2021-10-14 I have been gathering all my files to eventually add some archives of what I was able to obtain before they all disappeard. I would love to get a Raven and perhaps a Thor. I have been working on building an Uziel as well as a HUGE Mad Cat (not MKII) because all I had built was the ball joint version a few years ago.
Fortunately I had kept all these files because as noted below they've all disappeared from Thingiverse. Some have reappeared but are on sale for $27 US. Now that I am on a fixed income if I had to pay that much for every model I have built it would be difficult to acquire them as I cannot justify spending that much on something not essential.
The obvious lesson for us all is to archive everything we get.
Updated: 2021-09-28 I am very unhappy to say almost everything related to Battletech was swept from Thingiverse. All of the models below and many others are no longer available on Thingiverse. I am sure we can explain it by one acronym: DMCA. Yes, most likely a "takedown" of anything that may have violated the various copyright holders "rights" …
I have always been interested in this fictional universe, was engaged heavily as a mechwarrior in the nineties, battling online in a clan called "Death Jesters" which led me to becoming a decent Shadow Cat pilot. I have been ill for an extended period which led me to delve very deeply into 3-D printing. This is what I have printed so far, with the wonderful gift of these completely awesome designs from Thingiverse. This is my salute to those designers who have given us all such wonderful mechs.
From left to right, a Mad Cat Mk 2 (Assault), Daishi (Assault), Atlas (Assault), Catapult (Medium)
Atlas (Assault), Catapult (Medium), Shadow Cat (medium),Mad Cat MK 1 (Medium), Vulture (medium)
What this part of my lab looks like…The printers (3) have taken over most of my workspace now.,
Here are some of what I have been working on lately. I haven't really kept this updated but you can find it on Thingiverse just look for BlaaR's creations and then you will see a few of my builds of his wonderful designs.
The below tank is a Demolisher tank design by BlaaR as well. I don't remember whose design the Shadow Cat is but will find out and edit this comment soonest.
The below image is an Osiris I just finished a first coat of primer, needs a lot more work. This again was one of BlaaR's designs on Thingiverse. https://www.thingiverse.com/make:732617
Here is an Argus and a Schrek tank I built. Both are designed by BlaaR and can be located on Thingiverse (will add links later…)
This is a Novacat I built it in November 2019. Once again, another design from BlaaR and can be seen on Thingiverse (add links later.)
I made these Atlas in October. They are designed by BobertMax (and many others it seems) on Thingiverse (add Links later)
2021-10-14 Huge Mad Cat (about 330mm tall) I have been working on it for about 2-weeks as time has permitted. As you can see there were several print failures with the legs. I have glued replacement pieces onto to the legs and am still working on repairing them. After the legs are ready I will sand everything and primer them. It looks like authentic battle damage right now.
I a, priinting one of the arms now, I have already made the LRM20 racks but forgot to take picture of them. This is my favourite mech of all time to be honest. I love the Shadow Cat but I am a Mad Cat driver at heart. So I am very happy to show this DMCA=restricted Battle Mech. Live Free or Die!
This image s huge but I thought you might want a closer look at the terrible print failures (look for where you see glue or holes in the surface.) Since I use Slic3r I simply cut the piece I need to replace and then fit it onto the area that was broken or failed to print. Parts were breaking off as they were being printer but I was lucky to salvage both legs at the cost of a bit of extra work, and later a lot of filing and sanding. When they are painted they will look fine even if there are ungainly-looking spots. As I said, simply makes it more realistic in that it has been repaired in the field during a campaign!
In real life standing next to this model it is quite impressive. I printed it at 150 % of normal size. The height is about 330-mm. I am going to leave the legs clamped onto the torso for 24-hours I need the glue to be utterly bonded as I have to handle the model a lot shortly patching, filling, filing and sanding. I am still printing the left arm and then last but not least to print the cannons. I may give it some primer paint before I sand as it will help me see flaws easier. I am going to use a coating of expoxy around any area that looks like it was under extruder (there seem to be quite a few.)
The printer I've used to do all of this is an Ender 3 V2. Printing the legs on an Ender 3 was coming close the the Z-Axis limit. The print jobs for the legs failed in similar places and was caused by parts breaking off which meant it was slamming into the model part. I was asleep most of the print time for each leg. This was near the top of the print and I believe at that height the frame of the printer may not be properly aligned and causing some anomalies in each layer in addition of slamming into the top of the model. I was not awake to watch it and I suppose this is a good reason to record video of the print job. Each of the legs were about 12-hours print time.
2021-10-15 Now that all the parts are printed and I have the Mad Cat assembled, I will begin sanding, filling with model putty and maybe some more glue and then repeat the above. The model is 31CM in height and I will mount it on a 12" x 12" wood pedestal to help keep it safe.
