fsssh

your hard work is paying off, looks like you are going all the way with this one.

This is interesting to me as I never used klear because of the change in formulation debate and never having owned any of the original, which now seems to be as rare as unicorn wee. My normal strategy is to try and leave clear parts out until the very end of my builds and just use fine polish. Not always possible I know, but I have bad 'canopy frosting fear' from my early days with airfix and matchbox kits, and don't talk to me about 'droopy bombs syndrome'...... What is the collective thinking on this right now and has anyone tried the alternatives? I have some of the Alclad stuff but have yet to try it.

Finally got a break from work so back to Britmodeller! I have been toying with the idea of doing a 1/32 rebel star wars ship, to go with the Eagle and Buck Rogers Starfighter I modelled up in 3D and printed out*, but can't decide which one right now, but they need an astromech right? As its a long weekend so i hit the research, downloaded every R2 D2 3D model I could find, there are lots, and mostly not as much help as I had hoped but they still gave me a start. The completed 3D model: " The print job: The print output: After a bit of sanding: I have asked a good friend to give it a paint job, will post the results on here when done, he's better at it than me, he is going to paint Wilma too..... (*they are currently locked up in a container somewhere out east, so are still on hiatus, not abandoned)

if your resin 3d prints are sticky you can use 99% IPA to rinse them in, 10 mins should do it, and if they are not fully cured an hour in daylight will help, makes them easier to sand and glue and paint and stuff. don't use 5% IPA, that's beer

Hi all and thanks for the likes and comments. I am going to park this project for a while as I am going away for work and I cant take everything with me. I am more involved in my Eagle Transporter build than this one so that is going to take up space in the container and hopefully get finished.

i thought pledge had become as rare as unicorn poop?

Yeah the price is a high one, way more than I had hoped but once I started it got sort of addictive - I only have 3 kits in my stash though, so you could say that money would have got spent on model making one way or another! I am trying to get hold of one of the monogram kits as I could adapt my 3D for the pilots and seating tub and get a few sets cast to help fund this project.

I cant accurately answer the how much it cost to print question, as it was done over a period of time at different rates depending on how much i had printed at a time - the total bill was much more than it could of, or, should have been. If I started again, was more organised and used a more appropriate printing method i would expect the bill to be about £600. Having said that, the model you see here isn't perfect and has enough wrong with it that i need to revisit chunks of the 3D model to get it just right.

You know, I have always called it the Thunder Fighter too, but always get into the Starfighter/Thunder Fighter debate with 'so-called' experts - turns out it is not just me after all......

The surface is a bit weird and has a waxy residue which is a pain to get rid of, it was printed at really high resolution and although there is still some visible layers it's quite easy to remove with 600 grit wet/dry in wet mode, then the surface is quite smooth and hard. The fit of parts is quite good considering I guessed the clearance, this photo is everything pushed together apart from the hull upper and lower which are bolted.

It is one of the coolest sci-fi fighters, it is a shame the show has not stood the test of time - total 70's cheese! I have fiddled with the model to suit my tastes, it is not a faithful replica but I have not done anything extreme either - this cockpit tub is the most I have deviated from the original. there are some little panels and joysticks need printing, and I didn't print Buck yet, only Wilma. The pilot was posed in daz studio and I made the helmet and harness straps and shoved them all together before printing.

I teased a part of this project in my Eagle Transporter build thread, so although I am a way off finishing that one, and I will not be doing any more on this until that happens, I thought it might be fair to share a bit more. The actual 3D model of the ship began life as a personal project in 2006, and like most personal projects I kept tweaking it. Then stupidly I decided i would like a 3D print of it, so I spent ages making the model printable, and then spent a fortune getting it printed at approx 1/35 scale, might be more like 1/32 or 54mm (like my eagle transporter - it's not a real thing an I'm not going to get upset about the exact scale). I did post the visual of the ship model on this forum as part of the more general sci-fi/3d thread. So if you ever wondered what an overdraft looks like keep watching.......

it won't be ready for a while, but I will be at the model show at Bovington next weekend, i might have some bits in my backpack, also some 3d printed parts from 'the other sci-fi' project, and some bits of my 1/16 jeep

paid work has been completed, time for more endless sanding of 3D prints. i think i have may have forgotten to scale down the pilot figure from his approx 1/24 scale that i initially made the model at, but he managed to get painted before my doubts were confirmed. here we see him sitting next to one of my other 3D printed (not on my printer though) pilots from a forthcoming sci-fi project at the same scale, lets just call her 'wilma' for now......

as an aside to posting images, but on a similar-ish subject, I just tried one of the photobucket link fixer extensions for chrome from the google app store and it seems to be working just fine for viewing older posts on here.

Thats some fine filler bashing there, looks great!

Not much to report as I had some paid work come in so the printing for fun purposes had to stop! boo just fiddling with the underside of the passenger pod, the jaunty angle of the legs will be corrected when i find my box of M3 nuts and bolts, its probably under something somehwere....

and then the thing stands on its own feet for the first time.... ta-da! the cat wasn't too impressed though... everyone's a critic

the walkway gets screwed to the engine assembly

it is a very cool way to make things the way you want them, just buy loads of sandpaper and high build primer too!

i had to make the last walkway section so i could finally see the model together, in a push fit and cable tie kind of way. here are the parts and in progress assembly, pass the glue you can see my fakery of the tank and lunar lander kitbash parts more clearly here and here is the assembled unit......

here are some pics from this mornings push fit together of all the bits for the cockpit and the front walkway with pods and trellis attached - luckily it all fits! looks a bit wonky but the locating pins are not in place and will not be until the white primer goes on the whole thing..... which will be after all the sanding and filling is finished

last one for today, here is a 3d render of the nearly finished 3D model, thanks go to my good friend Alan for setting the render up.

more of the cockpit and walkway - I faked the kitbashed parts by making similar looking 3d objects, you can hardly see them in amongst all the trellis so hopefully I will get away with it. so far the only non 3d printed bits are some small screws and bolts, piano and brass wire, some steel tube for landing legs and some 1mm perspex for windows, and the electric bits, more on them another time.

...and these are the cockpit insides