3D Resin Printing: USS Minnesota

 

Some more experimentation with 3D printing - in this case a 1/600 scale model of the USS Minnesota from the ACW.

I purchased the stl files from a designer on the Wargaming 3D marketplace called East Coast Ironclads.  He has a large range of ACW ships to choose from and of the two I've purchased I have been very impressed.

The spars on the masts can be a bit delicate so I plan on reinforcing them with some green stuff sculpted to look like furled sails.  Off course if they break due to gameplay one can always just print off a new one!

I've got some pretty large gaps in my ACW ironclad collection and these models are a great way to fill them without spending a ton of money.

3D Resin Printing Week 2: Printed Terrain Details

Week 2 of my foray into 3D resin printing continues to show real promise.  Despite the the build volume being small (3.1 inches wide, 5 inches long and 6 inches high), one can cram a good bit on the plate.  One of the terrain features I was missing for the Stalingrad table was the Barmaley Fountain and I was struggling to scratch build one.  Let's just say there have been 2 scratch build failures.

A quick internet search found that 3dPrintterrain makes a collection of WW2 themed files which includes the fountain as well as some other iconic terrain pieces.  

It took a little maneuvering to get the fountain to fit on the build plate but it printed out great.  It's also far superior to anything I would have scratch built do I am really pleased.

I doubt I'll be printing out full building using the resin printer (expect for 6mm) but key detail parts like window frames, doors and signage will be easy to do and add a lot of visual appeal to my scratch builds.

One other useful "discovery" are these cheap plastic cafeteria trays.  The raise lips are great for keeping your printer in and protecting against the inevitable resin spills.  They also make great spots for storing works in progress.

The lips have edges that are 1/8 inch thick and about 3/8 of an inch wide.  I think I can build some really simple cabinet boxes with 1/8 inch grooves and make some super quick storage shelves.

I purchased 2 sets of 12 each, which cost me 20.00 each set (used).  Thats kind of expensive for plastic but compared to the alternative cost of wood and build time a real bargain.

Obviously, "cafeteria tray" storage shelves will not look as nice as my standard box shelves but after building 36 of these wooden shelves, I'm running out of space!  Plus with wood prices being what they are, it's hard to justify the cost.  Yes, all 36 drawers are filled just like the one pictured.

Great 3D resin Printing Post on No Dice, No Glory

 There is a great article on 3D Resin printing for Historical gamers over on the No Dice No Glory blog.  You can find it HERE

I’m referencing the blog post as it’s likely a better write-up than I can do and the use the same printer I got for Fathers Day.  It also has some great links for historically themed 3D print files and I’m using the blog as a form of a notebook.

First 3D Resin Prints

The Elegoo Mars Pro 2 printer has been set up in a temporary location (the card table in the game room) so I could start to learn how to use it.  Long term, I'll make some room in the shop.

The first miniature prints are a German Bison Assault gun and 2 Soviet winter infantry figures, all 15mm scale.  This picture shows the lot on the curing turn table right after finishing the ultra violet curing.  

I downloaded some all of these files from a sire called Wargaming 3D, which is a market place for vendors to sell .stl files for historical wargaming - if you're thinking about a 3D resin printer go check it out as the selection is very, very broad.

The second test print was a SU-76 and seven Soviet Naval Infantry figures (again, all 15mm).  The SU-76 is a 2 -part model - the hulls is one piece and the gun compartment a second.

I did have a minor issue with the back right corner of the gun compartment lifting off, as you can see in this picture.  It will be easy to fix with a little green stuff and maybe some stowage.

The corner lift continues around on this side.  In all honesty Ive had much worse issues with resin cast tanks from Battlefront.  I still need to remove some of the print supports from the model.

A close up of the "warping".  I'll be printing a bunch of SU-76's so will eventually figure out the right settings.  I really shouldn't complain - the .STL files for the SU-76 were available for FREE from the wargaming 3D site.  Free is a very good price.

A close up for the Soviet Naval infantry.  I am very pleased with the detail and think these figures are as good as the plastic or metal figures I'm used to purchasing for this scale.  In fact, I'd say they are better than Plastic Soldier Company.  These figures are from a file set called RKKA_naval_squad_02 which has 12 different poses and you get files for both 28mm and 15 figures.  There are also squads 01 & 03 from the same designer (mr3DPrint).  My current set of Soviet Naval Infantry are metal casts from Peter Pig - they are great figures but only have SMG's and 2 or 3 poses.  I'm very excited about the modeling possibilities here.

