1:144 HMS Ark Royal IV (or Eagle perhaps)

[Paul Bradley]

If you do Facebook, there's a group called Aircraft Carriers of the Royal Navy, with some former Ark crew involved, that might be able to help. 

 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1721097751292645/

 

Edited April 15, 2019 by Paul Bradley

[Chris Hewitt]

These are the instructions for the foremast construction and lucky I did take some photos while building this mast  

 

 

[bootneck]

Hello everyone,  I cannot believe that it is nearly two years since I last shared anything on this build.

As a reminder,  I mentioned that I was having problems finding the correct dimensions and details for certain parts of the ship.  One such area was the island structure and its masts etc.   I did attempt to build it in plastic sheet, as I did with the hull, but it just wasn't looking right.

 

 

In order to find a way to resolve this I have been looking at CAD stuff and, over the past few months, I have been watching online tutorials on how to draw in 3D.   Before attempting something complicated, like the curved front of the island or the complexity of a mast, I thought I would try some basics with straight verticals and horizontas.  Once I got to understanding the basic requirement of CAD drawing, I thought a  good place to start would be the bulkheads a boat deck.

 

 

That drawing looked good to me and it gave me confidence to try something more elaborate, so I have started an attempt on the island structure.  The part of it that would need most attention would be the bridge front, involving curves and cutouts. and so I made this a priority to learn how to do it in CAD. 

Here is a view of the lower front section of the bridge, within the dashed lines, that I shall be attempting first. 

 

 

In front of it is a winch and I decided to attempt that at the same time and here is my first attempt.

 

Another area of concern to me was the funnel.  It is a complex shape, being flat sided on the starboard, outer, side and convex on the port side, as this image shows.

 

 

I did a fair representation of the funnel in styrene sheet; however, I thought I might have a go at that in 3D as well.

Here we are, fairly up to date now, with the island front and the funnel drawn in CAD.

 

I am enjoying my time learning CAD although, at my tender age, I don't think that I shall achieve anything ground-breaking.   I am using Fusion 360 and quite like it for two reasons; it is free and I've found this to be easier to understand than others I've tried.  It just takes a little time and patience to get to grips with it; plus watching lots of YouTube tutorials.

 

So, hopefully that brings us up to date with where I am.  More to follow very soon.

 

cheers,

Mike

 

 

 

 

 

 

[bootneck]

I have been experimenting with CAD for a few weeks, with some hits and a fair few misses, and think I am actually getting to grips with the basics now.  Some of the items which I am focussing on are, what I would call 'awkward' parts when it comes to scratchbuilding.  This is a test print of the funnel with grey and black primers added.

 

 

Another piece is the front of the island, from flight deck level up to the Admiral's bridge deck.  There's lots more detail to add to this, this deck will have bulkheads and furniture added

 

 

The windows will be filled with Glue n Glaze.

 

I'm pleased that I have managed to achieve this so far, so watch out for more improvements; hopefully!

 

cheers,
Mike

[Dancona]

Hi Mike,

It’s really nice seeing this on the boil again, this was one of the builds that got me “enthused” enough to start my big carrier project, though compared to yours mine is mere medium sized !

Those bits are looking excellent, those bridge windows are spot on, your time spent learning Fusion has really paid off, are you going to model and print all of the superstructure, or just the tricky bits ?

Cheers

 

David

[Paul H]

My late grandfather served on Ark IV in the early '70s, so following this with great interest!

[SallysDad]

Wow, that is meticulous work. I am so impressed with your growing, self-taught, knowledge of this process.

[bootneck]

10 hours ago, Dancona said:

...... are you going to model and print all of the superstructure, or just the tricky bits ?

Hi David, yes the plan is to build the complete island structure in 3D printed resin; including masts and radars etc.  I also intend to do the same for the catapult bridle catchers, boat decks and cranes.  I have scratchbuilt the cable deck and quarterdeck already, otherwise I would have printed those as well.  

Thank you everyone for the positive contributions, I must admit to finding this drawing in 3D quite addictive.

 

cheers,
Mike

[heloman1]

Just caught up with your build Mike, great work, especially the 3D printed island. Keep at it mate.

 

Colin

[iang]

22 hours ago, bootneck said:

I'm pleased that I have managed to achieve this so far, so watch out for more improvements; hopefully!

 

cheers,
Mike

 

Those look very good. Nice to see more progress being made.

[Iceman 29]

Bravo Mike! 

 

You've made good progress, it's going to get easier and easier now, you're just going to have fun with this program once the basics are instilled.

 

Technique will give way to imagination. 

[bootneck]

My imagination is running wild already Pascal! 

 

I also enjoy building airfield dioramas, it's not all "Yo Ho Ho and a bottle of rum me hearties" shipbuilding, but trying to find vehicles and equipment in my scale can be hit and miss.  As such, another wild idea is to make some myself, such as this Queen Mary trailer.

 

 

It won't pass close inspection and probably will fall into the "too long, too short, never flew in those colours" catagory; however, it will suit me and should look fine under a thick coat of distemper.

 

Thanks everyone for the nice comments,  I'm still at the early learning stages, "chapter 1. Introduction" so to speak but it is fun, if somewhat slow at my tender age.

cheers,

Mike

[bootneck]

Hello everyone,

if you remember, I printed a section of the island for my Ark and mentioned that it still needed more work on it.  Here is the piece on the first printing.

 

For the second attempt, I removed the rear section of the Admiral's bridge deck and added other items:  bulkheads,  outriggers for anomometers etc., doors, other small items.

