This beautiful model was created by agebiz over at PrusaPrinters.org.
On my Prusa MK3S, I had the 0.6mm nozzle installed, and I was a bit doubtful of the potential end product. But to my surprise, it came out very well for 90% of the parts. All I needed was a bit of faith.
The biggest pain of this set is the frame because it uses the most supports and important geometry on it sagged because of the supports. This is to be expected with a larger-sized nozzle, but it made attaching the gate to it much more difficult. Even at 0.2 mm layer height.
And as you can see from the picture above, the parts with overhangs > 45° really showed - especially the lower-right side of the picture. However, if you are printing this with a 0.4mm nozzle the overhangs should perform much better. And with most slicers, you can do variable layer heights which is good when you have a part like this but don't want to increase the print time.
So the assembly was straightforward, with a helpful video by agebiz, but as mentioned before the overhangs cause some mating issues. The hole where the gate is screwed onto with the M2x5 screw did not print circular. Mostly because of the 90° and the supports ripping some of the geometry.
To combat this, I took the M2x5, heated it on the stove while attached to the hex key, and pressed it onto where the hole should be. Similar to the process of applying threaded inserts - minus the soldering iron. However, this is process is not safe to do so proceed with the proper precautions. This method can also be applied to the gate if the counterbore doesn't go deep enough to be flat. The screw should not interfere with the cylinder's ability to rotate.
Some of the parts also required a bit of sanding due to being too tight of a fit. The biggest case was the pin used for the cylinder. Since the pin itself is a cylinder the z-seams give it an extra length/radius on one side. The pin should be able to slide in without much force, but not too loose that turning the gun upside down causes it to fall. So sand (any grit level but start rough) little by little testing the fit until you can press it down without resistance. Pro tip: make the z-seams aligned so you can sand down on the same side.
Then as for the plugs, all of them work great except for the one that attaches to the frame + barrel. Since agebiz did not include these plugs separately, there is no way to rescale that piece.
What I did instead was model a quick replacement in F360. This time the outer diameter was changed from 11mm to 10.85mm with the inner diameter slightly reduced. And the two pieces fit together nicely.
Then all that remained was gluing all the pieces together and shown in the video with super glue. The hammer itself does not need to be glued. Save that for last. Since agebiz did not / cannot include the supports he used in his files (the cons of an STL) I have done that for you already in the proper orientation. My version contains all the 3MF files I used as well as the improvements I made. If you are using a 0.4mm nozzle, just make sure to change from the default 0.6mm, but do not discard the other printing information I adjusted (perimeters, supports, etc.) if you can. Print out the orange tip if you plan on using this outside of your home.
I'm thinking of modeling my own cattleman/colt but with the ability to shoot something non-lethal like peanuts or tic-tacs. I couldn't find any online of this Colt from 1873. Let me know if that's something you'd be interested in. Who doesn't want to practice their dead eye every once in a while?
Hope you enjoyed the print showcase. Happy printing!