The Su-76 and 7 infantry figures took about 1.5 hours to print and another 15-20 minutes post production to wash and cure.  The build plate on the Mars 2 Pro isn't that large and I could probably fit another 3 infantry figures on it.

I am very struck by the reliability of resin printing.  One does have to be very thoughtful in working with the resin - its rather toxic stuff.  The key is developing a set workflow to ensure you don't contaminate surfaces with resin that gets on your gloves.  I'll do a future post on my workflow once I feel its really nailed down.

3d Resin printing is a really exciting technology for the hobby and I think it will have a profound impact on the distribution of miniatures.  Will it replace cast metal of plastic figures - probably not.  I think it will eventually reduce the sizes of those "mass produced" ranges to the basics and push the specialty troops to digital distribution.  I'll probably always get my bog standard Soviet infantry from Battlefront or PSC, but specialty troops like Naval Infantry or NKVD will likely now just be purchased as files.

3D Resin Printing - Father's Day Gift

 

It looks like I'll be delving into the world of 3D resin printing as my Father's Day gift is a Elegoo Mars 2 Pro 3D Resin printer (on the right) and it's associated cleaning and curing station (on the left).  Because I am smarter than the average bear, I have cracked the sophisticated code behind the color choices and will now reveal said revelation to you - Mars = Red! and Curing requires the sun = Yellow.  Please use this information for good and not evil.

I am fascinated by the prospect of "sculpting" in CAD and making food quality miniatures via a home printer.  Since my 3D cad skills are, ummm, nonexistent, that may be awhile but there are a growing number of file vendors to choose from to get started.

There will be lots of mistakes made along this journey which I'll post here for all of you to ridicule mercilessly.

One of my inspirations for getting on this new journey is Aaron over at the Project Wargaming You-Tube channel.  All of the buildings on his fabulous Berlin board we used in the LWTV Berlin episode  were 3D printed.  I really excited about the prospects for adding details to the Stalingrad board and  my next secret project once that's done.

I'm compiling a list of 3D miniature file vendors so any suggestions are greatly appreciated.

"Fabricator Cart" Complete

The rolling cart for my Prusa 3D printer and cricut cutter is complete.  The cart was originally designed to allow the Prusa printer to fit on the bottom.  Why? because the lower center of gravity reduces any wobble cause by the printer as if prints.  That idea was abandoned after realizing the cart is really solid (it doesn't wobble when the wheels are locked) and I tend to need to fiddle with the 3D printer a lot more than the cricut.  The Cricut is super dependable but I'm batting under .500 for 3D prints.  That's not a knock on the Prusa it's a superb machine and the companies tech support is one of the best I've experienced.  There are just a lot of factors the impact the success of a 3D print and I have yet to really grasp how they all work.  Good old bog standard "user error" at work here.

A ways back, I made a simple tool caddy for the 3D printer which was attached to the cart.  Almost like I planned it that way - which I, of course, did not.  

It's always better to be lucky than smart.

The cart has a big drawer to store the bits and bobs associated with both tools.  It also fits the chip and mat board used with the cricut.

I may add a shelf in the middle to hold filament spools for the printer.   It will be really nice to have all the tools and supplies I use with these two machines located in the same place.   There is a good bit of terrain work remaining for the Stalingrad project so this setup should get a good work out.

It's not very pretty but hopefully she'll be functional, which is a type of beauty all its own.

The cart is built out of construction grade materials.  The four legs and cross braces are 2x4 studs I cut down to 1.75x1.75 inches on my table saw.  The two platforms and drawer unit from scrap 1/2 inch plywood.  The drawer face and sides along the top are cut from a 1x6 board.  I think the total wood cost is under $20 bucks.

Doing little projects like this one to organize my workspace always proves to be a nice break when I get in a hobby rut and helps me figure out ways to change up my modeling workflow.  This hobby of ours has a lot pieces to it between paints, minis, terrain materials and tools so doing a little thinking on organization is actually very helpful.  I also tend to find things I forgot I had when doing these projects which is kind of like getting a prize at the end of the project.   

