Aerospatial Gazelle for microarmor

thingiverse

French helicopter inspired by Bob Mack's basic Gazelle model, but ultimately built from scratch to achieve precise edges and compatibility with a .4mm nozzle on an FDM printer. Without access to a resin printer, every detail matters. Key components, such as the fenestron tail rotor and landing skids, are remarkably delicate, pushing the limits of what can be printed with a .4mm nozzle. In fact, certain parts require a precision line of plastic just .5mm thick. Bob Mack's inspiration sparked this project, and his basic Gazelle model served as a starting point. Model dimensions were accurately calculated in Blender 2.81, then exported from Blender 2.79b at a scale of 1/100 to create the .stl file. To ensure consistency, the mesh was scaled down to 35% in the slicer. A peculiar issue arises when exporting .stl files from Blender 2.81 for use with Cura – the resulting file sizes differ significantly from those exported by 2.79b and 2.81. To circumvent this problem, the mesh is exported from 2.79b. For reference, the d6 diameter measures 15mm.