The Ship Model Forum

Excellent work! :thumbs_up_1: :thumbs_up_1: :thumbs_up_1:

As for optivisors: I'm pretty happy with my Donegan optivisor. The glass lense makes a big difference in comparison to the plastic lenses of cheaper brands.

Those look really good. I especially like the covers on top of the funnels. Well done!

Some funnel fun with laser fabricated items in Hasberg Material No. 1.4301 0,075mm and 0,05mm stainless precision gauge. The long ladder is from Eduard. No acid post-treatment was done; the burry edges are only visible with macro-photography (Nikon Micro 40mm), not with my x3,5 Alibaba optivisors (I should probably get better ones, give me a tip if you know a durable model with a wide lens range). I'm somewhat familiar with the machine now but still have a lot to cover about final product finish. I should've done the crossbeams and ovals of the top structures separately but the impatient noob in me had to do it in one go. The steel is very rigid, super comfortable to handle but trying to bulge-curve it as one unit deforms the round edges immediately. Bending the legs of the 1.2mm internal pipe railing roundel in a somewhat symmetrical fashion proved to be a humbling experience -I have so much respect for the real microbuilders.
[attachment=3]etch1.JPG[/attachment]
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I mixed a droplet of white Aerocolor ink in the acrylic varnish infill to make the dried texture more visible for corrections.
[attachment=0]funnels.JPG[/attachment]

Thank you very much, Scheldeman, for your extensive and elaborate reply!

I will send you a pm.

Many thanks for the encouraging feedback people!

Mr Schönfeld: I see your first picture comes from Australian War Memorial; a most excellent database and one of my main sources for reference material today.

About your final question: that sounded a bit like a test. :big_grin:

-Feasability: I’d say go for it if it’s the subject you’re dreaming about for most of your life, and if you’re willing to commit many years to it. Don’t know how much time and/or effort you want to put in your undertaking. I do some intermittent kitbuilding in between long periods of research or tedious serial building, just to exercise and try out new techniques.

-Preparation/Research: Your subject demands a whole other level of historical research than is required for mine: there are no photographs, no living witnesses and minimal surviving artifacts. Archival resources will be present but this would be professional level archival research, quite different from a hobbyist’s picture browsing and asking around on social media groups. This seems to me to be the biggest hurdle, unless you're a (naval) historian.

I have some experience with heritage research in and around Antwerp: For an ongoing damage report on the carillon of the Antwerp cathedral we found a few scale models in the collection of Vleeshuis Museum. It was useful to extrapolate renewed versus older design of the bell support construction (nowadays it’s mainly housed in a steel reinforced concrete cage with Australian hardwood beams that turn out to be quite susceptible to frost-dawn erosion)

To get into the practice and theoretical mindset of the period shipbuilder I’d recommend Roubo’s L’Art du Menuisier, Diderot & D’Alembert, Encyclopédie (…) Charpenterie. and
Pierre Bougeur, Traité du Navire, de sa Construction, et de ses Mouvements.
Normally you can find all this as pdf’s on Gallica France. Thorough study of these works can take some time, unless you’re familiar with ancien régime French print of course. These are great resources for general construction principles, but not for cutting edge designs of the period you described. I can’t help you with that.

-Execution: If you’ve drawn your conclusions on the research and didn’t get stalled on the many, many gaps in information you’ll encounter, this will be the more relaxing part I guess. For practical things like the look of period shipyards I would refer to engravings and paintings of period construction sites and compare them to current wooden shipbuilding practice: wooden ladders are like modern ladders: not magical 10m solo long ones; same for scaffolding: every 2m per level because it requires human height to put the walking planks down. Builders get messy, resources get piled up around and stuff will be dropped everywhere. Don’t be too clean and certainly don’t be too symmetrical in the composition of your scene.

I know a few experts in historical woodworking in Europe who could undoubtedly give you much better resources about historical shipbuilding around Antwerp for your subject. Give me a pm and I’ll bring them along for your ride.

Hi Scheldeman,

I stumbled across your project, and it struck a bell! I had studied this Cockatoo shipyard briefly as in March 1942 the Dutch cruiser HNLMS Tromp was repaired and modified at this shipyard after her escape from the Netherlands East Indies. [attachment=0]THE-FL~1.JPG[/attachment]
And it also re-ignites for me a diorama dream of another shipyard: the Napoleonic shipyard at Antwerp 1804-1813, on the bank of the Scheldt. With the Citadel still in place and the old abby of St. Michiels largely visible, being used as the yard's store. With about ten ships of the line in varying stages of construction on the slips, one being launched in presence of the Emperor in 1810.

