1/350 HMS PUMA

[Terry1954]

4 hours ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

Kind of a carrier; that’s Triumph, in reserve as a heavy repair ship by the time she was in Chatham

Yes thanks, I did wonder about that, and on closer inspection I can see it is Triumph, with all that gubbins on the deck to the rear of the island.

 

Terry

[robgizlu]

Chewbacca - you're making me feel very unworthy - the moral pressure to learn CAD and get a printer is rising

I somehow feel I should but the amount of time spent learning for someone with no programming background is daunting

We are going to have to enlist you to give specific maritime tutorials for beginners

Either way it's clearly going to unlock any number ofotherwise impractical projects - I contine to watch with fascination.  

Between you and Pascal, I'm beginning to feel real knuckle-dragging Luddite 

 

And I've received my IPMS mag and Bulolol does look excellent within the spread!!

Keep it coming 

Rob

[Chewbacca]

Thanks Rob.  I'm not the one to be giving tutorials on this - it would be a case of the blind leading the blind.  I'm now up to V3 of the ACH aerial and I still don't think it has printed correctly.  V1 just gave me a series of tiny blobs on the printing face.  V2 at least printed some supports but not the aerials.  I redrew it and doubled the thickness of the various components on the ground plane and something has printed though I fear the gaps between the tubes are solid.  I think to be honest I am pushing the boundary of what my printer is capable of.  But I'm not giving up.  I still feel sure this will give a better result in the end than trying to scratch build it from Albion Alloys rod but that is the back up plan.

 

And thanks for the kind words about BULOLO

[Chewbacca]

Turns out that where I thought the gaps were solid, it was simply liquid resin that was being held in place by surface tension and as soon as I washed them off, it all became beautifully clear.  I'm going to call this a result!  Perhaps slightly heavy and I think the yardarm that holds it may be a wee bit long but I'm not changing it now (unless of course I break it off during handling which I think is a very distinct possibility!)

 

 

 

 

If you look carefully at the top image, you will see on the left hand aerial that there appear to be a couple of extra aerials around the base.  I think that is the residue of V2 that must have been sitting at the bottom of the resin bath having fallen off the supports.  Lesson learnt there that I must thoroughly clean the bath every time between prints and not assume that because I can't see anything that there's not anything there.

 

This has got me thinking though.  What else could I use the printer for?  I'm not especially happy with the white metal 25 man liferafts so could potentially improve on them.  I need a set of roller fairleads for the fo'c'sle break and the only other fairleads are included as part of the photo-etch on the stern.  Given that she will be alongside, I do need a full complement of fairleads for the berthing lines.  Let's get to those reference photos...

[Terry1954]

Great work in general and on the 3D printing specifically Ralph. That whole foremast area looks superb.

 

Terry

[Chewbacca]

As @bootneck observed in one of his build threads, this 3D printing malarkey can get quite addictive.  Unfortunately the 3D CAD all takes time - especially when you're still very unfamilar with it as I am.

 

Take for example a simple, 25 man liferaft container.  I had a day's leave to fit in on Friday or lose it so I spent a few hours - about 3 in fact - trying to draw this from a couple of spheres, a cylinder and 5 pipes.  It sort of looked okay bearing in mind the finished product is about 4mm long and 1.6 mm diameter, but I wasn't happy because it didn't quite look right and in any case I wanted to know how to do incase I ever needed it for something larger scale.  

 

My son was home this weekend (perfectly COVID safe - he lives alone and is in a support bubble with us!) and with his engineering expertise he knocked one out in about 3 minutes.  Then had to spend another 20 minute taking it apart to show me how he'd done it.  The supports are , however, all my own work, but for some strange reason when I put them in I can only rotate the render in 2 dimensions so what you're looking at here is the bottom of the cannister.

 

 

Then onto the fairleads.  RAS roller fairleads first because I thought they'd be easier.  They look a little clunky but again, the printed product is 4mm wide, 2mm high and 1.5 mm deep.  The supporting brackets are at the limit of what my printer can do (0.2mm).

 

 

The main fairleads are smaller still - about 2 mm long 1 mm wide and 1.2 mm high.  I did manage to the convex curve on the inside of the fairlead but I felt that trying to get the concave on on the outside was stretching my skills a bit far at the moment.  I was also concerned once again that putting the concave curve in would make the material too thin to print.  Given their size, a quick swipe with a rat tail file once printed should suffice!

 

 

And then while on a roll, I thought if I've now got a set of fairleads to go on board for the berthing lines to pass through, I guess I'd better have some concrete bollards on the jetty to secure to.  Apologies that this is gloss white, I haven't worked out yet how to get the full colour palette in the render tool nor how to paint stripes on the side! I did look at trying to put the wear into the corners but figured that would be easier with a sanding stick once printed.  But no, before anyone asks, I'm not going to splice the soft eyes on the end of the berthing cables.

