Sea Vixen FAW.1x2

[Brandy]

There I was, thinking I'd seen some pretty impressive 3D-ery, and you come up with this! All previous comments about how fantastic this is looking are hereby rendered null and void as a new bar has been set.

Excellent work Tony, I'm looking forward to seeing the test prints!

 

Ian

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

6 hours ago, hendie said:

Once you have all that wingfolderymagubbins complete - have you thought of scaling it up and printing it with a small section of wing either side (similar to your plan for the test print but larger) ?  That would make for a nice objet d'art sitting on your desk

Yes, you could scale it up to... 1/48.  That would be perfect

[phildagreek]

Good grief, that is some very impressive modelling!

[perdu]

2 hours ago, Brandy said:

There I was, thinking I'd seen some pretty impressive 3D-ery, and you come up with this! All previous comments about how fantastic this is looking are hereby rendered null and void as a new bar has been set.

Excellent work Tony, I'm looking forward to seeing the test prints!

 

Ian

Him I agree with.

[71chally]

...actually I wonder, could you build a working model of the wing fold and latching system in a larger scale?!

[Fritag]

14 hours ago, TheBaron said:

At this point it's sensible I think to get some further information about print viability by running some test prints of wingfold.........I want to gauge how well this level of virtual detailing reproduces as physical reality.

 

TBH, in the pleasure of watching the CAD work develop I at times forget that there's a contingent physical reality; also TBH I think the CAD work is of itself sufficient raison d'etre.  

 

That said; when the move from working on the the CAD to working on the the physical reality is under way I may have more of a grasp of the processes involved......May 

 

 

[qn30jEkPz7]

14 hours ago, TheBaron said:

That big silver 'knuckle'

Doesn’t he have a name yet? Gort?

 

14 hours ago, michaelc said:

the talent , the willingness to learn how to use it and the creativity all have to be present.

Pants. Anyone want to buy a slightly used 3D printer? I’m scoring 0/3 on the prerequisites list

[keefr22]

6 hours ago, LostCosmonauts said:

I’m scoring 0/3 on the prerequisites list

 

You're good - I'm on minus 1.....

 

Keith

[Navy Bird]

23 hours ago, TheBaron said:

I seem to recall you built your own Dobsonian - I would say that is a good index of the potential for Bill-epicness!

 

Sure, but that was made out of wood - that stuff that grows in trees.    

 

I'm on to Dobsonian Version 2.0, since I'm now too old and decrepit to pick up a 65 lb mirror box. The new one is ultralight, only 32 lb, and the mirror is 40 cm instead of the old one at 30 cm. I love breaking the laws of physics every now and then.

 

All hail the glorious Wangbot!      Your mechanical design and engineering skill is to die for. Brilliant.

 

Cheers,

Bill

[TheBaron]

Crisp, Giorgio, Terry, Jamie, Michael, Michael, Johnny, Benedikt, James, Ced, Keith, Alan, Ian, Phil, Bill, James, Steve, Alastair, Bill:

 

I had in fact almost finished replying to you all individually just now and haplessly managed to delete the whole screed in the process of cutting and pasting - usually stuff  remains  after a page refresh doesn't it but on this occasion the forum software seems to have regarded my banalities as unworthy of a recovery efort.

Anyway:

deeply to all of you for your kind comments.

 

This was the state of play last evening with all the necessaries in .stl format ready for orientation in Chitubox:

The Elegoo software has definitely improved in the latest version - with regard to supports in particular. In the past I've tended to use far too many light supports and ended up with a plethora of contact points to tidy up afterwards - on this occasion I used a modified version of the medium support structure which,  in combination with the software providing you now with visual hints regarding potential placement sites, needed far far fewer supporting elements.  The iPhoton FileValidator software also discovered less 'islands' that I'd missed first time around, so I must be getting a tad better at judging angles...

 

Put the resin on overnight and up about 5am to check results.

This btw is what the W. of Ireland looked like at dawn this morning - a singularly lurid inflammation swiftly transforming into a torrential gunmetal rain:

Very John Martin.

