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Scratch-built Airship


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This is awesome, so good to see "good-olde-scratchbuilding". Really cool to see you incorporate 3D printed parts with kit-bashing!

 

Are you printing with HIPS filament? If so, why not use ABS?

 

I am inspired, thanks for this!
 

🙂

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Thanks!

I guess I could have used ABS, but I thought sticking with the same material throughout the build would be better. The plastic card and tubes are HIPS, as are the model kit parts. (HIPS stands for High Impact Polystyrene). The Tamiya cement that I'm using works amazingly well with the filament and it sands beautifully. Sometimes when you glue materials together that have different coefficients of thermal expansion, gaps and seams will show up at the joints down the road. Granted the CTE  mismatch between ABS and HIPS is probably negligible, compared with, say, aluminum and oak.

 

As for combining 3D printed polystyrene with kit-bashing and scratch building, I'm really starting to see the possibilities that it holds. Filament deposition printing can't deliver the detail demanded by scale modellers, but it excels at complex forms that would be very difficult to build in any other way. Kit parts can then be used to add some of that missing detail. 

 

 

 

 

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I was wondering about HIPS, since it seems that the 3d printing community uses it mostly for support material. However for model making, Styrene and ABS are great. IMHO styrene to ABS will work fine most of the time with a good welded bond, never the less I agree with you.

 

I have printed plenty of ABS, PLA, some Nylon and Flexible materials, so another solution might be resin DLP? Found bits and greebles + kit bashing might be so much faster and easier while using plastics over resin. With my kids, it seems to inspire them too.

 

Cheers

 

JH

Edited by j-fever
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I really like HIPS. But you're right, not many folks are printing it as a primary material. There's been very little guidance online that I could find to help me through some of the difficulties that I've had. 

I have a couple of parts on the ship that were printed in resin on a Formlabs printer we have at work. I was able to get the guy who runs it to piggyback my parts in with another job he was doing. Unfortunately, I don't think I can make a habit of that. I may get a DLP printer at some point. I think prices will really start coming down in the next few years. 

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3 hours ago, Photon said:

I really like HIPS. But you're right, not many folks are printing it as a primary material. There's been very little guidance online that I could find to help me through some of the difficulties that I've had. 

I have a couple of parts on the ship that were printed in resin on a Formlabs printer we have at work. I was able to get the guy who runs it to piggyback my parts in with another job he was doing. Unfortunately, I don't think I can make a habit of that. I may get a DLP printer at some point. I think prices will really start coming down in the next few years. 

Yeh I have encounter similar issues, that is why I asked. heh heh.

 

The Form 2 is awesome, I have a Wanhau D7 that I have yet to find time to use, most of the time I am using my Taz6 FDM. 

 

Keep up the great work!

 

JH

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  • 3 weeks later...

That's really amazing. It's crazy how nice it prints for so little money. Is the resin very expensive?

 

I think the Anycubic Photon stands alone at the moment.  I don't think it really has any competition at that price.

I'm pretty sure I'll be getting one. Thanks for posting.

 

 

 

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No problem. The resin is quite pricey but you don't use much unless printing large solid objects. Mostly you can model the parts as shells though to save resin. I currently use Wanhao resin as its easier to get hold of but the anycubic resin makes a much better job. The runabout was anycubic. The Wanhao needs a lot of practice prints to work out what layer thickness and exposure time is needed for the model that you are doing. Still worth it though as it means that you can model things that are truely custom parts, or replicate parts that you just cant get hold of for whatever reason. 

 

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This was it off the printer.

Edited by Father Cool
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3 hours ago, Father Cool said:

The Wanhao needs a lot of practice prints to work out what layer thickness and exposure time is needed for the model that you are doing

Ah, I didn't realize there was much model specific tweaking that had to be done. Very good to know. Do the transparent resins cure better than the opaque ones (i.e. Better UV transmission)?  Also, do you do a post-cure? I know some people use those UV nail drying lamps.

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33 minutes ago, Bravo52 said:

"After fighting with print bed leveling for weeks, I made a removable mount that would allow attaching a dial indicator."  

 

That is an awesome solution!  Headed to the garage now...

Glad to help. Unfortunately, the dial indicator cost more than the printer. I borrow that one from work when I need to level.

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47 minutes ago, Photon said:

Ah, I didn't realize there was much model specific tweaking that had to be done. Very good to know. Do the transparent resins cure better than the opaque ones (i.e. Better UV transmission)?  Also, do you do a post-cure? I know some people use those UV nail drying lamps.

Well the Wanhao resin I use is black but it is transparent at the layer thickness so cures well. I usually give the Wanhao a tad longer cure between layers though.

 

I do post cure yes. I use a UV nail lamp but you need to replace the bulbs with 405nm ones as the ones that come with them are no good.

 

 

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  • 4 weeks later...

A few touch ups are needed here and there and maybe a final weathering pass, but I'm going to call this finished. I used Vallejo acrylics for the base colors and weathered with cheap student grade oil paints and odorless thinners.

Thanks everybody for following along. I really appreciate all the encouragement. 

 

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