 

 

Next task is to slice these up and get them ready for printing.  And once they're done, it's out to the spray booth for some primer.

 

On a related note, the new Squid mortar and 40 mm Bofors finally arrived from Black Cat on Friday.  As @beefy66 observed in his

thread, the Squids are extremely good whilst the Bofors are utterly exquisite:

 

 

Thanks for watching

 

Edited January 17, 2021 by Chewbacca
Corrected photo URL

[Chewbacca]

So there I was on Monday after I'd done the first print of all of those designs and got nothing from the printer whatsoever - my fault entirely, I'd set the supports way too thin - and i was redrawing the supports when I looked at another photo of PUMA from the port quarter and realised that there was a hydraulic crane sitting there that I hadn't spotted before.  Back to Fusion and draw one of them.  Took a couple of nights but I am reasonably pleased with the results

 

 

I then added the cranes to the slicing software and went for a second print, this time with some success.  The main fairleads, which were the smallest of them all, and one dockyard bollard printed okay, but the rest once again just printed the supports with nothing on the end.

 

For the third attempt I really beefed up the supports but with the fear that the supports would be bigger than the actual pieces which would then be impossible to remove.  This time they all printed okay,

 

 

The problem was not so much getting the small pieces off the supports, but as you can see from the liferafts, getting them to stay attached by one contact point to make them easier to paint.

 

I know the photos aren't great - even using a Canon EOS D-SLR  it was getting pretty close to the limit of what the macro function was capable of, but you get the gist.

 

Some close ups:

 

Liferafts

 

Fairleads and one of the dockyard bollards

 

Crane and roller fairleads

 

Thanks for watching

[JohnWS]

Nice 3D work Ralph, & a great looking build overall.   

 

Having just started my first 1/350 build, I can appreciate the difficulty of making & handling these small parts.

 

John

 

 

[Terry1954]

Impressive 3D work Ralph. I'm currently working my way through some Blender tutorials, and latterly Fusion. Fusion is definitely my favoured software. but even though I have worked in IT most of my life, these software tools are a whole different world to what I have been used to. That said things are starting to make sense. Most impressed with what you have done.

 

Terry

[robgizlu]

Thoroughly impressive and I can see how this gets addictive 

Rob

[Courageous]

2 hours ago, robgizlu said:

I can see how this gets addictive

One reason why I've steared clear of it, I would end up building vey little.

 

Stuart

[Chewbacca]

Thanks everyone for your kind words.

 

Some time ago I had clocked that I would have to create a small petrol stowage to go on the starboard side of the transom - you can see it here -

it's the red thing over on the starboard side.  Traditionally in this scale I would made that from a solid piece of plasticard but I thought it would be a good test for the printer to see what I can do.  It was fairly straightforward to draw and I set the printer to do its stuff.  I was then sitting back at the bench starting to attach the fairleads that I had printed earlier when my daughter walked in.  She asked if I was printing because she could hear the fans to which I said I was.  Her reply was "Don't you need that" as she pointed to the build plate where I had left it after cleaning yesterday morning...  Not sure how I describe my reaction!  The good thing was that there was no damage (other than hurt pride) and a little clean up of cured resin from the bottom of the resin reservoir and this morning I took 2 very nicely printed petrol stowages from the printer.  Couldn't get a decent photo - it's 3 mm x 2 mm x a fraction under 2 mm - but you can get the idea from the render

 

 

I know that some might argue that that is a little basic and they'd be right.  I've recently scratch built on of these in 1/48 for HECLA's quarterdeck for the Wasp build so I have a good idea what they look like and I was vert tempted to draw it accurately, but then when I scaled it down it would be unprintable.  So I've had to accept the limitations of scale here and acknowledge that if I ever need another one in a larger scale I'll have to redraw it.

 

Just to prove that I can do normal modelling as well as this CAD stuff, I thought I'd better get the base sea scape completed while I could still wrap clingfim around the hull with minimal risk.  Unfortunately I didn't have enough of my usual quick setting Plaster of Paris and so had to use a slower curing version, otherwise the hull and all of the resin. white metal and PE bits would by now be getting primed.  

 

 

 

Probably the last update now until next weekend - I've got Zoom calls every night this week so no time at the bench for me.