 

This is a low resolution test print and, when I am happy that everything is in the right place, I shall print it out in high resolution.

 

The piece needs cleaning up but is already starting to look better than my scratchbuilt effort with plastic sheet.

I hope to be able to do more over the weekend and provide some better images later.

 

cheers,

Mike

[JohnWS]

Hi Mike,

 

How long does it take to print a part that size?

 

John

[bootneck]

Hi John,

I think it took just over five hours.  The height of the piece sort of dictates the time, no matter how wide the item is. This bridge piece is 5cm tall, the funnel is similar.  It was produced on an Anycubic Photon S machine; however, I understand that the new Anycubic Mono X and the Elegoo Saturn 4K types reduce the time to something like half that.

Cheers,

Mike

[Chewbacca]

On 10/01/2021 at 09:21, bootneck said:

I must admit to finding this drawing in 3D quite addictive.

 

How true that statement is.  Having successfully drawn and printed the bits for PUMA that I knew I simply couldn't scratch build to the standard with which I would be happy, I'm now looking at some of the others bits, mainly the white metal parts, that I'm not 100% happy with to see if I can improve on them.  The first one yesterday was a 25 man liferaft container which on face value I thought would be very easy  and in the end it's come out not too bad but there are some fundamental geometry errors in there that I've still to sort out.  The fact that in 1/350 where the actual part is something like 4 mm x 2 mm means I will get away with it, but in something larger I might not so I need to understand what I've done wrong.

 

 

On 10/01/2021 at 16:47, bootneck said:

I also enjoy building airfield dioramas, it's not all "Yo Ho Ho and a bottle of rum me hearties" shipbuilding, but trying to find vehicles and equipment in my scale can be hit and miss.  As such, another wild idea is to make some myself, such as this Queen Mary trailer.

 

 

Because PUMA is going into a Naval Base diorama at Navy Days, I'm going to try tackling a Series 2 Land Rover to be parked on the jetty.  Haven't tried looking yet but I'm hoping because it's such a popular subject that I can download the .stl file  from the web

[bootneck]

Hello all,

I cannot believe that almost seven months have passed since I last posted on this build.  I haven't stopped working on the model, it is just that I wasn't happy with the Island upperworks of my build.  The plastic strip and rod just didn't look right, especially the Type 965 radar arrays; so, for the last few months I have been working on learning more about CAD,  with the intention to 3D print something better.

 

Unfortunately, there doesn't appear to be any plans of the Type 965 radar array and my drawing is only based on photos.  Even then, identifying the components is very difficult as each part seems to mesh with others and has me confused as to what fits where.

 

Not to be put off, I have started drawing my interpretation of the array.

 

There are still quite a few components to add to this but I think this should look better than my  earlier attempts with plastic sheet and rods.

 

 

 

 

cheers,

Mike

Edited August 20, 2021 by bootneck
Corrected radar designation type

[Dancona]

Hi Mike,

 

Blimey, I am glad I don't have to worry about one of those, I've only got a big dustbin on mine !!!!!  really good to see this project back on the board this really is the grand-daddy of them all, and was partially responsible for my own foray into extremely large carriers (though I wimped out at 1/200).

I think that the way you are approaching this is very impressive, you must be a bit of a 3D modelling expert by now, lovely stuff, its going to look the dogs whatsits on the beast !!!

Cheers

 

David

 

[bootneck]

Thanks David.   There's still a way to go with this, I keep looking at the few photos I have and each view gives a conflicting set of results.   This is only one array (bedstead) and as the Ark has two double bedsteads, that's four arrays to make.   All the hard work will be done on this one though, then it should be just a case of joining two together and printing.

 

I have followed your build throughout and believe your detailing is much more intricate and effective than mine.

 

cheers,
Mike

[Iceman 29]

Great job, Mike, not simple to draw and print later this radar! 👍

[Dancona]

22 hours ago, bootneck said:

and believe your detailing is much more intricate and effective than mine

Mike you are very kind, but if I can just point out that the finished areas on your Ark sport impeccable hangers with filled shelving and aircraft handling gear, that is something I am not even going to attempt  😁

[bootneck]

Thank you Pascal.   Last night, I did a test print but it was only 60% successful.  Most of the vertical frames on the left side printed well but the remainder failed.  On a positive side, the fact that any of the frames printed means that the drawing and slicing was successful, it is just my placement of the supports that has caused those failed sections.

 

Thanks again David.   As I progress with this CAD and 3D printing milarky, I shall probably revisit the hangar area and have a go at populating all the shelves in the hangar. 

 

Onward and upward!

Mike

[bootneck]

Here is a view of my first test print.

 

My positioning of the supports was not right and many of the frames collapsed. 

 

 

 

I reset the supports and this second print looks more promising; however, it still isn't maintaining its shape correctly.

 

 

 

 

 

 

I suspect that the rods are not thick enough to keep the frame rigid, I am using 0.25mm rod size at the moment but think I may have to go up to 0.3mm and hope they don't look to thick for scale.

 

More checks and reprints to follow in the week.

 

cheer,
Mike

[Gondor44]

I'm not a 3D printer myself nor do I know much about what your attempting to print, but how about reduceing the size of what your trying to print? How about half of the radar instead of the whole thing, preferably, if the radar is symetrical doing the top/bottom or right/left so less wastage if it goes wrong.

 

Gondor

[bootneck]

Hi Gondor,

 

A logical suggestion; however, I can't see any benefit of reducing the size any further.

 

At this size, the wastage is minimal and believe I have resolved the issue now.

Cheers,
Mike