Sea Vixen FAW.1x2

[Terry1954]

58 minutes ago, TheBaron said:

. Bought some photos of Furious in her 1918 guise from a seller on E-bay

That's my boy! Good luck with NMM.

 

Sorry to hear about your roof. We are fairly exposed to such weather down here on the seaward edge of Purbeck. Nothing like what you had I'm sure, but I had omitted to "lash down" our wrought iron garden table and chairs, and they were strewn every which way across the garden, luckily they caused no real collateral damage, despite being very close the the rear downstairs all glass french doors.... a lesson for me!

 

Brilliant work on "hollowing out" the fuselage there Tony. Something I will discuss with my own 3D tutor (Justin, one of my son's), when he next attempts to teach his dad some of the basics of this art. Or do I mean science...🤔

 

Terry

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

I imagine in your neck of the woods, Tony, there’s pretty much always a bloke called Brendan who’s good with fixing the occasional crisis.  Sorry to hear of your roof; we lost a shrub or two, but that feels rather pathetic now 

[perdu]

Terrible thing to find after the storm Tony but beautiful work on the Vixen.

 

Amazing work from my point of view.

[CedB]

Well, that makes our windy woes look minor. Pleased you got it sorted so quickly  

 

Marvellous CAD work too Tony. Making me think about playing with Fusion again. 
I see Elegoo have announced the Pro 2. Maybe I should wait for a 3?

 

 

[TheBaron]

7 hours ago, Spookytooth said:

Sorry to hear about your roof woes Tony.

But at least you got it sorted out, and plenty of timber to burn during the dark months.

 

The Vixen is coming along very nicely indeed.

Thnx on all counts Simon!

Tomorrow's forecast is for rain later in the morning so I've no excuse for getting back out into the garden first-thing to finish dragging fallen boughs up against the hedge... 🌳🌳🌳

6 hours ago, bbudde said:

As above Tony. Sorry to hear that and it seems that the some of the storm runners arrived here today as it is very windy. The good thing is, that it's fresh, cool air from the North Atlantic and now very enjoiable outside. Time now to ventilate my flat to get more comfortable conditions than yesterday. Nice work on the Cad's btw.

Cheers

Cheers Benedikt - hope you don't get too strong a wind over there! 🌬️

6 hours ago, Terry1954 said:

That's my boy! Good luck with NMM.

Thought you'd be pleased Terry! 😁

(Did you get that handsome MTB finished BTW? I'm sorry if I've missed updates.)

6 hours ago, Terry1954 said:

Brilliant work on "hollowing out" the fuselage there Tony.

My brain is rather slow these days otherwise I might have hit upon that somewhat economical method much sooner!

6 hours ago, Terry1954 said:

Something I will discuss with my own 3D tutor (Justin, one of my son's), when he next attempts to teach his dad some of the basics of this art. Or do I mean science...

My own take is that anything involving mind and matter is always art AND science.

Is your son taking you down the Fusion route Terry, or a different package?

5 hours ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

I imagine in your neck of the woods, Tony, there’s pretty much always a bloke called Brendan who’s good with fixing the occasional crisis.

😆 Between Brendan (roofing), Seamus (mechanic), Paddy (tractor & trailer hire), Kevin (hardware supplies) and Fergal (tyres), house and car are pretty much covered these days, and all within a five mile radius! Anything beyond that and living in the country has made us pretty self-sufficient skills-wise over the last couple of decades.

 

One job I have to do is this week is 3D print a couple of ends for the greenhouse guttering in order to collect water in a butt via a hose - a case of ancient meets modern?

5 hours ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

Sorry to hear of your roof; we lost a shrub or two, but that feels rather pathetic now 

Thanks Crisp - no long term harm done and could have been worse.

2 hours ago, perdu said:

Terrible thing to find after the storm Tony but beautiful work on the Vixen.

Kind as always Bill.

TBH it was nice to get back to to the smaller controlled environment of the Vixen this morning after grappling with Nature at 1:1 the last couple of days!

2 hours ago, CedB said:

Well, that makes our windy woes look minor. Pleased you got it sorted so quickly

Thanks Ced: A couple of the fallen trees were willows down the end of the garden that we'd been growing for biomass to feed the stove with anyway, so this simply hastened their demise.

