28 Sqn AVRO 504K double trouble

[AdrianMF]

Amazing stuff - you should give those elves a raise on top of inflation and higher gas prices!

 

Microscale sheet 72-006  does not have a white AVRO emblem. Bad news, but it's news - sorry.

 

Although I try to keep away from electrical gizmos, I am eagerly awaiting an affordable* laser printer with a white toner!

 

* considerably less expensive (and fiddly) than what's on offer now.

 

Regards,

Adrian

[georgeusa]

I just found this thread and attempted to read it.  Most of it I don't understand as I feel lucky when I get a PDF to print correctly at work.  I am astounded as to what you can do with a computer and 3D printer.  Why would you ever need to buy another kit?  Your work output is so much better than the kit you bought.  And, to answer a question you posed about whether 3D is modeling; absolutely yes.  That is scratch building at the very highest level.  I do not think what you are doing on the computer takes any less skill than someone taking balsa and carving out the same part.  Both are skills mere mortals such as myself are incapable of doing.  I am going to try and read through this thread again to see if I can make more sense out of the design process.  This is almost as hard as trying to make sense out of British English!!!!

 

I am amazed at what you have done and am looking forward to more posts.  Maybe by the end, I will have learned enough to make some semblance of the process you are using to make an outstanding build by making your own parts.  Just mind blowing!

[The Spadgent]

Looks like you’re coming out on top with those stitched panels.  Brilliant work on the wheels too. I hate painting tyres too. Such a pain. That’sa nice solution. 😇

 

 Johnny

[SafetyDad]

Wow!

 

I haven't frequented this part of BM much recently, but what a pleasure finding this thread! Like others have observed here, 3D printing is a black art to me but I have enough DIY experience to appreciate the care being taken and the tolerances being worked to. I think your rib detail in the comparison shot with the BM fuselage looks very convincing - I appreciate that you intend to refine this.  

 

Very impressive work indeed

 

SD

[Marklo]

For what it’s worth I’ve started ( or will be soon) my Smer over in the Japanese GB, it will make a stark contrast with @hendies build…..  

[hendie]

On 4/10/2022 at 10:37 AM, Fritag said:

I think that in Fusion the project (sketch) to surface option would do similar.  Sounds like it would anyway 

 

Another brilliant update/masterclass Alan.

 

thanks Steve.  I think you are right with the project to surface tool - I really must try and get back into Fusion at some point.

 

On 4/10/2022 at 11:45 AM, perdu said:

Bench space to make room?

 

I reckon you are owed space in that there luxury accommodation for a small footprint device like that.

 

Just saying.

 

🤭

 

I'm looking forward to getting my small part of the basement back after the construction work is finished, and not having a todo list as long as my arm

 

On 4/10/2022 at 12:00 PM, AdrianMF said:

Amazing stuff - you should give those elves a raise on top of inflation and higher gas prices!

 

Microscale sheet 72-006  does not have a white AVRO emblem. Bad news, but it's news - sorry.

 

Although I try to keep away from electrical gizmos, I am eagerly awaiting an affordable* laser printer with a white toner!

 

* considerably less expensive (and fiddly) than what's on offer now.

 

Regards,

Adrian

 

it would be good is someone would come up with an affordable white printing option wouldn't it?

 

On 4/10/2022 at 1:17 PM, georgeusa said:

I just found this thread and attempted to read it.  Most of it I don't understand as I feel lucky when I get a PDF to print correctly at work.  I am astounded as to what you can do with a computer and 3D printer.  Why would you ever need to buy another kit?  Your work output is so much better than the kit you bought.  And, to answer a question you posed about whether 3D is modeling; absolutely yes.  That is scratch building at the very highest level.  I do not think what you are doing on the computer takes any less skill than someone taking balsa and carving out the same part.  Both are skills mere mortals such as myself are incapable of doing.  I am going to try and read through this thread again to see if I can make more sense out of the design process.  This is almost as hard as trying to make sense out of British English!!!!