Steve's Stunning Escape from Goblin Town Game

 As I entered the club Monday night I stumbled upon Steve's setup for the night's game - "Escape from Goblin Town".  Steve really out did himself - he is a superb GM and puts on a great show.  The scenario was straight out of the Hobbit and starts right after Gandalf slays the GoblinKing and he and the boys need to escape off the board.  Of course they don't really know where the exit is and there are a "handful" of pursuing Goblins.  Steve used GW's Lord of the Rings rules and miniatures and made all of the terrain via 3D printing.  I've never played GW LOTR but really liked them.

My role was the Goblin commander and I had a map of the labyrinth and kept track of the goblin bands via tiny magnets 

The start of the game with the Goblin-King down.   Stee plans to run this at a few conventions so I'm not going to give away a lot of details  but suffice it to say it was a fantastic gaming experience - perhaps one of the best games I've ever played - at least in the top 3.

 Steve also had a period appropriate die roller - also 3D printed. 

The Goblins took fearsome losses but in the end ground the dwarves down, killing two and trapping the rest.  Steve called the game.  It seems based on the outcome that the Hobbit is now just a short story on the perils of traveling outside of the Shire, there was no trilogy and Gary Gygax had no IP to appropriate to create D&D.  The world as we know it does not exist!

We did get to see the full board while cleaning ip post game but there will be no pictures - it's best to experience playing the game and not on a blowhard's silly blog.  All I can tell you is if you see an "Escape from Goblin Town" game run by Steve on a convention event list sign up - it's well worth your time.

Battle of Liaoyang: Terrain Prep

 With the club now re-opened (in a socially distant way), it's time for me to run a big game.  Given my current infatuation with the Russo Japanese War, the game in question will be the Battle of Liaoyang.  One of the defining battlefield terrain features is the city of Liaoyang itself as it had 30 foot tall walls. I've decided to 3D print a representation for both the city and 3 villages that will serve as objective markers.  These are not architectural models (I made up the layout) but size wise and shape its how the city is represented in period maps.  I found some 3D model files for Chinese buildings and fortified walls on the Wargaming 3D site and downloaded them.  I experimented with printing sizes and settled on using a print scale of 15%.

 With all the components printed out, I cut some bases from thick cardboard and glued the pieces down.  I found PVA glue worked best as I am printing with PLA.  These were then primed (all i have on hand is tan) and left out to dry.

The battle itself was a rather long affair running from August 25th to Sep 5th, 1904.  We'll be refighting the climatic part of the Battle during August 30 to Sep 1.  The opposing armies were fairly evenly matched.  The Japanese had 8 infantry divisions and roughly 125K men pitted against a Russian force of "approximately" 135K in 12 Infantry and 2 Cavalry divisions.  The historical reference materials have fairly large variances in reported Russian troop strength - from 128K all the way up to 245K!  Some of the Russian troop counts are suspect as their sources are various Russian commanders who either supported the Russian CIC (Kuropatkin) (lower counts) or despised him (higher counts).  "Alternative Facts" seems to have existed far before the Trump administration.  I'm going with a troop count that matches the formations present.

Another terrain feature of the battlefield was a low ring of hills to the south of the city and along the eastern edge of the map.  I've got a number of hills that are large but decided the game needed some smaller ones that fit better with 6mm figures.  The terrain on the Western side of the side was pretty open but did have lots of fields of Sorghum, which was just about ready to be harvested and approached 9 feet in height (think cornfields from the ACW)

Speaking of ACW, the rules I'm planning to use are based on Greg's wonderful ACW ruleset "Alter of Freedom". I really like the command mechanics in AoF and think they are a great way to simulate the command issues the Russians faced without making then "no-fun" to play.  This will be my second outing with my modified ruleset and I'm hopeful they work out well.  The first outing was another R-J War battle Tashinchiao - which was fought in July of 1904 with about half the forces we'll be using for Liaoyang.

For those of you who are familiar with Alter of Freedom, the scale of Liaoyang is a little bigger than Gettysburg.  If you are not familiar with Alter of Freedom well you're living a life of unnecessary deprivation - below are some links to some videos from the club about a game staged with AofF and a rules review.  Its a great set of rules that you should go out and buy.  Go ahead, treat yourself - you deserve it.

Battle of Antietam

AofF Rules Review

Normally this time of year (late June / early July) is filled with frantic preparations to put on my game at Historicon.  With this years convention cancelled, it's actually very calming to have to have something to frantically prepare for - it's a reminder that things will get better eventually.