2 hours ago, CedB said:

Marvellous CAD work too Tony. Making me think about playing with Fusion again. 
I see Elegoo have announced the Pro 2. Maybe I should wait for a 3?

That perennial dilemma of when to jump eh Ced? Does my head in sometimes with changing technology and the same issue we have with upgrading camera tech at work: what constitutes a good time to buy?

 

The factor defining resolution on the likes of the Elegoo and similar models currently is always going to be the pixel size of the display screens used to expose the resin- the new Elegoo for example simply prints to a larger size and more quickly, but the level of detail remains the same as the older version myself and Alan use. Until pixel dimensions get smaller, this is a fixed limit that lets you print down to about 0.2mm.

 

Unless you need to print big sections or scratch-design complete aircraft, my penn'orth would be to suggest playing around with Fusion to get comfortable designing the kind of AM parts you want to be able to add to your kits, and get a resin printer of the size of the Elegoo Mars. This gives you the ability to turn out parts to augment builds to your satisfaction without sacrificing the pleasure you get from still making kits.

 

You've got to love the lower middle classes haven't you:

(I'm currently reading a 19th century dictionary of street slang and the richness of the language is  compelling.)

 

Night all.

[giemme]

Tony, I think God gave you Guinness to compensate for the horrible weather... I'm glad you're sorted already!

 

More brilliant 3Ding, I see When is  next test print going to be? Just asking for a friend...  

 

Ciao 

[bigbadbadge]

Sorry to hear about your roof Tony  glad you are now sorted though.   More great work on the Sea Vixen too 

Chris 

[Terry1954]

13 hours ago, TheBaron said:

Thought you'd be pleased Terry! 😁

(Did you get that handsome MTB finished BTW? I'm sorry if I've missed updates.)

The Vosper still plods on in the Maritime section, turning out to be quite a lot of scratch building. It's been on the go for around 2 years now,  diving in around page 8 should give you a feel for lack of  progress

 

 

I always have a number of other projects on the go most of the time, together with a commission build in 1/48 at the moment, which takes quite a bit of priority (no WIP for that at moment).

 

13 hours ago, TheBaron said:

My own take is that anything involving mind and matter is always art AND science.

Is your son taking you down the Fusion route Terry, or a different package?

Fusion is the preferred route, although he dabbles in many, but yes Fusion for me.

 

At some point (in the distant future I hasten to add) I rather fancy scratch building a maritime subject and 3D techniques are a definite option. I've always liked the Type 82 destroyer HMS Bristol as I doubt we'll ever get a 1/350 model of her, and I'm also a fan of the Cold War era Soviet destroyers (Kotlins, Kanins, Krupnys, Kildins and Kashins), but that's all distant ambitions at the moment. Too many other projects on the bench and in the near future from the stash!

 

Your Vixen builds remain a huge inspiration for going down this route.

 

Terry

[71chally]

22 hours ago, TheBaron said:

 

And I always thought that he was wounded in the Cape Colony Region!

 

Sorry to hear about the damage to your house, and glad that it has started to be sorted out, but don't fellers take down trees?? (and no, I'm not going down the tree fellers gag route!) Sounds a bit wild over there!

 

Cracking work with the Vixen Tony, understanding the wall thickness technique👍

 

 

 

[hendie]

On 8/22/2020 at 8:34 AM, TheBaron said:

copy and shrink this down to form the inner wall, nesting it inside the first one.

 

so there's no "shell" function in Fusion then Tony? 

In SolidWorks there is a shell function which cores out a solid based on a wall thickness input.  Fails more than it works but for the most part, it's passable.  As long as the solid isn't too complex it usually manages to handle it.

 

sorry to hear of your weather woes but seems like you have it sorted. 

 

 

On 8/22/2020 at 4:26 PM, TheBaron said:

Unless you need to print big sections or scratch-design complete aircraft, my penn'orth would be to suggest playing around with Fusion to get comfortable designing the kind of AM parts you want to be able to add to your kits, and get a resin printer of the size of the Elegoo Mars. This gives you the ability to turn out parts to augment builds to your satisfaction without sacrificing the pleasure you get from still making kits.

 

wise words indeed

 

[qn30jEkPz7]

10 hours ago, hendie said:

so there's no "shell" function in Fusion then Tony? 