 

I am amazed at what you have done and am looking forward to more posts.  Maybe by the end, I will have learned enough to make some semblance of the process you are using to make an outstanding build by making your own parts.  Just mind blowing!

 

Kind words George - many thanks

 

On 4/13/2022 at 2:21 AM, The Spadgent said:

Looks like you’re coming out on top with those stitched panels.  Brilliant work on the wheels too. I hate painting tyres too. Such a pain. That’sa nice solution. 😇

 

 Johnny

 

I find extreme laziness is a great motivator Johnny.

 

On 4/13/2022 at 4:22 AM, SafetyDad said:

Wow!

 

I haven't frequented this part of BM much recently, but what a pleasure finding this thread! Like others have observed here, 3D printing is a black art to me but I have enough DIY experience to appreciate the care being taken and the tolerances being worked to. I think your rib detail in the comparison shot with the BM fuselage looks very convincing - I appreciate that you intend to refine this.  

 

Very impressive work indeed

 

SD

 

thanks SD

 

On 4/13/2022 at 10:48 AM, Marklo said:

For what it’s worth I’ve started ( or will be soon) my Smer over in the Japanese GB, it will make a stark contrast with @hendies build…..  

 

I contemplated buying that kit before plunging into the DIY option.  Kind of glad I went the DIY route now 

 

Not much to report from the front lines this weekend due to ongoing decorating and construction work though I'm now on the home straight (no pun intended) with only a few jobs remaining. Carpet fitters coming on Tuesday, but the tile fitters are 6 weeks out. Luckily the tiles are right at the basement walk-in doorway so that job doesn't interfere with anything else.  I do know that I will never ever, ever, under any circumstance whatsoever, attempt to fit  curved glass shower doors again in my lifetime.

 

There's no wonderful new tools or techniques being introduced this week, just your basic extrudes and cuts and rehashing of previous work as per sop.

The wheel inner hub got some rework to allow the undercarriage to fit together. Not pretty but functional - the rods will be 0.8mm brass rod.  0.5mm rod would be more in scale but I'm not sure they would be strong enough to carry the weight of the finished article so 0.8mm it is.

 

Undercarriage added to the main assembly, constrained in space, then mirrored.  It's such an ungainly looking contraption isn't it?

 

 

The engine cowl was thinned out.  As Steve noted when attempting to shell out the coaming on his Hawk, sometimes the shell command just doesn't want to play.  I had the same issue with this relatively simple shape - it just point blank refused to work at all so I ended up using a revolved cut to remove the unwanted mass.  I then chamfered the visible edges to give the appearance of the cowling being thinner than it actually is.

 

I then made the mistake of trying to enhance some of the previous work - There's a visible gap between the fabric at the rear of the cockpit and the tail section so I thought I should try and add some kind of visual representation. 

SolidWorks has a nice nuance in that it will not cut through an "extruded surface" - at least not in a nice and simple manner that you would expect. As an alternative I decided to adjust the previous split line sketch of the seams and have two vertical panels instead of one - leaving a small gap between them.  That was the easy part.  Aside from blowing up a number of features I had constructed later in the build sequence, I had also effectively changed the geometry and number of surfaces that command had been executed on, therefore I had to go back and reselect all the surfaces that should have been extruded within that command.  Straightforward but highly time consuming whereas before I had around 7 or 8 individual surfaces to extrude, by introducing that "gap" across the stitching I had increased the number of surfaces by a factor of big!

In this small section shown here there are 12 separate surfaces - each of those little round topped triangular sections at the curve of the zigzag becomes its very own surface.  Ordinarily not a big deal, but I don't have a CAD workstation, I have a bog standard laptop.

By the end of the command, it was taking anywhere from 1 to 3 minutes, maybe more for SW to resolve the surface I had just selected and extrude it. It took me several hours to do this simpler task. 

 

 

There, you can really see the huge impact it has had in the overall scheme of things there can't you?   What?  Where?   It's that rearmost vertical strip at the rear just by the foot hold .

