Hold on to Your London Vacay with 3D Printed Miniatures from the Dremel 3D Idea Builder

The allure of London, one of the world’s most famous and well-loved cities, is never-ending. For those of us from other areas–and especially the US–this historical city is fascinating because it is enduring and it is old.

The capital city of England dates back thousands of years. Its population has experienced catastrophe and war but has also prevailed as one of the most central financial and cultural points in the world. Famous for landmarks like Big Ben, London is a huge tourist destination, and novelty items are a thriving industry. What if you could make your own though?

Now, old is meeting new–and offering up some fun as well for the DIY crowd–in the powerful and progressive form of 3D printing. In a 3D printing project meant to immortalize London on a new level, Dremel, a subsidiary of Bosch famous in its own right for power tools, is responsible for seeing that we can hold historical landmarks in the palms of our hands–showing off their 3D printing chops once again.

“We wanted to show what 3D printing, and this printer in particular, is capable of and inspire people to see the possibilities for themselves,” said Bejul Shah, Marketing Manager at Dremel.

The 3D printed Tower Bridge, showing off what the Dream 3D Idea Builder can produce.

A trip to Europe for most of us is something that we save and plan for–along with ensuring that we have every tool possible to remember it by forever when we get home. Seeing the sights of London is for many a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

While it used to be that we took slides and bored neighbors to death, held captive on our couches while we showed off visits to exotic locales, that went by the wayside and was left up to the trusty photo album, fattened with memories.

Today, the accepted and traditional method of remembering a week traversing through London would be storing photos (except now they are ‘pics’) in the smartphone and uploading them to social media sporadically just to make everyone you know drool with envy while they push paper at their desk.

With the Dremel 3D Idea Builder, you can start a new tradition producing actual replicas of the monuments you saw on your trip–in 3D. Hang on to that visit at St. Paul’s Cathedral forever with a 3D printed copy, or re-create Big Ben and give a copy to your family and friends as gifts. The whole idea of producing the 3D printed line of London’s most famous monuments–as well as even the Titanic–is to show users how easy it is–and how impressive the results are.

Dremel collaborated with Jon Tuttle at Knightfall Productions. Tuttle was responsible for creating the 3D designs of the monuments and the Titanic, which were then able to be uploaded to Dremel’s 3D Idea Builder software for the resulting–and entirely impressive–3D prints.

“As a digital 3D artist, the thing I find most exciting about 3D printing is the ability to see something I have built completely virtually turned into a physical object,” said Tuttle. “Being able to just let your creativity flow is extremely freeing from an artistic point of view. I am very interested to see how this market develops over the coming years as technology, print speed and resolution continues to increase.”

Big Ben in 3D print

It’s inspiring indeed to see Big Ben reproduced in detailed miniature–and to realize it’s a project you can produce from the desktop.

“Crafting replicas of some of Britain’s best-loved buildings and photographing them like this is just one way we can really show the capabilities this technology has to offer, even on a small scale,” says Shah.

Details as tiny as windows and ornamental pillars are included in the prints, which were then finished off with true craftsmanship by Lloyd Davies from Painted Minis. An experienced model painter, he cleaned, sanded, and primed each piece before painting it, using several coats.

“The only limit is your imagination and we’re encouraging everyone, whether they are a keen crafter, DIY-er, specialist designer or simply a family who want an appliance that can make them anything they can think of, to get building… and build on their ideas,” says Shah.

The miniature 3D models can be printed quickly due to their size, but with excellent detail and quality. With the 3D Dream Builder software, the designs can be scaled however the users would like, but for these particular examples, sizes and print times were as follows:

• The Big Ben 3D print produced on the Dremel is 13.5cm tall and took just a little over three hours to print.
• The Titanic 3D model is sized at 13cm long, taking just about two hours to print.
• The St. Paul’s Cathedral 3D print is 10cm and took nearly six hours.
• The model of the Tower Bridge measures 19.7cm wide, and took a little over four hours.

What are some of London’s other landmarks that you would like to see in 3D print? Would you like to take on 3D printing some of these as a DIY project and then handpaint them? Do you think this would be an attractive idea for those who have studied the history of the Titanic as well? Discuss in the Dremel 3D Printed Monuments forum thread over at 3DPB.com.