I will give it a first coat of primer shortly, it should make a huge difference but will also help me when sanding as when the original grey peeks through I will know it is the surface of the model. I expect to use at least two more coats of primer before and after sand paper and a lot of patience. I also had to reglue the right leg at the hip.
2021-10-16
More on the new Madcat project. It is 150% better looking now (jokingly said to match the scale it was printed at.)
As you can see there is quite a lot of sanding to be done but it looks a lot better with a coat of primer.
2021-10-18 I have been working on a large Uziel mech model for about two weeks. I had to replace the feet of the mech as they did not print correctly and pieces had broken off as well. So I cut off the bad feet and drilled a small hole in the legs about 1CM in depth and the same to the new feet. I had some flexible aluminum wire 2mm in diameter and glued the new feet onto the legs and that seems to be an excellent way to repair broken appendages. Especially on the very large scale of the Uziel.
This model is only 20CM tall.
I am printing the left arm as I type this, but here is a picture of what it looks like now. If you look down towards the top of the feet you will see where they have been glued. I have a lot of sanding and painting left to do but I am pleased that I could also salave this model. Like the Mad Cat above it looked like they were headed for the rubbish bin. Thankfully I did not give up on them and when they are mounted to a display stand they will be great!
As I wrap up today's update, here is an image of me printing the left arm (right now.) As you can see I again used the Ender 3 v2 because pf all the Creality printers I own, the Ender 3 v2 is the only one that successfully can do a restart on a print job after a power outage. We have a lot of power outages here so I try to print the longer projects on the Ender 3 v2.i
A few hours later and I have completed the last part and here is the result.
I have so many projects waiting for completion, it is not amusing. This model awaits some sandpaper and some paint.
2021-10-20 I was very pleased to locate some more files today. I had been missing the Bushwhacker and an Awesome design files and I was able to locate them today so I plan on building them soon. Right now I am working on a Jenner F variant. It should be about 18CM tall but I am not sure I have bot measured the parts (I am still printing the very first part, the center torso.)
The image was taken from https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Jenner, that article has a lot of information about this particular mech.
I am still bothered by the DMCA takedown of all the great models that used to be in various locations. I am Since I am a data packrat and clearly remembered seeing all these designs I kept looking for all those files. I was sure I had saved most of them that I located in the last few years but to be honest I was not feeling up to the search and did not have any luck until today.
I am also finding less advanced models of many of the missing mechs here and there on the net and I am even collecting those as in a worst-case scenario you can use slic3r to cut them up and make them printable in a crude sort of effort but is better than nothing.
So I haven't built any mechwarrior models for a few years until this month and so far I have build a HUGE Mad Cat (MK1) and a great Uziel. Both were barely salvaged from numerous fatal print failures by hacking and copious amouns of various types of glue and aluminum flexible rods.
2021-10-25
My copy of the files needed to recreate this mech are damaged. They were like that when I found them (I have spent many hours scouring the nooks and crannies of the network to locate usable design files to create Battlemechs. Fortunately slic3r was able to repair the damage and then I sliced the fixed version with Cura (Linux). The torso had a lot of strange internal cavities representing damage that was not repaired (no need to, it is all hidden inside the torso.) The damage consisted of some cavities and Cura printed supports for those and I managed to leave most of them inside.
I have taken a break from working on the Jenner model, I was drawn to a King Crab assault-class model. I am printing all the parts now, and it is going to be very large. I have printed the torso, the pelvis and one leg. I am currently printing the other leg on an Ender 3 V2 and the right arm on a CR-10.
If I were really in a hurry I would also print the remaining parts on two more printers too but I am not in such a hurry. I have a few more spools of the filament I am using already but opening two more packages of filament so that I could finish the model any sooner simply isn't sensible I suppose.
I split the torso into two parts in order to make it easier to print and easier to only lose half of the print if there were a mishap. As you can see I did not do a proper job of aligning the two halves and more sanding will be required. I also have to replace half of a stubby rounded antenna in the stern that broke off.
My eyesight has failed miserably so it it has been difficult to do any detail painting. I like building some of these mechs in a huge physical version because they are quite stunning.
I have been mounting all of the mechs I have built in the last 2-3 years onto wooden bases to protect them. They were always falling over and breaking.The problem with this solution which is otherwise perfect, is that I have no physical space to keep them.
I don't really know if anyone reads these maundering diatribes and I suppose I do not really care.
2021-10-26 I am having a difficult time removing the support material from the King Crab parts. The legs and arms. This is why I really hate to use supports on some models. I will have to use model putty, a lot of sandpaper and a coarse file. I was isomg the Ender 3 v2 to print the left leg the filament broke. I was not around and it went on without filament for 3-4 hours. So I restarted the job and I also used a new roll of filament but they are all from the same batch. Brittle filament is a terrible thing. Well, not unless you have a filament sensor and software support to pause safely until you can replace the filament.