Same function is there (with the same process and foibles you describe for SolidWorks)

Edited August 24, 2020 by LostCosmonauts

[corsaircorp]

Hello Tony,

I'm totally lost in these 3D's matters but what you do with it is really amazing !

I'll better stay away from all that stuff, Still, I'm crazy enough...

Imagine what a distorted mind like mine could do with it....

So sorry for the roof, I got the same distastefull adventure last year,

Hope that everything is OK now !! 

Sincerely.

CC

[Brandy]

It looks as though you've been beaten to it. Lukgraph have just announced a Hawker Nimrod. Part cast, part printed!

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=2601550333492357&id=100009122475726&sfnsn=mo&extid=IFSk9Dh0EeTSMRNT

I'd say 3d printing is here to stay!

 

Ian

[TheBaron]

On 8/22/2020 at 9:34 PM, giemme said:

Tony, I think God gave you Guinness to compensate for the horrible weather

In that it's an unbroken pale layer above and dark underneath, that's a pretty good visual metaphor of the daily weather out West here at the moment Giorgio...

On 8/22/2020 at 9:34 PM, giemme said:

When is  next test print going to be? Just asking for a friend

😉 You can tell your friend it'll probably be a few weeks yet G: with the external shape of the aircraft sorted and sufficient information about how well the smallest parts will reproduce now, I want to get the engine bays and the Avons sorted before committing more to resin.

On 8/22/2020 at 11:49 PM, bigbadbadge said:

Sorry to hear about your roof Tony  glad you are now sorted though.   More great work on the Sea Vixen too

Gracias on all counts Chris: lucky we got the roof fixed so quickly as Storm Francis washed over us a few days back with another deluge.

On 8/23/2020 at 11:07 AM, Terry1954 said:

diving in around page 8 should give you a feel for lack of  progress

Will do - thanks Terry!

On 8/23/2020 at 11:07 AM, Terry1954 said:

I rather fancy scratch building a maritime subject and 3D techniques are a definite option.

Good man - I think you'll be pleasantly surprised at the quality of results that perseverance brings and it offers so many rewarding ways to expand the craft.

On 8/23/2020 at 12:15 PM, 71chally said:

And I always thought that he was wounded in the Cape Colony Region!

On 8/23/2020 at 12:15 PM, 71chally said:

I'm not going down the tree fellers gag route

Your restraint is admirable James. 😁

On 8/23/2020 at 12:15 PM, 71chally said:

understanding the wall thickness technique

If nothing else the sheer complexity of the SV's airframe shapes have been a brilliant learning environment to cut your teeth on.

On 8/23/2020 at 10:14 PM, hendie said:

so there's no "shell" function in Fusion then Tony? 

Yep, but as Alistair says: ⤵️

On 8/24/2020 at 8:56 AM, LostCosmonauts said:

Same function is there (with the same process and foibles you describe for SolidWorks)

 - put  the 'shell' tool anywhere near the Vixen airframe and it runs crying back up to the menu bar!

On 8/23/2020 at 10:14 PM, hendie said:

sorry to hear of your weather woes but seems like you have it sorted. 

Thanks Alan - we're lucky in that any bits we can't handle ourselves you can usually connect with somebody through the local grapevine to get sorted.

On 8/24/2020 at 9:17 AM, corsaircorp said:

I'll better stay away from all that stuff, Still, I'm crazy enough...

Yes. Yes you are CC! 🤪

On 8/24/2020 at 9:17 AM, corsaircorp said:

So sorry for the roof, I got the same distastefull adventure last year,

You suddenly feel incredibly vulnerable don't you knowing that you're a downpour away from disaster until it's fixed?  I must get one of those old lorry tarpaulins to keep in the shed for emergency cover.

On 8/24/2020 at 4:46 PM, Brandy said:

It looks as though you've been beaten to it. Lukgraph have just announced a Hawker Nimrod. Part cast, part printed!

Interesting - the future's come at us very fast Ian hasn't it?

I'm hopeful that this trend might see a lot of smaller startups producing more accurate niche/custom kits than mainstream bulk manufacture has been capable of providing. That and the reinstatement of a medieval guild system involving secret codes and bizarre ceremonial clothing... 😁

 

With matters of import pulling me in several directions of late it's been something of a sanctuary  to be able to find and hour or two here and there and become distracted from worries by problems of a de Havilland nature instead:

Not sure about naval day but Freud would have had a field-day with the messages that sends out....

