Water Wheel - D&D Scatter Terrain

A set of pieces to build a water wheel featuring wood texture and pass-through connections for detail. This is a great piece because it's easy to paint and detail (can throw some basic wood colors, drybrush, throw on a dark wash) and can be used modularly with any building on your tabletop. Can be used with my Stone Structures to more easily integrate into your terrain/scenery.

I designed these for my own D&D games and they print well on an FDM printer, with a 0.4mm nozzle. I'd love to know how it would come out on an SLA printer, so if you try this, let me know and I'll upload the proven print-files!

This model is designed to look appropriate for both 28mm and 32mm scale. It can be used on its own, but I've found it best to use it to add to buildings to make them look significantly more elaborate/detailed. If you keep it separate, you can even swap it between buildings. I've based the design on a real-world design for old water wheels, and there's enough detail that you can break it and use a destroyed-version for more variation!

Build instructions are provided below, as this is a relatively intricate model, but it's also quite forgiving, and if you make mistakes it just makes it look more worn-out and well used.

I may create more variations, and update this model over time with small tweaks/improvements, so keep an eye on this page for updates!

As always, I'd love to see how you all print these and use them in your games. Please add makes/pictures so others can get some ideas for how to use them! You can tag me @zachfejes on IG if you're sharing :)

Build Instructions:

1. You will need to print…
   2x Wheel Ring
   2x Brace Short
   2x Brace Long
   8x Brace Medium
   1x Axel
   8x Angle Beam
   4x Cross Beam
   31x Paddle
   1x Axel End Cap A
   1x Axel End Cap B
2. Start by gluing 4x of the Angle Beams together in a hash pattern (#), do this twice.
3. Glue each hash pattern to the outside of a Wheel Ring (the outside is the side without the paddle indents) - do your best to keep these centered, but this is forgiving so don't stress too much
4. Now for actual precision. Using a ruler/grid for alignment, glue one (only one for now) Cross Beam across the inside of each of the Angle Beam hashes, being careful to keep it centered.
5. Slot the axel (but don't glue it yet!!) into the Wheels. Then slot the remaining two Cross Beams onto the Axel and use it to make sure they're lined up on the outside of each wheel at ~90degs to the glued ones. Glue these two Cross Beams to each hash pattern (but do not glue any of these things to the axel - again, it's just to help with alignment right now.
6. Remove each wheel from the Axel, and choose one to work with. Lay it down so the inside of the Wheel is facing up.
7. In the slots of the inside Cross Beam, slot in and glue the 2 Short Braces. they should stick out through the slots just a little bit. Try your best to glue them upright (we can fix any that are not quite straight later).
8. In the slots of the outside Cross beam, slot in and glue the 2 Long Braces.
9. In the slots of the Angle Beams (the hash pattern), slot in and glue the 8 Medium Braces.
10. Next, prep the 31 Paddles so that they're all facing the same way, and then glue them upright on the inside of the Wheel.
11. Once all of these pieces are glued and more-or-less upright, re-insert the Axel into the Wheel and use it to help slowly slot the second Wheel on as well. From here, slot each of the Braces into their corresponding slots on the other wheel, and line up the paddles. Glue each in (I'd suggest using a toothpick to get superglue into the tight spaces).
12. Once the whole thing is together, slot the Axel End Caps on to each side, and you're ready to paint!

Update - March 13, 2024

Created/uploaded an animated gif walking through the build sequence for the waterwheel to provide some clarity!