My 3D Printing Journey.
Back in October 2020 I had a bit of spare cash and was wondering what to do, the option was to buy another train or buy a 3D Printer. I had just watched a Kathy Millatt’s video on resin 3D printing https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRSusYyrwMM&t=8s. Before that, I had seen filament printers but wasn’t impressed at the build quality for items I wanted to print in OO scale. But her resin video sold it to me and I decided to get one.
Why did I want a resin printer, simple fact I was looking at printing things I couldn’t buy and I was also looking at ways of saving money because I had limited funds.
When I got the printer I looked for things to buy on the internet and was struggling to find models to print. I found a few things on Thingiverse, some items were very good but there were also a lot of poorly designed items. That’s when I realized to get the most out of the 3D printing world I would have to design my items. I looked around for the best software to use and chose Fusion 360, so why did I choose Fusion 360 and not use Sketch-up or tinkerCAD? I had done a technical apprenticeship in mechanical engineering in the Aerospace industry and then moved into IT. I had done Technical drawing at college some 30 years earlier and I find IT software fairly easy to use, I also thought I would get to the limitations of Sketch-up and Tinker CAD too quickly and thought Fusion 360 would be best for me long-term.
From the outside Fusion does look a little advanced but I found the Lars Christian beginner tutorials on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5bc9c3S12g. I watched YouTube first and then again but the second time I followed step by step in Fusion 360. This got me off and running, my first few designs were kept simple as I gradually learned different elements. By Christmas that year, I was starting to produce some nice models that I was really happy with, with the pandemic I was stuck at home a lot and I was producing a lot of models.
So why did I start selling my models online? As I said earlier when I started there were very few models online and this kept playing on my mind as I was really happy with my designs I thought I would share my designs for others to use. I asked around why didn’t other people share their designs and I got a lot of negative comments. But one thing that stood out was ‘why I should give my designs away for free after I have spent hundreds of hours developing my design’. In a way, I tended to agree with them but my files hadn’t taken hundreds of hours to develop and in reality, they were only worth a couple of pounds each to sell. I also knew that when you sell anything like this the development costs are spread over lots of sales and not one or two sales. So if something costs £40 to develop then the first 20 sales of £2 would pay for the development and after that, the design would make a profit.
When I looked around for the best place to sell my files the best two options were CGTrader.com and Cults3D.com. After having a closer look I decided to start with CGTrader.com, the reason for this was because CGTrader.com had some good tools for teaching you how to sell and present your designs. Once I got my product rating up I was ready to save and start selling It. But why do I sell on Cults3D.com and CGTrader.com? For me, CGTrader.com was American based and Cults3D.com was European based and I thought some people would prefer to buy from America in Dollars and others from Europe in Euros. So I devolved each of my items on CGTrader.com first and then copied the info and files to Cults3D.com.
At first, my sales were slow but they started to happen and I was getting positive reviews which encouraged me to carry on developing new items. But why do I sell it came down to several things. I wanted to design items for other modelers but wasn’t happy giving my designs away for free and I needed money to help research, develop, and test new designs. Research trips cost money and resin costs money. I also wanted to discourage people from downloading my files, print and then sell. Anyone who does this I thought would be unlikely to pay for the design first and I also felt the download license was better on items that were being sold.
Where am I now 4 years later? I have got about 200 designs online being sold and bringing in a small amount of money each month, but I still have to work full-time in IT to pay my bills and support my family. But I have always been conscious to give something else back for the money I make. That’s why I run Facebook groups trying to help others get into the hobby. I also belong to a model railway club and do a lot of 3D design work for the club's layout free of charge which does cost me money but I consider this ok as it's paid for from the money I make from my designs.
During the summer of 2024, I purchased a Bambu Labs A1 FDM printer, this now enables me to print items that were not suited to resin, it also allows me to print larger items. The plan is also to develop designs for other modelers to use that have FDM printers.
I am always looking for new ideas to make with the 3D printer that I can share with other modelers. 3D printing is as much a hobby for me as doing model railways.
My 3D designs ended up paying for the train I didn’t buy when I bought the 3D printer.
Hope you have enjoyed reading my 3D journey so far.