 

One matter giving not a little concern at this end was to create a 'shell' for the rear fuselage section that runs from behind the cockpit to the spectacle beam that marks the start of the rear exhaust fairing. As with the nose, I had several self-imposed problems to unpick from having created such a complex set of surfaces as a contiguous solid early on in the build. Much twanging of neurons later and the results were much more controlled than I'd dare hope:

The most important aspect of this process was to ensure that at no point does the wall thickness drop below 0.8mm in order to avoid warping later on. Also visible in the above shot is the angled aperture in the stbd wall for the engine intake ducting that penetrates into the engine bay at this point. This also took some finessing as not only do I have to have the intake leading from the front of the Avons to seamlessly integrate with the lips of the intake opening in the leading edge, but this too needs to be at 0.8mm thickness without disrupting the surfaces of the wing root in places, like so:

 

 

Also visible from the front you can see that I've added that small lower intake that runs along the outside of the airframe beneath the upper intake. This was a hell of a piece to try and get right due to the way the shape blends from main fuselage contour into the split opening of the lower intake. At 0.32mm, the walls of this smaller intake should print in order to permit a reasonable facsimile of the actual openings and avoid the credibility gap of a blank front.

 

Intake, side fairing and wings added to check structural and visual alignments working:

I'm quite pleased with how both intakes now work, the larger engine one in particular giving a good sense of interior volume through into the engines:

I still need to think through the particulars of how these sections can be pieced together later due to the the fact that '481 will have the engine bays closed but engine boss/fans need to be visible, whereas '708 will have the engines added with the boss/fans as part of them instead.

 

I found another viewing mode in Fusion earlier today that lets you look at the subject in a purely shaded view without lines and without the need to render a separate high res image. This gives a much better sense of physical volume and shape in relation to how an actual print will look as a solid object (rather than a CAD design), so hgere are some representative views of current progress:

Hope this finds all of you in good form.

Tony

 

 

 

 

 

[qn30jEkPz7]

38 minutes ago, TheBaron said:

That and the reinstatement of a medieval guild system involving secret codes and bizarre ceremonial clothing... 😁

You've bought yourself the dirndl and started practicing your funny handshakes haven't you

 

[corsaircorp]

Impressive Vixen, I say !!

That's about a brand new kit !

As I've an old roof, I always have buckets and tarpaulins...

I have to replace the whole roof but we are at about 40.000€...

Next year maybe...

Sincerely

CC

[giemme]

Level of realism increasing at every step , Tony!  

 

Ciao 

[Andwil]

I must say that alongside the amazing attention to detail and skill with the CAD, you are also showing an admirable (if somewhat frustrating for us) level of patience.  I don’t know that I could resist the urge to print bits out, not that I’ll ever be in that position.

 

AW

[Brandy]

10 hours ago, TheBaron said:

That and the reinstatement of a medieval guild system involving secret codes and bizarre ceremonial clothing... 😁

I think @Martian & @general melchett are way ahead of you here!

 

Ian

[Martian]

44 minutes ago, Brandy said:

I think @Martian & @general melchett are way ahead of you here!

 

Ian

Its a fair cop!  Not sure how General Melchett is pleading though ( I expect he will plead sanity). I however, am asking for many thousands of similar offences to be taken into consideration.

 

Martian 👽 (Typed in his secret vest and pants. Oops I forgot the vest!)

[qn30jEkPz7]

18 minutes ago, Martian said:

Typed in his secret vest and pants. Oops I forgot the vest!

I thought your carapace had scales, turns out it is just a grubby string vest

[CedB]

Wow, again. Those views are just gorgeous  

[woody37]

This is amazing! Can't wait to see all this digital work turn in to something plasticy

 

[Andwil]

1 hour ago, Martian said:

Martian 👽 (Typed in his secret vest and pants. Oops I forgot the vest!)

 

24 minutes ago, CedB said:

Wow, again. Those views are just gorgeous  

 When posts are taken out of context.

 

AW

[perdu]

7 minutes ago, Andwil said:

 

 When posts are taken out of context.

 

AW

Yeeeoowww!

 

"Sick bag Matron!"

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The new viewing strategy is making an actual Sea Vixen replica almost redundant

 

Using that method of displaying how will we even know if the plastic/resin actually got poured?

 

Answer: we won't, those new images look realer than a print...