Ye Ol' Homestead

For years, I have wanted to build a scale model of my property. I even bought the artificial turf from a hobby store half a decade ago. I just never could find time to do it or the room in which to store a full scale, HO gauge, model. Enter the 3d printer. Using SketchUp to model the buildings and Google (gah... I hate the taste of that word!) Earth to model the terrain, I have recreated a relatively true-to-life recreation of my homestead. The roofs of both buildings are removable to show the interior floor plan. I have created this so that 1 scale mm = 1 foot in reality so that the terrain could be printed on the limited bed of my Tarantula. The buildings themselves, however, could very easily be scaled up for use in a model railroad layout, which I intend to do once I get my own layout started.

Print Settings

The terrain needs to be printed with at least 10% infill using the "lines" pattern to support the top layers. The roofs need to be printed at least a couple of millimeters above the build plate with support enabled to allow for the guides underneath and to ease in support removal. The rest of the pieces print with no support necessary. I would recommend a brim for the smaller pieces - the pole, the "goalpost," the steps and possibly the pool.

Post-Printing

I sprayed the terrain with a plastic adhesion primer. I then painted the grassy areas with a mixture of greens and browns using Plaid acrylic paints. The graveled areas received a similar treatment of greys. On top of that I spread a mixture of Elmer's glue and water to adhere the artificial turf - two colors - as well a real, finely powered gravel from the yard. Over that, I sprayed a light misting of a matte finish spray paint to keep everything in place. The individual pieces, printed in ABS, were all "glued" down using acetone.

The only element missing are the trees. I plan on trying to print a few using model I found on Thingiverse, but if that doesn't work - they are small! - I will have to model those the old fashioned way.