Was it worth the effort? 

A resounding NO.

 

Windscreen bases added along with a few holes to aid in locating piping at some future point.

 

A few greeblies added to the back end

 

Then some more underside greeblies added and starting to work on how the undercarriage, or more accurately, the skid is going to be attached. I've also started adding a few holes here and there to use for rigging when the time comes.

 

Here's where things currently stand (shot taken prior to the cowling being shelled out.)  Items in red will be brass rod

 

 

The fuselage shell is mostly done now, though I'll need to do a thorough check on where I need to add rigging features.  I think wings will be the next area of focus - I really struggled with those in the Wapiti build and this is probably not going to be any different.

 

Oh look... there's some painting** needing done

 

 

 

 

 

 

** Not that kind of painting Giorgio, sorry

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Brandy]

That's looking rather splendid Alan. It does sound like a heck of a lot of work for the stitching though.

Have fun painting!

 

Ian

[perdu]

just blimey

 

 

fabutastic!

[Terry1954]

1 hour ago, perdu said:

just blimey

 

 

fabutastic!

 

Echo those fine words of my colleague!

 

This will look awesome when printed and assembled. 

 

That stitching is a key detail that will lift this one completely.

 

Terry

[The Spadgent]

I hate tasks that take simply forever but no one seems to notice. 😩

We know how much time and effort went in. Sewing badge achieved. 🤩🪡🧵

 

looking spanking too. 🙌

 

 Johnny

[Fritag]

knowledgeable and skilful work Alan.  Obvs….  

 

7 hours ago, hendie said:

There, you can really see the huge impact it has had in the overall scheme of things there can't you?   What?  Where?   It's that rearmost vertical strip at the rear just by the foot hold .

Was it worth the effort? 

A resounding NO.

 

 

I bet it turns out to be the killer detail wot elevates the build to new heights of perfection  And if it don’t? - well it was still worth it to add to the narrative depth and texture of the build thread 

 

7 hours ago, hendie said:

As Steve noted when attempting to shell out the coaming on his Hawk, sometimes the shell command just doesn't want to play.  I had the same issue with this relatively simple shape - it just point blank refused to work at all

 

Am I dreadfully shallow for finding it sort of reassuring that even the sensei has issues every now and then? 

 

 

 

 

 

[Terry1954]

1 hour ago, Fritag said:

Am I dreadfully shallow for finding it sort of reassuring that even the sensei has issues every now and then? 

 

Alan, just accept the name Master Po gracefully, then we can all call Steve Grasshopper. Far less cool than Mud Mover.............. or maybe not 🤔

 

😆

[giemme]

On 16/04/2022 at 14:45, hendie said:

Not that kind of painting Giorgio, sorry

   

 

3D-ing looking spectacular,  as per norm

 

Ciao 

[hendie]

On 4/16/2022 at 9:56 AM, Brandy said:

That's looking rather splendid Alan. It does sound like a heck of a lot of work for the stitching though.

Have fun painting!

Ian

 

I find painting on 1:1's even worse than on these little mites Ian.  The good news is that the painting is now finished, aside from a few touch ups that is.

 

On 4/16/2022 at 11:51 AM, perdu said:

just blimey

 

 

fabutastic!

 

eloquent as always Bill

 

On 4/16/2022 at 1:49 PM, Terry1954 said:

 

Echo those fine words of my colleague!

 

This will look awesome when printed and assembled. 

 

That stitching is a key detail that will lift this one completely.

 

Terry

 

I'm not so sure Terry. I'm not even sure if it will be visible on the final article - another test print beckons methinks.

 

On 4/16/2022 at 2:54 PM, The Spadgent said:

I hate tasks that take simply forever but no one seems to notice. 😩

We know how much time and effort went in. Sewing badge achieved. 🤩🪡🧵

 

looking spanking too. 🙌

 

 Johnny

 

thanks Johnny. I shall wear my badge with pride

 

On 4/16/2022 at 4:46 PM, Fritag said:

knowledgeable and skilful work Alan.  Obvs….  

