Literally named as stones for quoits, which owner CADW says is often associated with monuments of this kind, Carreg Coetan is a wonderfully preserved neolithic burial chamber in southwest Wales. Legend says that King Arthur played the game here himself, which is why he has his name attached to that of the site. And not only is it one of the best preserved neolithic dolmen in Pembrokeshire, but also it is one of the most impressive, having a capstone that Wikipedia says is around 4m long and dates to around 3000 BC. And, of course, there was no way I could pass up the chance to make a 3D scan when I visited, for printing a 1:76 (Hornby OO) scale model.
Quick summary of this 3D creation
Overview: A 3D scan of a neolithic dolmen.
Location: Newport, Pembrokeshire, southwest Wales [map].
Date/era: Neolithic, circa 3000 BC.
Software used: LumaLabsAI, Meshmixer, Nomad Sculpt, Blender.
Intended use: 3D printing at 1:76 scale (Hornby OO).
Related pages: Cors y Gedol, Dyffryn Ardudwy, Rhoslen Dolmen, Pentre Ifan.
Download (non-commercial): Thingiverse, MyMiniFactory, Thangs3D.
The 3D scan was made using the LumaLabsAI online system with some dewarped and reframed 8K footage from an Insta360 X4 VR camera. Despite some significant holes in the ground due to dark shadows I was able to import it into Nomad Sculpt, as the screenshot below shows, for some sculpting and to fill the holes in the ground and tidy defects in the stones. Then I separated the capstone from the base and split it into two, adding some holes for a small box to bridge the gap between them when glueing.
Then I did some more editing in Blender, mostly just decimating the mesh and ensuring all the parts were flat on the bottom and at zero height. It was then scaled to around 1:76 using the 4m long capstone size quoted by CADW and 3D printed on my Flashforge Adventurer 3C. After glueing and a few coats of high build primer, I painted it with some The Army Painter acrylics and a coat of Citadel Technical Stormshield clear coat. Finally I added some stick-on grass and a 1:76 scale man to give a sense of real-world scale. You can see the outcome below.
And that’s that, a mini Carreg Coetan Arthur that we can add to an OO-scale model railway or diarama or, for people like me who don’t have a model railway, that we can put on a shelf and enjoy. I hope you too enjoy revelling in the miniature cultural heritage it brings to our 3D-printing obsession 🙂
