The Ship Model Forum

Thanks for the kind words Marijn. I admire your work greatly, ever since I saw the 'Godverdomme' diorama on Missing-Lynx back in was it 2001? Utterly thunderstruck by the amount of skill and bold creativity! Your Lexington book was my gateway to 1/700 scale. I'm sure you hear this a lot but I just had to say it once more . I pledge to shut up for now and only return with some actual modelling results once I manage to crawl out of this Blender Cad & research phase.

In the process of designing and printing the basic building structures. It's a very relaxing pastime, but checking reference and measuring proportions takes up quite some time. The first models went slow but I picked up some steam after learning a few tricks & shortcuts for detail design. The elaborate generator building with arched windows for instance was quite the undertaking to get right: took me 3 weeks of hobbytime. Sutherland dock was more a matter of correcting my early birdsnest design mistakes so the slicing/printing algorithm could process it.




Printing geometric shapes like these buildings requires an even buildup of resin to avoid irregular shrinkage during and after curing. I found that parallel positioning to the printplate works better than the usual 30-45° inclination. I set the design up with minimal supports straight on a broad rectangular raft. The raft is to be sanded off afterwards.


The model on the right was printed in my unheated basement/nerdbunker with a supported 30° inclination. There are blotchy irregularities in the cured resin and the model took a big warp in the starting (righthand) corner. The model on the left was printed in a preheated environment with a flat buildup parallel with the printplate. No warping and much sharper detail (My apologies for the bad cellphone picture)
There are still some problems to be worked out like the slight droop in the arched windows, but I will tackle this manually with a scalpel or redo the print with more supports if I bungle that up. I collect all my procedural printing failures anyway since they are very useful as painting testbenches and my daughters love them.

I had to install a second monitor to make the reference checking faster and more practical. It swivels around so I can look at it from my workbench too.


I also did some early modifications on the Trumpeter HMS Kent that I will use as a base model for HMAS Australia in Sutherland dock. This is a waterline kit so I had to design the hull from the antifouling downward based on drawings. The fins are cut from brass. The thick porthole covers were also sanded down.

It will take at least another year to finish all the buildings, but this gives me the chance to get familiar with the terrain and all the pitfalls between its details. I also did further experiments with photoetching, and concluded that the lasered paint method works fine for everything above 0,5mm resolution. For anything with regular <0,5mm rastering I will need something better though. So I am saving up to buy a 30W fiber-laser with 100mm Galvohead.

Impressive work!

_________________
Martin

"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." John Wayne

Ship Model Gallery

Thank you very much MartinJQuinn!

In between drawing up dockyard buildings, I continued some work on HMAS Australia. Starting out with the Trumpeter HMS Kent kit, this consists for about 2/3 of the time of comparing zoomed-in images. The ship underwent many wartime repairs and modifications, and it's not always clear what was already implemented in feb-march 1944.

Work on the forward superstructure started with removing platforms and adding smaller surfaces with styrene sheet. I printed Carley floats with open planking and finer rope fittings.


Some railing and the first stairs where added from the Tom's Modelworks County class PE set.



I drilled out the bridge spacings for a lighter look. Originally these were made from sheet metal squares placed at intervals.


The hull received printed struts and brass shafts. I also added paravan breasthooks on the stem.


The MK3 HACS directors in the kit have lens tubes that are too thick and uneven. I made new ones with brass tubing and heightfinders made from stretched sprue.

As you can see there are still glue blobs and small gaps to be corrected, but I will try to resolve this after a thin coat of revealing primer. The shimmer of brass makes it often difficult to evaluate joint quality with optivisors. Also, note to self: I urgently need to expand my stock of stepped&railed stairs, as they often turn out to be too short or too long . The Tom's Modelworks County class stairs look great and are so easy to work with that I try to nudge them in place wherever I can, even if I'll have to bend the railing perpendicular after a full cure of the cyano.

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.

DavidP: The first one: yes. Very useful resource but as always: the devil is in the details . 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.

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!


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.

I love the way this project is coming along.

Some more random photos fo you Scheldeman

one more photo

Thank you Dan K , 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

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.


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.


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

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.


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.


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

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

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Battle of Savo Island Collection (all 1/700)
Recently completed: USS Wilson DD-408
At works: USS Astoria CA-34 | USS Patterson DD-392 & USS Bagley DD-386 | HMAS Australia
Prep stage: USS Vincennes CA-44 | Yubari | Kako

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:
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:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=83SKYGcSUHQ
For more elaborate information about the physics involved in fiberlasing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofEqFlqkiS0

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 High end American and European made/assembled machines are easily 10 times more expensive or depending on the application much, much more.

Today I made some more parts: I redesigned the deck supports after discovering a photo-detail showing the supports having an arched topside:



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 from the produced heat: this can be mitigated by short submersion in an etching fluid like HCl+H2O2.



and I etched a few ovals to make two searchlight platforms that were still present on HMAS Australia at the beginning of 1944.

Great attention to detail!

_________________
Martin

"Tomorrow is the most important thing in life. Comes into us at midnight very clean. It's perfect when it arrives and it puts itself in our hands. It hopes we've learned something from yesterday." John Wayne

Ship Model Gallery

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 . OTOH the cost is still quite reasonable. But the speed and flexibility of a system like yours sounds like a dream indeed!

_________________
Battle of Savo Island Collection (all 1/700)
Recently completed: USS Wilson DD-408
At works: USS Astoria CA-34 | USS Patterson DD-392 & USS Bagley DD-386 | HMAS Australia
Prep stage: USS Vincennes CA-44 | Yubari | Kako

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 'hatching', 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 . 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 ; I'm way too ham-fisted to fineline that sort of thing by hand.