 

 

 

I bet it turns out to be the killer detail wot elevates the build to new heights of perfection  And if it don’t? - well it was still worth it to add to the narrative depth and texture of the build thread 

 

 

Am I dreadfully shallow for finding it sort of reassuring that even the sensei has issues every now and then? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Issues?   I don't have issues. It's SolidWorks that has the issues.  

 

On 4/16/2022 at 6:19 PM, Terry1954 said:

 

Alan, just accept the name Master Po gracefully, then we can all call Steve Grasshopper. Far less cool than Mud Mover.............. or maybe not 🤔

 

😆

 

I think you missed another "o" off that Master name Terry

 

On 4/18/2022 at 2:19 PM, giemme said:

   

 

3D-ing looking spectacular,  as per norm

 

Ciao 

 

Thanks G. More digital bits and bytes follow.

 

 

Renovations are (sort of) nearing completion and time is almost starting to free up slightly.  I actually managed to find some time to fettle plastic during the week, but haven't had the opportunity to upload those particular shots yet so you'll just have to make do with the computery versions.

Now where were we?

 

On 4/16/2022 at 8:45 AM, hendie said:

I think wings will be the next area of focus - I really struggled with those in the Wapiti build and this is probably not going to be any different.

 

Oh!

 

Wings.

I thought I'd sneak up on them this time so started off with something that's not a wing but is nearly a wing - the elevator.  A simple enough extrude with a few choice cuts and radii applied. It didn't put up much of a fight and went down quietly - which makes a nice change.  The tailplane still needs a few tweaks once I figure out how the whole shebang is to be assembled and I can sort out that disappearing rib tape at the fuselage join.

 

 

The mainplane did put up a much better fight though and I did have to go a few rounds with it before it succumbed. 

Things started off easily enough with (again) a simple extrusion of the aerofoil section.  I've chosen to keep the aerofoil constant along the span of the wing as it's as thin as a thin thing to begin with and it's going to be difficult enough to produce without having it wafer thin at the extremity.

 

 

That was when the fight started.   I tried lofting the wingtip shape in as a one piece at the start and it would not cooperate at all.  I could get parts of the wingtip to form, but there was always some part that threw a wobbly.  The compound curves were a bit of a challenge.  I tried boolean operations, lofting, boundary surfaces and went through at least 3 different versions of the wing before I homed in on a method - lofting. 

This time, instead of trying to loft the wingtip as one complete section, I chose a sneaky approach.  This involved sectioning the wing in several places across the chord and creating sketches at each of those sections. The I created a guide curve of the wingtip shape in plan view.

First up was the trailing edge corner section. Sketches in cyan with the guide curve in magenta.

 

 

Followed by the leading edge... 

 

 

Followed by joining the dots  lofts by a series of yet more sketches

 

 

All of which resulted in creating a useable wingform.  While this process took place during multiple sessions over a couple of days, I feel happy now with the outcome and have finally arrived at a decent method for future wing creation, if there ever is such a repeat.

 

 

That was just the basic building block of the wing structure - now I had to create all the adornments and greebllies and such that make it look like a biplane wing.  Primary target here being the rib tapes.

Since I found such success using a basic extruded cut offset to a surface with the tailplane and elevator, I thought this would be a shooty-in job.

Nope.  Of course not.

I created a sketch of all the non-rib-tape wing sections then carried out the extruded cut offset to the upper surface of the wing.  The steely eyed among you may spot something starting to go wrong here...  The great thing about the offset to surface option is that you can select a surface and the cut will follow the contour of the surface.  That's the good thing.  The bad thing about offset to surface is that you can only select one surface - and even though I had extruded the wing from a single sketch, the extruded object had discrete sections (or surfaces) based on where vertices were located on the original sketch.

