Dec 1, 2015 | By Alec

Even if you’re only slightly aware of what’s going on in the gaming community, it has been virtually impossible to miss the fact that Fallout 4 has launched and has made a huge impact. All gaming forums, all magazines and all websites – it’s Fallout 4 wherever you look. And it is even steadily penetrating the 3D printing community with cool Fallout-inspired 3D printing projects. However, fe of them have been as impressive as a recent project by the Canadian team behind 3D printing blog Redicubricks. Perhaps in an attempt to do justice to the game’s huge impact, they have built something that makes quite the impact itself: a hugely detailed, half open nuclear bomb in which all the innards are visible.

Redicubricks, for those of you who’ve never heard about it, is a fun blog filled with cool and nerdy 3D printing projects. The Canadian team behind it is also running Ultimaker reseller/3D printing webshop shop3d.ca, for the Canadian readers among you.

While they have posted a number of very cool and quite complex projects over the last few months, team member valcrow really takes things to the limit with this fantastic Fallout Mini Nuke. As he explains, it is a tribute to the entire Fallout franchise, and takes its inspiration from the case designed for the recent release of the Fallout Anthology. ‘Fallout 4 recently came out. And right before that, Bethesda released Fallout anthology which came in a mini nuke. I thought this was awesome, but could never bring myself to play older games so I decided to make my own instead. One that’s closer to the Fallout 4 nuke. And here it is!’ he says.

But this isn’t just a simple nuke shape, as valcrow decided to – as he claims – overcomplicate things. 3D printing two versions of the nuke, one features an view of a nuclear bomb’s innards, using internal cutout diagrams. ‘Cut roughly at 3/4 all the way through You can display it both ways if you like the whole bomb look, or the cutout look,’ he says. ‘The nuclear core sits on cylindrical spacers that center the unit in place. Because of how precise 3D printing is at this scale, it is easy to design precisely floating parts. The slight indentation of the shell wall is enough to hold the spacer in place. It also uses less material.’ The result is a slightly intimidating, but immensely impressive nuclear weapon that is perfect for any Fallout fan’s desk.

As valcrow explains in his blog post, the entire thing is 3D printed on an Ultimaker 2GO, at about a 120 microns resolution (with an eye on speed). The nuke further features a couple of separately 3D printed fins that are screwed on while the tip is 3D printed at a finer layer height of 60 microns to avoid visual stepping.

However, this particular project also highlights a very interesting feature of FDM 3D printing. While those visible layers are often annoying in many projects, they actually add an additional layer of Fallout-universe reality to the final look. ‘I also wanted the lines to show through as part of the roughly manufactured look that is representative of the fallout universe,’ valcrow says. ‘The roughness of the ‘cut edge’ caused by printing lines is accentuated with metallic paint so it looks like it was cut through purposefully to show the insides. The polonium core (silver sphere) is printed with a gap between the outer and inner sphere so the thick gloss primer will not pool at the edges creating a joint between the outer and inner sphere.’

After 3D printing, the exterior was painted with acrylic for that matte and slightly worn out look. The metallic parts are done in lacquer paints for a shiny finish. ‘Paint chipping created with a masking fluid which acts as both the chipping mechanism for the paint, and also causes slight bumps which looks like rusting under the paint,’ valcrow adds. Two layers of that mask have been added, one between the rust and the base, and one between the strip and the base, giving a fantast final effect. Can you imagine a better Fallout tribute?

 

 

 

Posted in 3D Printing Application

 

 

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