Hello everyone,
It's been some time since I posted my progress. I decided to stop working on the scratch-build 1/700 Lion hull as I discovered a new software made by Autodesk called
Fusion 360. The old 123D Design software I have been using was also created by Autodesk, but is no-match in terms of CAD capability in comparison to Fusion 360.
Here you can find the post that discusses the differences between the softwares (as well as Autodesk's other software Tinkercad.)
From the post:
123D Design vs Fusion 360
Being more of a simplified Fusion 360 than an improved Tinkercad software, 123D Design can almost get a bit annoying to work with if you’re used to Fusion (or other larger CAD programs, we have to assume). In Tinkercad you’re so blatantly aware of your major limitations that every feature is a godsend, but in 123D Design there are all these smaller and more subtle limitations which you discover after a while which can almost give you a bit of a headache.
Let’s talk about the major differences first. In 123D Design you don’t have the render, sculpt or CAM modules (among several others), which you all find in Fusion. The browser is not present in 123D Design where you in Fusion have a good overview and management over each instance (components, bodies, sketches and so on). This is essential to have if your assembly consists of several components and extremely convenient to have regardless of the assembly size. You also don’t have anything close to the “capture history”/parametric modelling feature in 123D Design which you have in Fusion. All of the movement, joint and animation-related features are left out of 123D Design as well.I would like to add that the 123D Design software is not capable of handling complex designs, and barely manages a propeller, so a hull is out of the question.Fusion 360 is not a free software. The price for subscription is $40 monthly and $300 yearly. Fortunately, you can subscribe for a free license if you are a small business making less than $100,000 per year (or equivalent), or a hobbyist using Fusion 360 for non-commercial purposes. I know very well that I would make only a few hundred bucks or even less per year from the software, so with these being said, I downloaded the new software right away.
After considerable struggles, I managed to finally create a good-looking waterline hull. The reason for the waterline option is that we and Richard Harden have agreed to make the kit a waterline version, saving me from the fact that I have not figured out how to design the lower hull!

Reasonably, the lower part proved to be much more problematic as the curves are much more complex, let alone features like the rudder skeg and axis, bilge keel, etc. Another factor is that even the National Maritime Museum's hull line drawing isn't 100% accurate for the reason that it was hand-drawn, so several areas had to be modified, and even redrawn, to make each line of the whole structure conform to the same resulting shape.
Here are pictures of the hull, still in process.







I would need to make a lot more tweaking, which I still haven't figured out how to do yet! Quite a steep learning curve!
Regards,
Aop