(No, not that one with the 'y' - the 19thC apocalyptomaniac):

Anyhow in the dawn light I did see that a bunch of shapes had emerged successfully from the goo, so after a thorough washing in IPA I dunked them in a tank of water/detergent mixture and shot of back to the scratcher for a last couple of hours of blessed kip. After about an hour under the UV map and picking off the remaining supports with a thumbnail, here we are:

As per previously. nothing sanded so this is them in their raw state as they emerged.

 

I'll go over them in more detail at the weekend in order to make notes about anything that needs changing but initial observations are positive as a viable workflow, saving the following:

• Offsets for all holes all need to be bigger: whether it's suction or just resin accumulating in the enclosed space, the holes simply aren't big enough (though main ones for the wing hinges seem fine, so only small round/square/slits need expanding by I reckon 40% in size.). Same issue with holes for front wheel axle and arrestor gear hook- may be possible to thicken these sections it slightly w/o wrecking the visuals.
• The radius arm of the main gear is too thin to support the required weight so will be replaced with a brass PE part.
• Idea of using brass rod as locking pins for main fold linkage (which I forgot to add to the print list dammit...), latches and main gear will be discarded as impracticable at this scale. Latch pins will be printed as part of structure as those visuals work fine for the rear mechanism whilst two former items will be bonded to surrounding structures using resin.

I was pretty pleased with how well the structural integrity and level of detail held up - the only real 'failure' was a slight warping of the  outer wing section at the rear:

I'm not overly alarmed by this tbh as the section printed here is only 6mm wide whereas actual print will run out as far as rib 8 (where the wing fence is located) and  am not anticipating this problem to recur with a large supporting cross section. Certainly that hasn't happened with this section when printed to this extent on a previous occasion.

 

To pick out the level of detailing a bit more prominently, I rubbed some dark whiteboard marker into the parts to help with the photography:

Here's just a selection of views then to give a sense of how certain details have performed. Firstly the inboard wingfold:

Even bits I didn't think would appear have remained 9such as those thin perpendicular triangular bits behind the rear latching mechanism. Printing that mechanism directly onto rib 4 seemed to work fine with no intrusiveness from their rear support structures, and a pleasing level of detail remaining in the hinges.

Outboard counterpart:

A couple of shots of the forward latching mechanism and cable tray:

Pleased that the latch structures will work mounted separately - I'll have a play around at the weekend tacking them on (along with some brass rod) to mockup the visuals, as I expect some fun getting things aligned:

The cable tray I feel looks a bit 'soft' compared to the original, so I'm likely to replace this with brass strip bent into shape. Necessary also I feel to give some supporting strength up at the front of the wingfold.

Arrestor hook and commensurate recesses in the rear exhaust fairing I've no complaints about:

Aagain, I think I'll need to replace the upward-pointing actuator with some brass tube for strength when mounting into position - these kinds of decisions are I think indicative no how no single material is really satisfactory on it's own in representing so many diverse elements in three dimensions - especially where strength as well as appearance is at a premium:

Although I won't do it on the actual model (for reasons of painting access),I printed the Microcells as part of the front wheel bay and it worked quite handily:

@hendie's frustums worked a treat:

Front and main legs:

Actually looking at that radius arm again, the short thin section of it isn't a main load bearing section so I may just get away with keeping it.

It's not all that evident but the front oleo was the only place I cocked-up putting a couple of supports too close to the main vertical so that there was no physical separation to cut them away - I need to watch that next time!

The wheels. These satisfy me in a profoundly inexplicable manner....

With hindsight there really was no need for me to have printed them in two halves - with just a few contact points on the wheel rubbers to deal with, printing them whole shouldn't result in much heartache at the cleanup stage:

Nosewheel axle will need re-drilling though but again, no real angst.

 

Quick donk of the oleo into place for a gander at the visual:

Sits a bit high but that's due to mounting hole in the roof of the well needing to be a bit deeper - you can see above as well those two supports I mentioned that I got too close to the stbd side of the oleo.