You can see the chosen surface highlighted in magenta'ish pink below.  Unfortunately, an aerofoil isn't formed from a single curve, and SolidWorks extrapolates from the chosen surface out to the limits of the sketch, which... 

 

 

resulted in this rather pleasing but ultimately useless wing.   Oh bother!

 

 

Yet another different approach is needed.  lets try some lateral thinking this time.

Since the wing is an extruded object I should also be able to extrude a cut along the length of that object unless SW decides to disagree with me again.   It certainly wouldn't be the first time.

This time around I created a sketch at the wing root which was essentially a copy of the aerofoil section - I then changed that sketch to purely construction lines, then created lines/arcs offset to those construction lines.  The sketch was then trimmed up a bit to ensure I wasn't cutting where there should be rib tape, and the cut was then extruded into the wing.

 

 

The depth of 0.045mm is a pure guess at this point and I won't find out how good or bad that is until I run a test print. I am aiming for something that is barely discernible but just enough to break up the uniform flatness of the wing. 

 

 

The extruded cut worked!  and I forgot to take any more screenshots during the process. (Sorry!)  This first "cut" was extruded around 4.5mm into the wing span.  That left one small bit of wing surface and the rest of the wing still coated in one huge piece of rib tape.  Linear array to the rescue. All I had to do was create a linear array of that cut along the span which would then create all the wing surface/rib tape intervals.

... which was a heck of a lot easier to write than it was to accomplish.   The challenge I was now facing was to create the correct number of rib tapes with the appropriate spacing so that the rib tapes ended up aligning with the strut locations and other features such as the aileron cut out.  You'd be forgiven for thinking that was an easy task.  It was so easy it took me somewhere between one and two hours of adjusting the length of the extruded cut and the spacing of the array before I could get everything to line up nicely.

I had to create a couple of different extruded cuts as the rib tape "cut" required to stop before the aileron, and the aileron required it's own rib tape cut. Finally, because the wingtip is all compound curves, I had to use the offset to surface cut for each of the 4 sections which can be seen in this view. 

 

 

That screenshot was taken after adding strut location holes, the aileron cut, and the footpands at the wing root.

Overall, I think this wing is a much better attempt than the wing I created for the Wapiti build - but I'm not going back to redo that!

 

 

Whoever thought that mounting pulleys on the outside of the wing was a good idea?  On every bloomin' wing too.  Some people have no consideration at all, have they?

Nowt for it then but to create a pulley - one of those nice and easy and even enjoyable tasks.  As always, a lot of guesswork involved in dimensions - and designing things that stand a chance of being printed. This pulley has a overall diameter of 2.5mm and a height of 0.6mm, with a 0.35mm cutout where I think 2 cables are supposed to be fitted.

 

and even at those dimensions it still looks over scale. Test print test print. Then decide what to do.  One way or another I shall need to represent (or just resent) those pulleys as once you notice them on the wings, you cannot not see them any more.

 

 

These latest adventure in digiland bring us up to this point in build time.

 

 

 

 

This weeks exciting episode is rounded of by a quick SAVEAS of the lower wing into an upper wing, and a quick upper wing center section (which was a doddle after the first wing) thrown into the mix leaving us with this. 

 

 

The upper wing needs a few tweaks, but all simple work. For example, the strut locations are still on the upper surface, and the rib tape needs a slight adjustment where the the wing root meets the center section.  All straightforward though - I can just delete the features of the strut locations leaving the sketch in place, then extrude a cut from the opposite side to move the location points to the underside of the wing.

 

Things have moved along better than I anticipated and getting the wing done  has been a great boost. I still haven't figured out how to break it apart yet though - a job for another day.

 

 

 

 

[HAMP man]

I have no idea how this has been contrived even though I have read the narrative, so to paraphrase and butcher an Arthur C Clarke  quote 'any suffucuently advanced technology will seem like magic to a numptie'. 

I like the pictures though.