Be safe everyone - and don't be an ass, wear a God-Damn mask in public.

3D Printer Tool Caddy

 I was cleaning out my workshop and stumbled across a test box I had put together when making my son's Christmas present.  Rather than toss it out, I deicded to make a tool caddy for all the small tools and spare parts I have for my Prusa 3D printer.  It's a bit of a tight fir but the box holds everything.  There's a hanging rack on the front side for hand tools like clippers or needle nosed pliers.

 On the other side are holes that hold the Allen wrenches and small screw drivers.  Inside the box are replacement parts like extra print nozzles and tubing.

I just added a few pieces of scrap wood for the tool rack and some simple handles.  Now, at least, I'll know where all my 3D printer tools are. 

3D Printed Sabot Bases - My first CAD designed project

After watching some of fellow club members Steve's 3D printing videos and seeing a wave of "how-to" use sketch-up from the various You-Tube woodworking channels I follow, I decided to give 3-D design another go.

I present to you my first 3D-Printed creation - a sabot base which has a shelf for a unit label along the back.

Not the most exciting of topics but every journey starts with a single step forward (I know that was really corny). But there is a twist here.  A lot of rules I currently play with (Alter of Freedom, Blucher, and even my version of AoF for the Russo-Japanese War) require tracking multiple levels of fatigue for a unit.  At the club we currently use small red disks, which are either placed behind the unit or on the base itself as shown:

As you can see, the table can get very cluttered and often I get confused while moving a base, as the associated markers can get left behind and mixed up with other ones.

Hmm, seems like there could be a better way - what if we used the label shelf for more that simple unit ID tracking. 

No, that would be impossible, but yet.....

What if I line the label shelf with some "steel paper", put the unit tag on top and used small neodymium magnets to track unit status?  Why that might just work.....

Pictured is a sabot base with the ferrous paper attached and 3 magnets to mark this Japanese Regiment (1st Regiment, 1st Brigade, 4th Infantry Divsion) has three fatigue levels.  I plan on painting the magnets red so they stand out more and envision using other colored magnets mark other status types.

I can see using a system like this will really speed up convention games and keep the tabletop really tidy and easier to play on.

I made three prototypes for my first go.  The interior sabot dimensions are 40x40mm for the two smaller bases and the larger one is 60x30mm.

I'll continue to refine the design - one change that I know will happen is to open the floor of the sabot base so it's just a 5mm lip running across the interior.  That will be enough to hold a base in place while reducing the print times and filament used per base.

I'm strangely excited to try these out on the tabletop as I think it really will improve gameplay.  We'll see....

I do have one warning here - Historically, I have found trying to learn CAD really hard and frustrating.  One of the primary reasons for my past failures was I'd give up after 30 or so minutes, pronounce the whole the impossible and start looking for third parties to blame - just like our idiot President Trump.  This latest attempt was more successful as I dedicated 2+ hours to learning the software and tried to imitate one of the aforementioned woodworking tutorials - I had one window open on my mac playing the how-to video and a second one open with sketch-up and me trying to mimic what I saw.  "Monkey see the video for 30 or so seconds, Monkey do in sketch-up".  While tedious, it worked.  Now I'm nowhere near proficient in the software but I can least navigate it and have a solid base of knowledge to build on.

I fell obliged to restate a point from above.  The whole sequence of "Monkey see the video for 30 or so seconds, Monkey do in sketch-up" isn't really true.  It was more like "Monkey see the video for 30 or so seconds, Monkey try in sketch-up, Monkey re-watch segment, Monkey try again and then  Monkey curses, Monkey re-re-watches segment.........", well you get the point.

Still after awhile the core concepts of how to use a mouse and the myriad of tools/options one has in the software started to become clearer to me.  Mouse clicking is different for CAD the normal PC use so you do need to learn some new basic techniques - single, double and triple clicking have different uses.

The moral of this story - CAD is actually a lot of fun but don't give it a try unless you can devote 2+ hours for your first iteration.  I think it's worth the effort and if a moron like me can do it then anyone else can also.

My woodworking Sketch-Up tutorial of choice is from Steve Ramsey's woodworking channel "Woodworking for Mere Mortals".  Here's a link to the specific video.  I like Mr Ramsey's communication style but there are literally thousands of how to use sketch up videos on you-tube - find someone who you don't mind listening too and give it a go.