I am going to build a Cougar next. It will be huge as well. Oh today, I found another copy of the Mad Cat mech on Thingiverse I already had the same data files but I thought I could put the link here for as long as the evil DMCA minions find it. See "MadCat Mech" This was the version I used above to build the huge Mad Cat model. There is also a variation of this particular design known as the "Ball Joint Mad Cat Mech" which added an articulated set of arms and legs at the cost of a lot of realism.
That mech design is also missing from Thingiverse but I will soon make it available here as part of the archived data I intend to host soon.
2021-10-27 I have glued everything together today.
"He just shot a coat of primer and looked inside…"
I still have a lot of sanding to do, expecially on the cockpit area. You can easily see where I made a mistake when joining the two halves.
2021-11-02 As I mentioned previously, I was building a Cougar. As usual I had the most difficulty with the Legs (in this case, the feet.) I split the torso and printed each piece. I split the lower torso (pelvis) into two pieces and then cut the feet off. The feet are too complex and do not print well. Then once they are printed pieces brak off so you have to make several repairs to the feet alone while handling the model. I used 30% infill on every component.
2021-11-07 I just realized that the Cougars legs are backwards (the feet too.) I will repair all that and then post some new pictures later (in a few days.) I think I made he mistake because I had to separate the legs from the feet and made the mistake when attaching the legs. Now the feet and the torso have metal wire in each ankle and in the torso to strengthen the repaired areas.
Here are a few pictures.
A coat of primer seems to make a huge difference.
2021-11-04 As always the Wayback Machine has come to my rescue. I may have discovered all of the missing Battletech designs that used to be on Thindiverse. I have located about 700 models there. Since I do npt have to host all of them here instead rather giving y ou the link should suffice until the forces of darkness manage to locate and remove them (quicker still perhaps due to this note…) See https://archive.org/search.php?query=mechwarrior&and%5B%5D=mediatype%3A%22data%22&page=23 …
I am building an Awesome mech now, it is huge! I am printing the pelvis/hips section now and should be done in a few hours. This model was designed by Blaar and seems pretty straightforward to print. I hope soon to sit down with a painbrush and some paint and try to start doing some detail painting of all the cool models I have printed lastely. O ram pit pf ,ateroa; tp ,ale wooden bases, I have to keep all of them mounted on a base in order to keep them safe. I hope someday I can fet them in a better state to display.
2021-11-05 I did a bit more work today I added a coatof primer ad some of the trim parts. I printed those in a different colour of course.
2021-11-07 As I mentioned above I made a mistake when assembling the Cougar legs and feet but it has been corrected now, I am waiting for the glue to dry then I will pain over the repaired aeas and then take some new pictures.
2021-11-08 While fixing the leg orientation I realized that a piece of the right leg had disappeared (a bad layer) had broken off and started crumbling so I made a replacement "patch" and glued it onto the area. I will paint it soon. I also added the missing "shin guards" which weer painted all black.
2021-11-14 I am building a Thor (Inner Sphere designation) or Summoner if you use Clan Jade Falcon's original moniker for their early Omnimech designs.
I am building it at 400-percent original scale I have not yet checked to see how the overall height will be but I am guessing around 30+CM.
I am printing at 30-percent infill on the torso which I cut into halves to print. Each half is taking about 15-hours to print. I am using an Ender 3 v2 so far to do all the printing because the parts take a long time to print and the power off resume feature only works right on the Ender 3 v2.
I am printing the rear half of the upper torso right now, I have already completed the front half.
I always liked the Thor it is a 70-ton design and was always a great mech to pilot and made a fearsome opponent if you were facing same.
While I am most certainly not a Battletech gamer and never have even played the board games, I used to be in a "clan" called the "Death Jesters" (DJC_Terminus) and we played the Microsoft online gaming network with Mechwarrior 3 and Mechwarrior 4. I was a Star Colonel by the time I retired from that.
I retired because real life dictated that I homestead and build an observatory in the mountains of New Mexico.
2021-11-18
I finished the left leg and the left half of the pelvis. It was such a mammoth object at 400% scale that I had to cut it into manageable bits. I split this half of the lower torso into two parts along the Y-Axis (if the legs were standing vertically. As you might expect this makes the use of supports almost nonexistent and turns out well.
The negative part is that by splitting things into manageable bits means gluing them back together, sanding the joints and sometimes using filler and is a lot more work.
Every Battletech model that I build is a one-time effort and is worth the effort. Of course one day when my vision is better I hope to do a lot of detail painting. 'Circle back around" as they are wont to say.