What would you think of such a project?[attachment=1]gespiegeld mattheus-ignatius-van-bree-napoleon-bij-de-tewaterlating-van-de-friedland-in-antwerpen.jpg[/attachment]

Truly fascinating.

Very interesting, thanks for the insight! The possibilities the various technologies available these days give us modellers (and not only us) are just unbelievable.
Fingers crossed to your build! :wave_1:

Hi Vladi,

Yes, the system is much more flexible than having your parts etched by a specialised company -or photoetching them yourself, which is quite labor-intensive indeed and holds a lot of opportunity for error.

As a scratchbuilder you can literally zap out new prototype parts in a matter of minutes, check reference, make adjustments and zap a few final ones.

Please keep in mind: I am just scratching the surface here of what the machine is capable of:
-my knowledge of the dozens of setting parameters in the software is still very superficial
-I run the machine practically out of the box, and still need to zero in my lens aberration and many other nittygritties.
-Measures to counteract the heating of lasered specimen (the workzone is tiny so it gets hot very fast) still need to be implemented, like lowering laser power %, beaming with cooldown intervals, attaching alu heatsink under the workpiece, etc. As I impatiently blast away now at 80% power the metal tends to heat and warp or even curl up, causing shifts in the laser pattern. This can also be mitigated with proper knowledge of frequency settings.


-Cutout patterns is just one aspect of what the galvo can do. Another big one is '[i]hatching[/i]', eg letting the laser repeatedly screen whole surfaces in a certain way: with parallel strokes, spiralwise, etc. This way 2,5-3D patterns and reliefs can be created directly in a surface like boltheads or porthole eyebrows for instance. It also serves to give the metal a final 'cleanup' by evaporating impurities and scorchmarks in one final pass.

The lattice tower I assembled yesterday has crossbeams with a diameter of about 0,12-0,15mm. Going much thinner is certainly possible as the single mode cutting ray is 0,005mm wide :big_grin: . I will make a few thin specimens soon as I now want to etch tiny brick wall stencils to try airbrush a hint of brick joints on my little houses :-D ; I'm way too ham-fisted to fineline that sort of thing by hand.

[quote="Scheldeman"]Yes of course; thank you Vladi. The laser I use is what's called a 'tabletop' Galvo Fiberlaser, here equipped with 30Watt powered Raycus lasers and a 110mm lens from the Chinese brand Cloudray. These machines typically look like this: .....[/quote]

Thanks for all the info! It looks really very good, I´d have to have a look if there was someone providing this as a service somewhere nearby. Do you think you could make something like railings in 1/700, i.e. say 0.1mm wide strips of 0.1mm thick material?

I designed several PE sets mostly for my own models only, and had them etched professionally as I did not want to play with all the chemicals (which in fact I already did many many years ago while making my own printed criciut boards so I knew something about it). That means the turnaround is usually 5-6 weeks of waiting impatiently for the outcome - only to find out you need to give it another try because you forgot about something :heh: . OTOH the cost is still quite reasonable. But the speed and flexibility of a system like yours sounds like a dream indeed!

Great attention to detail!

Today I made some more parts: I redesigned the deck supports after discovering a photo-detail showing the supports having an arched topside:
[attachment=5]deksteunref.png[/attachment]
[attachment=4]deksteunen2.JPG[/attachment]

I also started working on the power pylons that can be found all around the island. The etches were designed in Blender, converted to .svg and burned in 0.1mm stainless steel. I glued one together for demonstration. The steel still looks rather crispy :big_grin: from the produced heat: this can be mitigated by short submersion in an etching fluid like HCl+H2O2.
[attachment=3]Screenshot_2023-02-05 Abandoned Power Pylons, Cockatoo Island, Sydney Harbour.jpg[/attachment]
[attachment=2]pyloon.JPG[/attachment]

and I etched a few ovals to make two searchlight platforms that were still present on HMAS Australia at the beginning of 1944. [attachment=1]planplatfrm.jpg[/attachment]
[attachment=0]ovalen.JPG[/attachment]

Yes of course; thank you Vladi. The laser I use is what's called a 'tabletop' Galvo Fiberlaser, here equipped with 30Watt powered Raycus lasers and a 110mm lens from the Chinese brand Cloudray. These machines typically look like this: [attachment=0]Fiber-Laser-Marking-Machine-PF-Series-1.jpg[/attachment]
This type of laser uses a pulse frequency that's suited for vaporising all types of metals, but stone, glass, some plastics and some say woods can be worked too. The technology is commonly used in the jewelry, gunsmithing and watchmaking industries.
Galvo lasers don't use mechanical rails & gantries to move the beam. Instead two rotating mirrors, one for the x and one for the y axis, aim the reflected beam around on the surface at very high speeds & with great accuracy.