 

When does the sticking start? 😆

 

Box On

 

Strickers

[Fritag]

Super post Alan; it’s really interesting and terribly useful reading how you problem solve the vagaries and limitations of the software such as problematic lofts and the limits of the offset to surface extruded cut.

 

Oh - and the 504 design is looking awfully impressive.  Obvs. 

[hendie]

On 4/21/2022 at 2:38 PM, HAMP man said:

I have no idea how this has been contrived even though I have read the narrative, so to paraphrase and butcher an Arthur C Clarke  quote 'any suffucuently advanced technology will seem like magic to a numptie'. 

I like the pictures though.

 

When does the sticking start? 😆

 

Box On

 

Strickers

 

Strickers, I wrote the narrative and I'm none the wiser.  Sticking will commence a few lines down - but not of the home brewed version (yet)

 

On 4/21/2022 at 5:50 PM, Fritag said:

Super post Alan; it’s really interesting and terribly useful reading how you problem solve the vagaries and limitations of the software such as problematic lofts and the limits of the offset to surface extruded cut.

 

Oh - and the 504 design is looking awfully impressive.  Obvs. 

 

Brute force Steve. Brute force.

 

Just a little update for the weekend.  I have some prints running this evening and I'll be nighty-night before they're finished so I thought I'd provide an update on the BLue Max bits.

 

First though, I did eventually manage to get a half decent shot of the cylinder head on the enjin. I've still another few bits to add to the head but based on what the printer has produced so far, I think the engine is going to be stunning, or at least the few small bits of it that you will end up being able to see should be stunning.

 

 

In between renovations, real life, work, and the usual frustrations I found I had some time to spend down in the basement where I could hold plastic in my hands.  It's been so long I'd almost forgotten what it was like.  Apologies in advance for the quality of this shot, but it is what it is.  

I straightened out the white metal framing and gave it a coat of Testors Wood then followed up with some brown colored oil paint.  I had tried to paint the longerons as provided by the kit but they were so ill-defined I ended up removing them and replacing them with some plastic strip. Some 0.2mm stainless wire was added for the rigging braces  and I splashed some black and some brass colored paint in a few places to try and add some variation (that will never be seen)

 

 

ah... this shot is a little better.

 

 

The floor framing was given the same wood/oils treatment prior to sticking in place, as were the instrument panels.  The kit does provide some decals for the instruments and they look to be reasonably good, so I'm saving them for my version.  Seats were given a coat of Aluminum, and then it was time to close it up

 

 

So here's a last look at the cockpit interior before port meets starboard and they live happily ever after.

 

 

Ehrrrrrr   I may need to do a bit of trimming here.

 

 

The problem was found to be the white metal framing interfering with everything else in the interior.  It seems that the molds have been blown open during molding resulting in excess thickness everywhere - that meant that the metal framing couldn't sit close enough to the sideframe due to all the excess plastic being in the way.  A big thumb and some pressure on the white metal managed to push it out of the way and conform more to the side frames, giving just enough space to close the fuselage up.

Well, close enough where I could smother the fuselage in clamps to force it to conform.

 

 

The seams are not pretty and are going to take a lot of work to get anywhere near half decent.

In order to avoid doing that I took a swing at the wings.  Blue Max thoughtfully provided two small indents at each wing root on the fuselage to aid in location - those were drill out. Blue Max however made a right hash of the wings with the molds halves being misaligned, one wing noticeably thicker than it's oppo, and due to the mold misalignment there are no indents visible on the wing roots themselves.  That's going to hurt later.

I took my best stab at guessing where the leading edge should start on the airframe, but can't figure out the angle of incidence as the difference in wing thickness is throwing me off.   At the moment I have only drilled the wings for the front pin, and I may have to wait until the upper wing is mounted before I can locate the lower wing fully to ensure they end up parallel to each other.

 

 

Putting that to one side, I dug out the conglomeration if bits that make up the engine.  I'm not a great fan of white metal, and I had absolutely no confidence that the engine cylinders would stay nicely in place on the casing using just superglue, so I made a little porcupine.

