Garden Railway Forum

For the ultimate no skill option, full colour 3D printers exist (at a cost). I understand Modelu3D is looking at this technology so it can sell fully finished and coloured figures.

Look's like a firm in Australia is now doing this; https://westedge3d.com.au/product/scale ... w-6-items/

From a comment on rmweb they're also using Meshy to create the figures too.
https://www.rmweb.co.uk/topic/190658-cr ... nt-6016895

Fascinating and some superb printing, but waaaay out of my league, I'm afraid.

Out of curiosity I had a quick look around to find the price of those printers. They don't seem to want to tell you openly, want you to contact them, but I did find this from a firm in Foston, Derbyshire, who seem to be agents:
"Lease rentals will allow you to spread the cost of your investment over 3-5 years, from as little as £900.00 +VAT per month for an entry level PolyJet 3D printer."

At that price level you'd need an awful lot of wealthy clients to make a go of it!

philipy wrote: ↑Tue Dec 02, 2025 10:04 amThey don't seem to want to tell you openly,

When I had a dig, earlier in this thread, I found these prices;

https://www.techsoft.co.uk/products/3d- ... -3duj-2207
A fascinating bit of kit
Only £49k and £1k for a set of inks!
At a back of envelope calculation, I'd guess about £4 for materials alone for a 16mm figure.

I'd assume the lease price includes finance costs, delivery, installation, training and support. So £900/mth seems about right.

Maybe a rich enthusiast like Peter Waterman, Rod Stewart etc could afford one, but they're still a big bit of kit that needs some expertise to utilise effectively. Probably easier to sub-contract if you have that sort of budget anyway.

Hopefully future modellers might get a chance to have them at home at an affordable price, but probably not in my lifetime. Who thought we'd ever have photorealistic printers or 3D printers in our homes 30 years ago ?