 

Thanks for watching

Edited January 24, 2021 by Chewbacca

[Chewbacca]

Spent almost all of the weekend out in the rain trying to level of patch of ground ready for a new chicken coop so little time to progress, but I did manage to get most of PUMA and the base out to the spray booth for the primer coat.  As recommended on here for Atlantic Models resin I went with Alclad primer but it was slightly disappointing that the airbrush was spraying beautifully with the airbrush cleaner yet as soon as I put the paint itself through, it seemed strangulated and instead of getting a nice spray I was getting a weedy splatter.  I tried varying the pressure but it didn't seem to make a significant difference.  The main impact of turning up the air pressure was to blow the foremast off the inverted masking tape that was holding it so I shall have to come back to that to finish off the top aerial array.  I think the problem was that since my spray booth is in the garage, it was simply too cold and this had made the paint thicken up very slightly.  

 

Got there in the end though but I forgot to prime the rest of the photo-etch fret so next job is to get that sprayed, finish off the top of the foremast and then move onto first coat of ship's side grey.

 

 

 

 

I've also been playing around with trying to draw figures in CAD to see if can print the 150 odd people that I need swarming over the upper deck.  There is a very good program I found for doing this called Make Human which is designed for creating animations for the computer gaming industry but when the tutorial ran to 30 minutes just to show how to manually load all of the files into the right sub-directories to get it to work, I thought I might park that for the future.  Given that the figures are only just over 5 mm tall, I didn't need all of the granularity that Make Human can provide so currently I have a passing, fully posable "robot" that might work.  Won't know until I print a few in different poses though.

 

 

Thanks for watching

 

 

[ArnoldAmbrose]

Gidday, I hate to be nit-picky but shouldn't he be wearing a square necked white top? 😁 I'm looking forward to seeing Puma get her fangs and claws. Regards, Jeff.

[Chewbacca]

You're absolutely right Jeff, he should, if he were a member of the Ship's Company.  But he's not,; instead he may form the basis of the civilians who are coming on board to see what life in the Navy was all about.  Worked for me - I did my first Navy Days at 6 years old, announced to my parents in the car driving home that that's what I wanted to do when I grew up and just over 12 year's later entered through the hallowed gates at Britannia Royal Naval College to start training.  

[ArnoldAmbrose]

11 hours ago, Chewbacca said:

he should, if he were a member of the Ship's Company.  But he's not,; instead he may form the basis of the civilians who are coming on board to see what life in the Navy was all about.

Gidday, I'd forgotten about that. Touche 🙂 I must admit, I also enjoyed looking over ships, and later showing 'civvies' over ours. Regards, Jeff.

[Ex-FAAWAFU]

I’m thinking along similar lines - notably for the Swordfish crews for my 15 tiny Stringbags destined for Ark’s deck.  The plus side of that is that you only really need the upper torso & head, perhaps with the occasional arm for variety.  [The minus side is I don’t yet have a 3D printer, but that will change in due course!]

 

P.S.  But surely in Puma’s era yer wee man should at least have outrageously wide flares, platform shoes and a tanktop...

[Benbow]

On 2/1/2021 at 8:18 PM, Chewbacca said:

You're absolutely right Jeff, he should, if he were a member of the Ship's Company.  But he's not,; instead he may form the basis of the civilians who are coming on board to see what life in the Navy was all about.  Worked for me - I did my first Navy Days at 6 years old, announced to my parents in the car driving home that that's what I wanted to do when I grew up and just over 12 year's later entered through the hallowed gates at Britannia Royal Naval College to start training.  

Went to BRNC end of ‘89 - we may have crossed paths at some point. 

[Chewbacca]

11 hours ago, Ex-FAAWAFU said:

I’m thinking along similar lines - notably for the Swordfish crews for my 15 tiny Stringbags destined for Ark’s deck.  The plus side of that is that you only really need the upper torso & head, perhaps with the occasional arm for variety.  [The minus side is I don’t yet have a 3D printer, but that will change in due course!]

 

P.S.  But surely in Puma’s era yer wee man should at least have outrageously wide flares, platform shoes and a tanktop...

I can thoroughly recommend the Elegoo Mars printer.  It was the one that Hendie recommended to me last year and I understand my wife got an absolute bargain on one for me for Christmas in the Black Friday sale.  If all else fails, if you can get the figures drawn and exported as .stl files, I'm more than happy to print them for you.  We're only about an hour way from each other and the lockdown won't last forever!

 

I'm working on the flares; not s sure about the tanktop though!

 

27 minutes ago, Benbow said:

Went to BRNC end of ‘89 - we may have crossed paths at some point. 

May well have done.  I was flying Lynx by 89 before I sold my soul and went back to General Service in 92 to become a PWO.

 

Quick update - first coat of ship's side grey now drying.  

