by Devin » Mon Mar 30, 2020 9:47 pm
I don't have a lot to show, but I said I'd post, so here goes. The majority of the last week was made up of the model maker's meditation of "fill, sand, prime, repeat." Tedious work, but I've come to enjoy it, and now I have the hull smooth and ready for detailing.
It's been years since I last worked on this kit, and during that time the Shapeways prints have degraded. As you can see in the photo, the unpainted turret is growing what looks like rust from a shipwreck, and the surfaces have gone soapy. It's hard to tell from the photo, but even the turret that was primed years ago has started to break down, too, exhibiting a glittery and waxy texture as the material leeches out through the primer.
Needless to say, this won't do. I don't have any of these files that the parts were printed from, so out came the calipers and I made dozens of measurements to figure out what the diameter should be, as the parts are no longer perfectly cylindrical. I mocked up a quick turret shell, which I printed on my Epax 3D printer to test the size. It came out just a little small, so I tried small strips of styrene into the gap until I got the right thickness -- too small of a gap to get calipers into -- then offset the drawings in CAD by that amount. The next print should now be the proper diameter.
I've started preliminary work on the CAD work for the turret. Basically what you see is that turret shell I drew, with the face unrolled to a flat plane. That one teeny tiny dot just above the flat face is the first of the bolts that will cover the turret face.
- Attachments
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- Turrets showing signs of breaking down.
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- Slight gap between the hull and the 3D print.
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- The VERY start of the CAD word for turrets.
I don't have a lot to show, but I said I'd post, so here goes. The majority of the last week was made up of the model maker's meditation of "fill, sand, prime, repeat." Tedious work, but I've come to enjoy it, and now I have the hull smooth and ready for detailing.
It's been years since I last worked on this kit, and during that time the Shapeways prints have degraded. As you can see in the photo, the unpainted turret is growing what looks like rust from a shipwreck, and the surfaces have gone soapy. It's hard to tell from the photo, but even the turret that was primed years ago has started to break down, too, exhibiting a glittery and waxy texture as the material leeches out through the primer.
Needless to say, this won't do. I don't have any of these files that the parts were printed from, so out came the calipers and I made dozens of measurements to figure out what the diameter should be, as the parts are no longer perfectly cylindrical. I mocked up a quick turret shell, which I printed on my Epax 3D printer to test the size. It came out just a little small, so I tried small strips of styrene into the gap until I got the right thickness -- too small of a gap to get calipers into -- then offset the drawings in CAD by that amount. The next print should now be the proper diameter.
I've started preliminary work on the CAD work for the turret. Basically what you see is that turret shell I drew, with the face unrolled to a flat plane. That one teeny tiny dot just above the flat face is the first of the bolts that will cover the turret face.