3D printing for naval wargames

I've been exploring the potential of 3D printing for naval wargames.  At this stage the range of 3D ship model files available is limited.  But there are kick starters popping up & I expect it won't be long before there will be a plethora of them.  

The best I've found for WWI are kick starters by Empires of Steel out of Brisbane.  I've missed the boat for their kick starters but I understand they will be marketinggn their range as soon as they sort out the commercial details.  They provide a freeby WWI battlecruiser HMS Queen Mary on Thingaverse as a teaser.

This is the HMS Queen Mary:  The large model is 1:1500 & 144mm long.  The small one 1:3000 & 72mm long.  This range will be perfect for wargames once they are become available. This file is nominally for 1:1500, but you can vary the scale of a model quite a bit either way & still get good results.

Things are better for the age of sail.  Thingaverse have a free set of files for Nelson era ships.  These include typical examples of 1st, 2nd, 3rd & 4th rate ships of the line for serious battles, plus 5th & 6th rates plus sloops for small actions. 

This a HMS Victory printed at 1:1000 scale.  The hull is 70mm long.  The hull & the sail sets each take a bit over an hour to print. 

Here are my first 3 ships, assembled & painted deplyed on a 65mm hex grid.  The front ship is a Victory with the heavy duty spar option.  The 2nd is a Victory with the lighter spars option.  The thicker spars look clunky when printed, but when assembled & viewed from wargaming distance they look fine & they make a more robust model for wargaming purposes.  The rear ship is a 3rd rater.  The front Victory is on a 64 x 34mm base I printed from a file I designed & made myself using the free app Tinkercad to fit on my existing 65mm hex grid.  Paper dials are printed & glued to the disks which are rotated to record hull hits (on the big one) & rigging hits (on the small one).  The cogs are to allow your fingernails to grip the dials to turn them.  Tinkercad is easy to use & great for making devices composed of geometric shapes in its library.