I am printing the right leg parts and the right half of the pelvis now. It will take some time to get all that done. I guess at least 28 more hours approzimately barring any mishaps. I have glued the pieces and this is what it looks like.
2021-11-20
I finished printing the the remainder of the legs and am gluing the two halves together (of the right leg and rightmost portion of the pelvis.) When I was using clamps to hold the parts together (both left and right legs) I seem to have broken the left leg. I am currently waiting for that glue to dry befoew I can continue.
2021-11-21
I finished assembling and gluing the model to the base. Now someday soon I will do some detail painting
2021-11-27 I built a Raven RVN-3L mech. It is not as large as I normally build these models nowadays but I may create another soon.
2021-12-05
My sight continues to worsen so I can't do any detail painting and the sloppy work I am doing now is barely adequate. As they say "THAT IS LIFE!"
Anyway, I was painting the Thor recently and it looks much better. Since I live in the desert southwest (high plains) I like to use desert colors. I will make a new picture of the Thor and get it appended to this entry when I have the chance.
I also built a tank model recently from the Battletech universe, this design used to be on Thingiverse before they nuked it most likely to that terrible DMCA attack on all things Battletech.
It is known as the Scorpion Light Tank, 20-tons. The designer is someone who was known as "SeaDaddy" on Thingiverse. This is a public "Thank You!" to SeaDaddy for the great tank design since I can't do so on Thingiverse now…
It was easy to print.
The URL for this tank used to be: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3357183
The wayback nachine is your friend.
2021-12-06 I have also been painting the very large Mad Cat model I made earlier. It is not finished but it looks much better than that bright white primer.
I am going to make another tank from the Battletech universe next, it is the "Goblin Medium Tank" and this one was designed by someone on Thingiverse known as "jehunter80" . The URL used to be http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3542058 before the terrible DMCA attack launched by the copyright holders for the various vehicles and mechs that used to be on Thingiverse.
The above image of the Goblin Medium Tank has been reduced for use here, see the original better-quality image on the Battletech Wiki
https://cfw.sarna.net/wiki/images/8/86/3058U_Goblin.jpg
I am going to keep saying this whenever I mention a model that I have built so you will see it often. "The wayback machine is your friend" which is why I am providing the url that used to point to this wonderful design. It is disheartening that they were allowed to force the removal.
If you noticed the method to obtain them that I described earlier in this section of this wiki, and you happened to mirror the entire collection then perhaps you can make them all available on a torrent and share them with those people who were unfortunate not to have retrieved them before or after they were removed from the net. Thankfully as of this writing they are still accessible so you should not waste any time as I assume they will eventually succumb to the same cause soon.
I could go into a discussion as to why I won't host the data but it would involve talking about my "convicted hacker" status and I am not interested in discussing anything about it.
The Battletech Wiki has a lot of information about this tank, see https://www.sarna.net/wiki/Goblin for details.
2021-12-07 Here is the picture of the Thor after it was painted (last week), as you can see it is much with a bit of charcoal grey and a bbit of khaki tan. 'I am a desert creature…"
2021-12-12
Here are a few images of the Goblin Medium Tank that I built.
I made this one large, it is approximately 10CM tall and 16CM long.
As you can see I need to cover the seams where I joined sections of the tank. I am going to fix all that as best I can and then make some new images.
At first I did not like this designbut it has grown on me. The later versions of the Goblin could contain an entire platoon so it was the perfect to get ground troops deployed safely and to provide full support for them.
I guess the next project is the Partisan Heavy Tank. I am not sure yet, I need to study the design to see how easy I can print it. I usuaully end up cutting the model into manageable pieces and then gluing them together. All the seams in the above model speaks for itself. There is a lot of extra work in cleaning up all those too.
2021-12-13 I gave the Goblin Medium Tank another round of putty and after sanding it, repainted the tank. I will post some images later.
I am still seriously ill and I am just not capable of the level of work I used to do. In reflection, posting images of the tank before I had filled in all those seams is a clear sign that things are deterioration. I don't think anyone actually reads this monologue anyway.
2021-12-14 I decided not to build the Partisan Heavy Tank because the particular model I have is too low detail. I assume it was created for use as a miniature.
2021-12-20 Here is an image of the Von Luckner Heavy Battle Tank that I built.
I glued the last three tank models to a base today, here is what they look like.
The Scorpion Light Tank, the Goblin Medium Tank, and the Von Luckner Heavy Tank.
2022-01-01
I have been working on this Owens light mech for about 8-days and today saw me assemble and paint the model. It is one of BLaaR's designs. I scaled to aboput 15CM tall.
Once again I need to publicly say Thank You! to BLaaR for such great designs. You can STILL FIND IT HERE: https://cults3d.com/en/3d-model/game/blaar-s-mw4-owens