3D Printed Pontoon Bridge

 Dave from the club is running a Iran/Iraq War-game at Fall In and needed a pontoon bridge. I volunteered to print one and you can see my first attempt was more abstract than I hoped.  A little repair work on the printer and things were set right.

 The print files I'm using are from WOW Buildings and are for a WW2 Bailey bridge (part of WOWBuildings Market Garden set of files).

Theres a file for the platform (which prints two decks) and pontoons, which I copied in the slicing program to print 3 at a time.  I didn't like the look the mix of pontoons to platforms in the second picture, so printed both files again.

This version looks a lot better and gives Dave and extra section if he ever needs it.  The original file is scaled for 28mm some I ad to reduce it.  The detail came out well but the railing are REALLY then and break easily.  I snapped off a number of sections while painting up this bridge.

A word on painting 3D prints.  One of the downsides of 3D printing is the print layers (striations) are sometimes visible.  There are a number of ways to hide them depending on the material used to print.  I mainly print in PLA (why? because its what I have on hand) and the easiest way to mask the layering is to prime with a thicker medium so I use a white gesso  (Liquitex).  It works surprisingly well for terrain items.  I tint the white gesso with whatever base color I plan to use to reduce the chance of bright white spots showing through.

A couple of coats of white gesso and then some Vallejo Russian Green and this bridge is done.

3D Printing & a Scary High Tide

 I recently stumbled onto a site the sells .STL files that are Star Wars themed (w/o violating copyrights).  It's called Imperial Terain and I highly recommend them.  I'm putting on a Legion game at the club in a few weeks and "needed" a star port and printed this one out.  3D printing is not fast - it took about 40 hours of printing time to create all the parts.  I'm sure I could have built something faster but it would not been as good AND I would have lost hobby time.  The real efficiency gain of 3d printing is once the printer is dialed in - it does it's thing without you being involved so it's a bobby time multiplier!

 For priming I tested using gesso as the primer - it's a lot thicker than normal primer or paint and does a good job hiding the striations (printer layers).  I think this works for terrain and other "larger" pieces so highly recommend using Gesso.  I have a bottle of liquitex gesso that's white and about 2/3 rds of the way through priming the top platform I realized I could color the gesso.  I mixed in a little black acrylic paint and got.....

A very nice, very Imperial grey color which did a better job hiding the red PLA filament.  Why red PLA filament?  Because I am a moron - when ordering on Amazon, I forgot to click on the color selection box and ended up with 2 spools of red.  I'm pretty much through the red and have 3 spools of BLACK PLA being delivered today.

 Add is some minor details and I got a fairly large landing platform.

Hobby work was suspended over the weekend as we had a super high tide Saturday afternoon.  The tide in our area was about 3 ft over normal.  That was more than a little scary but one has to accept this type of risk to live on the coast.

 My dock was under water about 1 inch and it was the first time I ever had to step up to get on the floating dock.

 There was a lot of water encroachment in the yard and our storage shed became a bit of an island.  I was very glad we put it up on stone pillars when my wife wanted it moved a few year back!

A submerged dock is usually not a happy place.  We escaped with out any apparent damage.  One of the neighbors floating dock sections broke loose but that was all the damage.  Next weekend, I'll need to go under the dock to check on the structure and clean out all the debris that gets caught up in the  eaves when the water rises.

The cause of the high tide?  A combination of a full moon and a storm system moving up the bay.

The Prusa 3D Printer is Fixed and Working!

The replacement Thermistor arrived on Wed and I actually managed to get it installed correctly on Thursday.  My Prusa is back up and working.  I must say I'm really impressed with the quality of Prusa's customer service - the part was dispatched from the Czech Republic on Friday and received in Maryland by Wed.  There's also a superb set of instructions online of how to replace a thermistor which made Thursday's "operation" rather easy.

The first print from my newly "thermistorized"* print head is a warehouse roof.  Perhaps not the most exciting of subjects but I've made a commitment to the club to print off a warehouse and paint it up.

How big is this warehouse?  I'm 25% done with the two sections pictured.  There are three more building/roof sections to print out!

You may see this warehouse in an upcoming LWTV video....

Anyway, I'm really happy with the Prusa printer and the level of customer service.  There are less expensive printers out there but I think the combination of hardware and support quality make Prusa worth a bit of a premium price.


* I know "thermistorized" really isn't a word but given that Google's auto spell correct feels free at times to substitute any word other than the one I want, I try to strike back by making up new words to confuse their devilish algorithms.