 

As I was taking the last few photographs, a strangely radiant disc miraculously appeared in the sky so it was a good opportunity to dab some resin on to the hinge mounts to cure in the sunlight (in bright sun, usually less than a minute). The wings here are tacked together quickly before the sun disappeared rather than carefully positioned, hence the gap between the two halves:

From the front to give a sense of the surface relief involved:

Clumsy tacking together of parts excluded, today's results give me confidence that the design process is working. Before moving rearwards to look at the RAT and beginning to confront the frankly intimidating decisions needed in regard to opening up the engine bays and building the Avons, I need to collect my thoughts about what bits in today's haul need adding to the PE list and what bits needs alterations to their size/depth before proceeding onward.

 

Thanks for looking-in: have a great evening!

Tony

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[bigbadbadge]

Looking good Tony

[CedB]

    

[Fritag]

Profoundly satisfying.....And I didn’t even do owt... If you’re not feeling smugly contented Tony, you’re not human.....

 

 

Edited July 31, 2020 by Fritag

[71chally]

...hang on, I recognise those bits from the Frog Sea Vixen box!

 

Seriously, that is an incredible result, though I have no knowledge of 3D printing, I was struggling to believe that your CADs would actually produce anything that well defined in that size.

I can't believe that it comes from a £260.00 printer neither!

 

 

 

Edited July 31, 2020 by 71chally

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

Amazing.  An instant Vixen conjured up from thin air, resin & algebra.  Oh, & talent; mustn’t forget that.

[giemme]

That's some outstanding result, Tony  

 

I now think you should really set up an articulate display box for rhe completed model, with 3D renders on the walls and these test prints laying around on the floor...

 

Ciao 

[Terry1954]

They said it all but I'll say it too .............absolutely outstanding and really fine results. Your talent and abilities are clearly not in question!

 

The mind boggles at what you might achieve, given a decent set of plans, and a maritime subject like HMS Furious for example ................... just saying 

 

Terry

[hendie]

3 hours ago, TheBaron said:

whether it's suction or just resin accumulating in the enclosed space,

 

I think perhaps it's a combination of that and print orientation. For example, when I did the lamps for Pegasus, in the first round of lamps the cavity was almost full of resin - they were printed with the hole in the horizontal position.  When I reprinted them I had the cavity facing downwards and they printed perfectly.

 

3 hours ago, TheBaron said:

 

@hendie's frustums worked a treat:

 

👍

 

3 hours ago, TheBaron said:

The Elegoo software has definitely improved in the latest version

 

Totally agree Tony. I think they are doing a good job and the releases appear to be regular so we can only hope they continue to improve with each release.

FYI - I found an Elegoo combined Wash & Cure station last night on Amazon but it appears to have disappeared today

 

 

Excellent results all round from these test prints and that bodes well for future Baronial Vixenry extravaganza 

[bbudde]

Tony, that looks marvellous. Great skills. Looks very convincing. Great job and a very atmospheric photo at dawn. Not hell at all except on the star itself or much nearer.

Cheers

[Learstang]

Brilliant work on the CAD and the printing! Being a dabbler myself in 3-D design and 3-D printing, I have some dim idea of just how much work you've put into this (come to think of it, I have only a dim idea about most things...). I'd just like to be able to do something simple, like print out a replacement H2S radome for my Halibag. I could if I only put my mind... oh, right, well, forget it then.

 

Regards,

 

Jason

[michaelc]

Tony, the art of craftmanship is still amongst us.  It's a pity that more people cannot appreciate what has been going on here.   Thanks!

[CJP]

Fabulous work Tony - I usually scratch build wing folds so seeing you able to 3D print & reproduce them in such detail ( and in 1/72 as well) is awesome

CJP

[qn30jEkPz7]

I’m sick with envy at how well this is going. Bloomin’ lovely

[Space Ranger]

10 hours ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

Amazing.  An instant Vixen conjured up from thin air, resin & algebra.  Oh, & talent; mustn’t forget that.

There may be some Hogwarts spells involved, also.

 

Seriously, my thunder is struck. My gob is smacked.

 

(Ooh, that last sounds dirty, doesn't it? What's the expression you Brits use? "Fnarr, fnarr"?)

[Pete in Lincs]

That bloke from the Tate Modern was on the blower again. Can you have this lot mounted in 10 x 8 frames for next Thursday?

Oh, and send us some rain, too damned hot for the Memsahib here in the East!

Lovely moulding/whittling/card & filler, BTW.