Annual Production of 1/72 (22mm) Scale Plastic Soldiers, 1958-2025
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The debate surrounding the feasibility of 3D printing plastic soldiers at home versus buying mass-produced models has sparked a lively discussion. Commenters are weighing in on the costs, with some arguing that the expense of quality 3D printers and materials is often underestimated, while others point out that the cost of filament is "basically negligible" for small-scale prints. As the conversation unfolds, concerns about the safety of resin printing at home, particularly around children and pets, are being raised, with some users cautioning against the practice unless proper precautions are taken. The thread is highlighting the complexities and trade-offs involved in choosing between DIY 3D printing and commercial plastic soldier models.
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A plastic soldier set is on the order of $20, and collectors will often purchase dozens.
A Bambu A1 mini (which is sufficient for the level of detail needed for these figurines) is about $200, which breaks even after 10 sets.
Even assuming no losses, just by volume, something like $0.10 per figure, and packs of 1/72 scale figures that retail for $20 are often a 20-50 figures.
I don't think my A1 Mini would have success trying to print at 1/72 at the same detail as an injection molding process. I've done 28mm figures on it, but it was a lot of work and had a high failure rate.
more info: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7pBUk8AvJ8
But either way, margins for some companies like mentioned GW are huge
The internet is rife with influencer content that makes these look OK and "not that dangerous", along with people who want to believe that rather than face buyer's remorse.
It's more dangerous than you think. It's messier than you think. The process steps are more ennui than you think.
This shouldn't really be consumer gear. You can also fuck up on health and safety with FDM printers, but the default beginner lane (printing PLA in common colors) is a lot less risky on zero knowledge entry.
I've been 3d printing with resin for a long time before I had my dog. Now I don't do it, unless I can be sure that I can have the dog out my printing room for several days straight, for the water-washable resin to solidify on the sun after usage, and all the different after-print steps that have to be taken care of.
It's also annoying to clean the plate, and deal with the resin bottles when you stop using them. There's no easily accessible infrastructure to dispose of the waste from the printing process so if you become lazy, you end up creating toxic hazards for anyone in the community. Not a good outcome at all.
Still, safe 3d printing brings me a lot of joy, specially to prepare board games sessions with friends and neighbours. Printing, painting, etc. You just have to be responsible and civic and do the right thing.
There's a safe way to handle this stuff, but you have to be very disciplined about it. Animals and kids complicate that big time.
For my kids, swapping a 0.2mm nozzle into the printer, setting layer height to sub-0.1mm, and reducing print speed to 50% produces surprisingly good results.
$200 for a printer does not break even at 10 sets if the sets are $20 unless the cost per unit printed is $0.
The fact that the analysis can be carried out in monetary units (because we don't have a good direct measure of utility) doesn't mean that receiving money itself is the only source of utility that needs to be considered.
The commericial overhead rate for an SLA printer is about $5 a plate - the washing and curing steps can be largely automated, or even if they are done manually, it's not that much work.
In the US, it’s common to get quality generic PLA for $15 per kg. Buy several spools at once in a package deal and the price can fall to $11-12 per kg. Wait for a sale and buy a 10-pack and I’ve been getting PLA under $10 per kg. It’s very cheap.
For toys I’d prefer to spend a little more on PLA Pro or Plus, which means it has modifiers added for better impact resistance. This helps a lot with small toys I print for the kids.
I wonder what the market is like. I'm vaguely aware of Warhammer as a hobby, that's adjacent enough to my social media that I can "see" it, but not people buying miniatures. Does it sit adjacent to railway modelling? Are people making dioramas of Waterloo still?
.. a quick check reveals that OO is 1:76, so they wouldn't quite be right.
Anecdotally, wargamers do not use those minis much. Some older gamers started out with playing more or less improvised wargames using 1:72 (mainly Airfix) figures in the 1960's or so, or playing games like Fewtherstone's wargames perhaps, but it is rare to see them now. Historical minis as a whole are less common now, but those that still play either use metal figures or figures from more wargame-specific companies (usually using more common game scales like 10mm, 15mm, or 28mm).
Most 1:72 ranges seen on that site (that I spent many hours on) are not that great for gaming. Lots of useless poses that are more for dioramas (or as kids toys maybe?). For gaming you need more just simple infantry walking or firing in some kind of good combat pose, but you often only get a handful of those in a set of 40+ figures, so it does not become very cost effective. Many poses look good, but not what you probably want to build armies for a tabletop.
The US preferred 1:87 historically. English 1:76 and American 1:87 trains run on the same size track, but the English models are typically built slightly over-size because their smaller bodies wouldn't fit a good motor easily.
If you want to this historic wargaming hobby in action: https://www.youtube.com/@LittleWarsTV
Of course the chart is bunk. It represents variety, not volume.
I remember one of my friends had larger, maybe 40mm army men, but my collection was only the smaller size ~1:72/22mm. Same sculpts and colors. Various random no name toy brands.
I remember as a child I managed to convince my parents to buy a box or two of real Airfix figures in some hobby store, but the bulk of my old collection are generic no-name clones.
https://plasticsoldierreview.com/Review.aspx?id=46
They were among my favorite toys for a long while (and so cheap!). Certainly my favorite “army men”. So detailed, so specific. So many poses. Their size meant a modest living room could host grand, complicated battles. Just great. I’d never seen them for sale since, but I guess that’s because they’d have been in hobbyist shops, not the toy aisle, ordinarily.
Chart unsigned? (I think number of sets issued, but you can produce 100m soldiers in 5 sets and 1m in 500 sets...)
Website does not work on mobile..
Not sure when this was written, but a 3d resin printer is very much within the budget of anyone these days.
Here's a video that goes over the current state of the art: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgehVMgFDbM
The quality won’t satisfy the hardcore collectors but it’s good enough for kids to play with. The experience of printing them is fun too.