Fight the Power!

Prusa I3 Mk3S - Thermistor Woes and Superb Customer Service

Last night I kicked off a 15 hour print for a "secret LWTV" project.  Ok it may not really be all that secret - I was just trying to sound cool.  Anyway, the print seems to have stopped at the 94% completion point and I was seeing a mintemp error on the printer's control panel.

After inspecting the printer it looks like one of the wires to the Thermistor has broken from wear and tear.  I'm 99% sure this is from use error as I've been struggling a bit with the filament jamming and have taken the print head apart at least 5 times so may have not made sure the wire was clear the last time I reassembled the printer.

I went online to the Prusa support site and was able to quickly diagnose the issue via their superb documentation.   I took the picture you see above and then opened a chat box with Prusa support.  Horsa jumped on the chat with me and quickly confirmed my diagnosis and just sent me a new Thermistor for free.  Thermistors are cheap but this unit is coming from the Czech Republic and postage isn't free.  I was very impressed with the customer service and the lack of a nickel and dime attitude that I see with a lot of other tech companies.  As I think the break is due to my error, I would have gladly paid for the part and postage but this issue was never raised.

I highly recommend both the Prusa company and the I3 Mk3S printer.  Get the kit - it's a little cheaper but the process of putting the thing together really does teach you how these things work and makes it a lot easier to diagnose issues.

For clarity, the initial problem I had with the filament jamming seems to be from using Cura as my slicer and that software not being fully tweaked to work with the Prusa printer - yet another "user error" on my part.  Once I switched over to the free slicer software from Prusa, I've had no jamming issues.

3D printing isn't for everyone as it's still a developing technology but if you're a tinkerer at heart its a lot of fun and I highly recommend you incorporate it into you miniature gaming hobby.

Prusa Progress: Done!

 Whew - the printer is now fully assembled.  Despite an insufficient supply of gummy bears, this was a really fun little project.  I made a few mistakes and had to backtrack a bit but I enjoyed building this sucker.

Now it's time for my first test print:

 Well, that didn't seem to go all that well.  I'm pretty sure the Prusa logo isn't an abstract piece of art.  The troubleshooting guide on the Prusa website is very well done and I quickly diagnosed there were two problems - one of the drive belts (the one that moves the platform) was too loose and the print head was too close to the base.

A little repair work and let try again.

The printer does comes with a first layer calibration routine which I ran about 20 times tweaking the settings.  It prints a single line in a zig zag pattern and a small flat piece.  Useful for diagnosing, boring to blog about.  SO you only get to see the test results of full items.

Boom printing like a champ.

If you are considering getting into 3D printing, remember there are a lot of setting s you need to tweak to get the unit set up.  Also, since there are a lot of mechanical parts, you periodically need to readjust the printed as it's used.

I've got some new projects to get started on.

Prusa Progress: Extruder Complete and LED attached

The extruder/print head is finally done.  The instructions indicated this was the most complicate step and I can attest to the veracity of that statement.  Each individual step made sense but there were a lot of them!  I will say the instruction manual is superb.  I also recommend using the online version which has a few more pictures and toy can zoom in on them.

Next step is the assembling the heated bed and then hooking up the power unit with the electronics.

There is one GREAT LIE with Prusa 3D printer assembly.  The company includes a nice package of gummy bears that you are supposed to eat as rewards for completing certain steps.  There just aren't enough gummy bears relative to the work.  Somehow my gummy bear stash has been depleted before the uni is done.  Perhaps I should substitute beer for the remaining steps.

What could go wrong?

New 3D Printer

I picked up a new 3D printer - a Prusa Mk3S.  It's gotten good reviews and my next secret project will require a lot of 3D printing so a second one is "justified".

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

The Prusa requires assembly.  A lot of assembly

Ok the basic frame is done.

I was texting back and forth with my son and had a very funny auto spell correct episode.  I had meant to send

"I've started on the Prusa today"

But Siri, in her infinite glory, actually sent

"I've started on the Prussians today"

My son responded with

"Napoleonic or Franco-Prussian War?"

Only in this hobby can that happen

Nor the Y axis (front to back) and Z axis (up and down) are assembled.  I think there are another 10,000 steps to go.  While building a 3D printer can be tedious, it does teach you how the thing works (hopefully it will work)