[Chewbacca]

Day off from work today to try to catch up on all the extra hours I've been working and I thought it would be a perfect opportunity to get the hull masked and spray the top half of the boot-topping so that I can move onto the deck.  But despite using Alclad primer which a number of people have recommended for Atlantic Models resin, this was the result after the Tamiya tape just touched the ship's side:

 

 

At this stage, all I had done was start to align the tape at the bow and the rest of the tape had dropped naturally onto the ship's side aft of there.  There was no pressure whatsoever and yet the moment I lifted it off, in all the places where it was touching the paint, it stripped off both the topcoat and the primer.  Now I'm used to Vallejo being fragile and lifting off if you don't properly prime, but I've never had it lift off the primer as well.  I usually use Halfords rattle can primer which has never let me down before.  I think the only option realistically is to rub it down to get all of the topcoat and primer off then start again which given the PE and 3D printed parts that I've already added, I don't especially relish.  I'm sure I'm not the only one that this has happened to - did you strip back or do you think there's a chance that I could get away with simply rubbing down around the damaged areas and respraying (probably with Halfords)?

 

I know that you can strip paint from plastic by sealing the parts in a bag overnight with oven cleaner.  Has anyone ever tried it on resin?

 

Of course if it's done it here, it's likely to do the same on all of the other primed smaller parts including the masts so it looks like I shall have to finish the tops of those by brush.

 

The good news of course, if you go back to my opening post, is that this is a test build before I tackle the other 4 resin FF/DD in my collection in which I have actually served and so to my simle sailor's mind at least, any lessons learnt from PUMA will improve those.

 

Any advice gratefully received.

[Terry1954]

Hmmm, not what you want. The only recent experience I've had with painting resin was on a 1/72 SF-260. On that occasion I used an Acrylic primer (Vallejo I think) and on top of that Tamiya Acrylics. All worked well with no masking pull.

 

I will say I'm pretty paranoid these days about cleaning/washing surfaces before any primer or paint. I've used Alclad primer on plastic and things are usually ok.

 

I'm assuming Halford rattle can primer to be Acrylic based?

 

Terry

[JohnWS]

Ouch, you've just confirmed my greatest fear about painting resin models.  I'm new to resin models & haven't been looking forward to painting my current resin project.  I'm only guessing, but I'm wondering if the smooth resin surface is the cause of the adhesion problem.  Also, I don't know if a mould release agent is used in the resin casting process.  Maybe some of the BM modellers who have experience with painting resin models can jump in with some advice.

 

For my build, I plan on giving the hull a good cleaning using either Simple Green or Dawn detergent to remove any foreign residue, then use some fine wet/dry sand paper to gently rough up the hull's smooth surface finish, & finally give it a 2nd good cleaning to prep it for paint.  I'm hoping the sanding & cleaning with help bond the primer coat to the resin.  Also, I'm planning on using an automotive paint primer (used on all my  models to date) as I like its adhesion properties on plastic, wood & metal.  I really hoping this will work (fingers crossed).

 

Good luck with your build.

 

John

[beefy66]

Hi Chewbacca

I swear by Halfords primer to save trying to strip all the ship i would just rub it smooth over effected areas and re prime and paint first to see if you can get away with that.  

 

As for normal resin preparation work I generally give the resin a light sanding and wash with fairy liquid dish washing stuff I am told it is a very good degreaser by missus B

I then leave on a window sill in direct sunlight to dry out and then repeat to make sure the resin and release agents are removed along with any dust particles

Then spray primer and dry rub down with a green scouring pad to key the primer then i use the airbrush unfilled to blow down any remaining dust.

 

HTH

beefy

[Chewbacca]

Thanks everyone for your advice.

 

As far as stripping is concerned, it was very easy.  I took some normal household masking tape, stuck it both sides and pulled.  Voila, 90% of the paint removed and the rest came off in about 5 mins with a gentle rubbing with 600 grade wet and dry.  Interestingly none of the paint came off the superstructure or deck.  

 

I gave everything a thorough wash in Ecover washing up liquid (trying to save the planet!) right at the start when I took all of the parts out of the box to remove any residual release agent but this time I rewashed it all again after stripping off the hull and exactly as others have said above, left in in the sunlight to dry.  Then resprayed the ship's side with Halfords primer and left it for a pair of hours, after which I did the masking tape test again.  This time, not a single piece of paint came away.  This photo was taken after the masking tape test:

 

 

Since that photo I have now sprayed the first new top coat and will see what it looks like in the morning.

 

I think what has happened is that even though I'd washed all of the parts when I first started, that was the best part of 3 months ago.  Since then I have been handling the hull extensively and the obvious place to hold it is on the ship's side, where, of course, it is smoothest..  And I suspect it has picked up grease off my hands.

 

So lesson learned for next time, rewash everything before heading into the spray booth!

Edited February 5, 2021 by Chewbacca

[Courageous]

2 hours ago, beefy66 said:

I swear by Halfords primer

Although a bit late, I too use this primer and have never had a problem (that's done it).

 

Stuart