“I got in touch with 3D printing at school, it was about one year ago,” Radek tells us. “During [my] studies, I was working for a month in Prusa Research company (probably the most well known Czech company where low-cost 3D printers are invented and manufactured) to get some practice. And now it is one of my best hobbies next to cycling, hiking and traveling by different means of transport.”
He first used 3D printing at school as part of his Bachelor’s thesis in which he created 3D printed terrain and surface models of various mountains, quarries, cities and more. Once finished with that though, his father asked him why he doesn’t use the technology that 3D printing provides to create something useful such as a ship or other sort of boat.
“I answered that these terrain models are, and they really could be useful, but then I finished my thesis and had a bit of time, so I prepared the first ship – a cargo ship because I like transport and everything around it including ships and boats,” Radek tells us. “It was the first version with several mistakes, which I repaired over time.”
So far Radek has designed and printed three different boats, all of which he has made the design files available to download from Thingiverse. They include the RS3: Research Ship, RS2: Ferry, and RS1: Cargo Ship. He plans to release several more in the future as well, as part of his ever-growing ship collection. He hopes to have a design for a tugboat as well as some historical ships created sometime in the near future.
“The ships I’ve made have no real pattern,” Radek tells us. “I made them up. I just started with designing and during the process I imagined what to place here and there. In the past I used to play the Ship Simulator game for a while, so maybe I have some ship shapes in my memory.”
Regardless, if you take a look at the details which are seen in each ship, they are really quite fascinating. What do you think about Radek’s 3D printable ships? Have you downloaded and printed any yourself? Discuss in the 3D Printed Ships forum thread on 3DPB.com.