 scale kit for, or the kits are very rare. The T92 Light Tank being a good example. (I must say I am somewhat conflicted about not printing out the AMX-13 instead. More on this below.)

This angle really emphasises the layers nature of the build but I actually find the texture rather pleasing.

So the model was printed in several parts that had to be glued together. PLA plastic was used and it took normal cement rather well. One criticism would be that the turrets are not as secure being a very simple plug and dowel type arrangement. However, this is partly a limitation of the technology. Furthermore it is quite hard to complain about a design you got for free.

The three turrets (main and machine gun) all rotate. The barrels for the machine gun turrets were made of wire. In retrospect I probably made them rather small even for a 7.62 gun. Let alone a 12.7 M2 browning that one housed.

So then why print out this tank? Well for the most part, just because. We had 3D printers in the flat and I wanted to try them out. Okay but why this one in particular? Well That's a bit more of a story. First up I decided that whatever I would print first should be a test model, preferably something not that big. That way if it turned out badly it wouldn't mean that too much plastic would go to waste.

Then comes the next bit, I wanted something that was reasonably complex to test the limitations of the printer. A multi-part model works well for that. At the same time I didn't want to try something so complicated that it would just fail anyway. So nothing with very fine detail. Finally I wanted something that would fit within the theme of Oronegro. So with that in mind I searched the Thingiverse looking for something just right!

The model is quite robust. The internal honeycomb gives it strength while remaining light weight.

So then what to choose. Well I found found this model and others. After careful consideration and more than a bit of starting all again I decided to go for a light tank. It would fit the theme of Oronegro quite well being suitable for jungle warfare. Now which one the AMX-13 or the T92? Well that was a hard one and I can't say I chose well. Ultimately it came down to looks and capabilities. While at the time the machine gun turrets (giving the tank better defence at close quarters, useful in a jungle) gave the T92 the edge, I must say I am a sucker for that oscillating turret on the AMX-13. No matter this was a test vehicle after all. Furthermore in future there's the possibility of simple creating new models entirely using modelling software to create a file to then print. An exciting development for those in our hobby for sure.

Size comparison between the Leopard 1A3 and the T92. The T92 is a light tank and the Leopard 1A3 a heavier main battle tank. That being said I was amazed by how much faster the Leopard was! German engineering strikes again.

Now I have to thank my flatmate Logan who helped me print out the model, use his printer and use some of his plastic material for this tank, all for free. Very grateful for all his help. Finally before I go I am going to thank a couple people I think are new followers? It has been so long since I checked the followers list. Anyway big thanks to ScannableGoose and Evgeniy Brikelev glad to have you here and I hope you enjoy my content. :-D

Well that's it for now, expect a big update eventually, I am planning on rewriting much of the lore around Oronegro. Not sure when that will begin or what I will do about it, perhaps put ideas below. Until next time I wish you a very good day/night. All the best with your hobbies and let's all pretend to make dents in those piles of unpainted plastic.