The Ship Model Forum

I have Inventor Fusion from Autodesk on my Mac, it's a freeby for now.
There is also Draftsight from Solidworks but it kept crashing my machine. The only applicaiton ever to do so.

FreeCad works with several operation systems including Mac and Linux.

This is the link to the front page of the FreeCad website which has these links -
http://www.freecadweb.org/

Thanks for all of the useful tips!

I appreciate your taking the time to post the info.

Here is a link to a local news story about 3D printing in Philly:

http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?secti ... id=9081551

Bob W

OK, thanks for all that... now back to the build.

I just received another shipment of parts- the main cabin, pilot house, and roofs. These are done in Shapeways SLS (sintered nylon)... which is not best for fine detail parts, but works well in larger structures like these, where I can fill and sand the surfaces. See the close-up, you can see the typical layering.

Next order on the way- mast, crane, skegs/props, all in the finer Objet resin.

PM

A few more printed parts arrived...

Grrr... the crane assy had some parts broken off the sprue... my bad, weak sprue... hope to get them replaced soon.


Grrr #2... Shapeways insists on jamming delicate parts into tight fitting and stiff plastic bags... even after I asked them not to, for the mast assy. It arrived in one piece but warped. I should be able to straighten it with hot water... if not, I may need to work in brass...

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Looking good. As far as the damage, try adding thick support structures around the parts to protect them.

I'd love to... but the part cost goes by material volume... and this was already $27 in the part alone, I'd treble the cost at least by printing a cage around it.

Another issue: Multijet printed parts (like this) are embedded in a block of support wax. Most of this is gently melted off, but they still go in and hand scrape a lot of it... and that process puts even protected parts at risk.

Better bet is to take the delicate parts off, and either make them from brass, or print them separately.

Looks good Pat Like a smaller version of RAN's Armidale class...

Are you going to RC this one???

Cheers Bruce

No RC for this one... I'm not much of a fan of RC'd versions of ships long & skinny, they are too tippy... give me a tugboat any day!

You can never have enough photos of your model subjects. I spent $20 to ride the ferry to Boblo Island today (at Amherstburg) just to catch a few outboard shots of Pvt Robertson V.C. Cheaper than renting a boat!


I might just have a few more shots of her in my camera...

PATMAT wrote:You can never have enough photos of your model subjects. I spent $20 to ride the ferry to Boblo Island today (at Amherstburg) just to catch a few outboard shots of Pvt Robertson V.C. Cheaper than renting a boat!


I might just have a few more shots of her in my camera...

Pat, you are truly going above and beyond on this project!

Still drawing parts... lots of progress, but not done yet! Everything in the images is 3D-printable though.

Simply AWESOME

I asked in another thread about custom PE suppliers, and was told about Hauler in the Czech Republic. I sent them my drawing for stanchions, and a week later they had a sample sheet to show me. Had some issues- the small sized parts are sensitive to how the lines� thicknesses are created, and we ended up with oversized rail holes and broken stanchions.

Incredible turnaround time though, and now we�re working with a modified design that should correct the issue.

Initially I had the same problems, but with thicker and shorter lines I had no further problems. I'm going to get my new Hauler etch from the post office right now...

If you open a big 1:72 kit box (like the Revell Flower), you're confronted with sprue after sprue of little parts.

This project is no different, except that I can do things with my sprues that no injection die could handle... which reduces the number of sprues, if not the number of parts. Here are some of my latest, now on order:

I suppose painting-on-the-sprue is going to be out of the question for a few of those parts

(Awesome project and progress, of course!)

Just received the parts pictured 2 posts above... As received, still oily/waxy.

I'm pretty happy with this lot... A few more parts to order yet, but not much excuse left, I need to start putting it all together now!

Shapeways Frosted Ultra Detail (Objet, highest resolution).

And a few 1:1 pics for comparison...