blw wrote:While we're discussing 1941 Saratoga, how about the widened and reprofiled front part of the flight deck?
Great question!
There are some significant difficulties to do that properly in 3D printed products, and it has to do with the structure
below flight deck level, where the widened part of the deck extends downward one deck level to a large, mostly enclosed platform with Bofors sponsons on either side of the existing, curved hull.
From a business perspective, analysis indicates that the volume of printed material required would make this part very costly, meaning few sales. This in turn makes the design even more costly because I, as a designer, must recoup the cost of design time and spread that across potential sales in order to sustain the business. "No bucks, no Buck Rogers", as the Mercury 7 used to say.
From a design perspective, there are at least two ways to do it (probably others):
1) Design a whole new forward flight deck section complete with supporting structure and sponsons below.
Pros: a perfect part.
Cons: Frankly, not cost-effective or practical to design for 3D printing.
Better for a resin manufacturer to do if one would be willing. To design a 3D-printed part that would fit the kit's hull would be too time-intensive and costly in making several design-then-print iterations to achieve a part that fits well. In other words, it would require much costly trial and error, and a lot of time, to find that sweet design that would fit the kit's hull. The time issue drives us back to the business problem above.
2) Design just the flat surface of the flight deck itself with no supporting structure and leave that for the modeler to scratch.
Pros: Certainly doable and would only take a reasonable amount of time.
Cons: The modeler would have a lot of work to do! Would need to decide a logical place the new part should join the kit's flight deck and whether the planks should match the kit's plank widths or be scale - or just do the
whole deck (in printable sections) with the same plank widths and the proper planking pattern (costly!). Probably need some advice from folks here to get it right.
Thoughts?
[quote="blw"]While we're discussing 1941 Saratoga, how about the widened and reprofiled front part of the flight deck?[/quote]
Great question!
There are some significant difficulties to do that properly in 3D printed products, and it has to do with the structure [b]below[/b] flight deck level, where the widened part of the deck extends downward one deck level to a large, mostly enclosed platform with Bofors sponsons on either side of the existing, curved hull.
From a business perspective, analysis indicates that the volume of printed material required would make this part very costly, meaning few sales. This in turn makes the design even more costly because I, as a designer, must recoup the cost of design time and spread that across potential sales in order to sustain the business. "No bucks, no Buck Rogers", as the Mercury 7 used to say.
From a design perspective, there are at least two ways to do it (probably others):
1) Design a whole new forward flight deck section complete with supporting structure and sponsons below.
Pros: a perfect part.
Cons: Frankly, not cost-effective or practical to design for 3D printing. [b]Better for a resin manufacturer to do[/b] if one would be willing. To design a 3D-printed part that would fit the kit's hull would be too time-intensive and costly in making several design-then-print iterations to achieve a part that fits well. In other words, it would require much costly trial and error, and a lot of time, to find that sweet design that would fit the kit's hull. The time issue drives us back to the business problem above.
2) Design just the flat surface of the flight deck itself with no supporting structure and leave that for the modeler to scratch.
Pros: Certainly doable and would only take a reasonable amount of time.
Cons: The modeler would have a lot of work to do! Would need to decide a logical place the new part should join the kit's flight deck and whether the planks should match the kit's plank widths or be scale - or just do the [b]whole deck[/b] (in printable sections) with the same plank widths and the proper planking pattern (costly!). Probably need some advice from folks here to get it right.
Thoughts?