Hmm.. July 2015... apparently that's when I started on this particular project
http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?/topic/100931-riveted-oil-tanks-in-2mm-scale
I've not said anything more about it on here since then... mainly because until a few days back I had no idea whether or not it was going to succeed or fail.
Rather than theorising further about whether this would or would not work as a 3d print I decided to take a punt and had it printed when Shapeways had a free postage offer in the spring. The result looked OK but I still didn't know whether it would work as a model when painted with metallic siver - a finish notoriously unforgiving of surface defects.
To cut a long story short it took 3 rounds of priming and sanding the tank I decided to go for the top coats. Although I'd given the tank a day in the summer sun to cure any uncured resin, I still chickened out of using Alclad on this one. Instead after perusing the Tamiya stocks at my local Hobbycraft I went for a coat of gloss black (X1) followed by metallic Titanium Aluminium (X32) which seemed to have a nice fine particle size, at least looking at the bottom of the pot. Tests on some scrap plastic tube for comparison with previous Alclad tests looked promising. The end result on the tank looked rather snazzy, although rather too loud to be left like that.
After decals (from my own artwork to make sure they lined up between the riveted seams), varnish, weathering and a lot of 'knitting' to get the whole thing put together, it went on parade at the Association AGM along with the Air Ministry tank and a Stephen Harris 35T tank and won the John Barker trophy.
A few photos from the build below. The last couple show the tank qith primer before any sanding and then with its gloss black coat. I didn't take any when it was in unweathered silver. Pity really.
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