These are galvo mirrorheads in action, some with fiber and some with CO2 laser source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sBmNSlFRs50
For a concise explanation on how the system works, I can refer to this link:
[url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83SKYGcSUHQ[/url]
For more elaborate information about the physics involved in fiberlasing:
[url]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofEqFlqkiS0[/url]

A Typical Chinese import 'marking' laser from brands like Cloudray, Sdkehui, SFX, etc, costs between 2500 and 6000 dollars. This seems outrageous compared to the general materials costs of the modelling hobby, but if you have a passion for machining and manufacturing technologies it's like buying a nice E-bicycle, hunting rifle or canoe :smallsmile: High end American and European made/assembled machines are easily 10 times more expensive or depending on the application much, much more.

Hi, great work and really interesting technology. Can you pls be more specific about the type of laser and plotter etc. you are using?

Thank you Dan K :smallsmile: , and thanks again Nathan Liu for taking the time to upload all this! Your pics of cranes and the steel beam interiors with gantry supports are excellent reference material!

Short update on a major advancement in terms of this project’s feasability: The Raycus Galvo fiberlaser arrived last week. I got it online after some driver installment shenanigans and swapping the 200mm lens for a 110mm one, did basic calibrations and ran a first program under factory settings.

And boy oh boy, I am so, VERY excited about this new instrument :thumbs_up_1:

During the last months I kept goofing around with electrolytic etching of lasered coatings on brass, tried different preparations, coatings, and did a few upgrades on my setup… with resulting parts sometimes turning out about half acceptable at best. I kept having problems with part unevenness, coatings peeling off halfway through the etch, etc. But I continued trying to see if I could do at least 1 decent part this way.
[attachment=5]329820700_3445901085657774_8608506273940202421_n.jpg[/attachment]

On this picture: above 2 strips of yet another failed coated etching; third one below is the galvo cut spring steel I did this afternoon.
[attachment=4]DSC_0299.JPG[/attachment]

The DC- power source will get shelved for a while now :big_grin:

After galvo-laser startup cycle 101 I tried a random 1x6mm etching on a caliper to see if the factory settings were usable for further testing. Results were promising.
[attachment=3]341044088_768496828106551_8557727784708048604_n.jpg[/attachment] [attachment=2]341974218_247646814381460_1659770654322749428_n.jpg[/attachment]

I then uploaded a contour drawing of a 3,95mm H-shaped bridge support that is not included in the Tom’s Modelworks County-class PE-set, and slapped a random piece of 0,2mm spring steel under the lens. One minute later I had 2 usable parts that are so strong and accurate that they practically snap into place between the plastic decks.
[attachment=1]support.jpg[/attachment] [attachment=0]DSC_0297.JPG[/attachment]

I still have a ton of secondary calibrations and many hours of studying to do, but these very first test runs are extremely motivating.

one more photo :cool_1:

[quote="Scheldeman"]Photos of the southern piers and buildings are scarce on Google earth, as you can see here reflected in the streetview trajectories. If you happen to have any of those they will be most welcome![/quote]

Some more random photos fo you Scheldeman


[attachment=9]IMG_20181216_150824.jpg[/attachment]

I love the way this project is coming along.

[quote="Nathan Liu"]Amazing work plus all the high tech! highly interested in 3D printing.
I visited Cockatoo Island in 2018, a beautiful place that is now a tourist hotspot. Some black n white photos hanging in the information center remind tourists that Australia once had giant battleships in service.
I took a lot of photos back then, there was a barrack made by sandstone dating back to colonial times, some old steam driven cranes, and unknown old heavy machinery that were high lights of the visit.[/quote]

Thank you Nathan, and thanks for the pics. Photos of the southern piers and buildings are scarce on Google earth, as you can see here reflected in the streetview trajectories. If you happen to have any of those they will be most welcome!
[attachment=1]Screenshot 2023-04-13 at 15-07-50 Google Earth.png[/attachment]

Most of the machinery will be invisible inside the buildings, but I have ample opportunity for interior detail, like in this open hangar with gantry crane. I also make plans to photoetch buildings with large window sections rather than print them.
[attachment=0]open hangar gantry.jpeg[/attachment]

DavidP: The first one: yes. Very useful resource but as always: the devil is in the details :heh: . The second one: no! There are pictures there that I didn't have yet. Many thanks for informing me! Apparently I got the modification/livery schematics via another resource.