 

 

Stainless wire and superglue was the order of the day and with that combination there's at least half a chance this will stay together through the painting stage.

 

 

and now I'm off to enjoy my keema matar and chana aloo.

If the prints show something worthy - and I get time, I may try and post a small update tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[hendie]

15 hours ago, hendie said:

I may try and post a small update tomorrow.

 

and so it was written and so it shall come to pass...

 

Blue Max first.  Seams cleaned up but now needs sloshings of filler, but the engine fits.  Not so much for the cowling and that is going to need some attention later.  I sloshed some Mr Dissolved Putty on the seams and will attack that once cured.

 

 

Now to the hendified 504.

This was a real quick and dirty print in order to evaluate the features. The model was thrown into Chitubox, adjusted the orientation and I just used the automatic support  function to ready it for print.  I'll need to pay a lot more attention to the orientation and the size/location of supports when it comes to printing a "production" version, but for now, that works.

 

 

I had to throw the knife into the picture to give the camera something to focus on, but I think you can make out the stitching in this shot.  It doesn't look too bad at all so maybe all that effort was worth it after all.  I appear to have lost some of the seam tape on he fuselage around the cockpit area, but what does show up looks fine.  I may reduce the height slightly though once under paint and with it being a dark color, I think the current height may work just fine.

 

 

I was very pleased with the wing - I had an enormous amount if trouble printing wings with the last Mars, but the extra power in the UV cure on the Mars 3 looks like it did the job admirably.

 

 

Here's a comparison of the trailing edge on the hendiekit versus the Blue Max kit.  I think I have the trailing edge set at around 0. 175mm and it looks as though I could go thinner without any problems, however I think the 0.175mm is just fine and dandy for this.

 

 

Another comparison, this time the wingtip.  Much better.  Prior to this I had serious concerns about the wings since they were so thin and knowing the issues I faced with the Wapiti, I was afraid this may have been a show stopper. Happily that is not the case.

 

 

I have now found a way to get rid of my stores of useless Alclad nonstick primer - I can use it up on test prints. 

The rib tapes look a bit pronounced here but again but certainly no worse than the kit offering. I think I'll go back a revisit the height of the rib tapes though as it will just be a couple of mouse clicks to drop those down a tad and I think the wing will look better for it.

 

 

Once the primer is on that stitching really pops out.  Over-scale?  Maybe, but I think I'm going to leave as is - unless those knowledgeable folks in the hive think otherwise?

 

 

The new Mars continues to impress me - those holes on top of the fuselage are 0.35mm in diameter and they printed just fine.  The filler caps need a tweak though - the absolutely parallel look is gnawing at me so I'll rotate one of those slightly.

 

 

I took this shot to show how well those rigging holes on the tail section had printed, but it also shows up the stitching really well.  You can also notice how the seam tape suddenly disappears as it approaches the rear cockpit.  There's a bit of dust blocking one of the rigging holes just in case you were wondering.

 

 

and again here, you can see it at the front of the cockpit then it just stops... and I just double checked my model while I was writing this - only to discover that those areas are missing on the model too.  Ah... that explains it. (I figured it wasn't a printer issue).  At some point as I've been going back and forth in the model making adjustments SolidWorks has "lost" those surfaces.  It's an easy job to go back and reselect them - and that is what test prints are for really, isn't it?

 

 

Fixed now and I also lowered the height of the extrusion from 0.03mm to 0.025mm while I was there.

It's way outside of my skill set to reproduce the cockpit coaming padding with all it's wrinkles and lumps so I'll be using Mr Dissolved Putty to create some randomness to those areas when the time comes.

One area I haven't broached yet is that section at the wing root - you can see on the BM kit that there's a small almost vertical section where the wing is mounted and I haven't done anything about that yet.  I'm quite sure it wouldn't be noticed on the finished model but I as there's still some work to be done on the fuselage I think I'll try and incorporate that feature in my next round of modifications - and hopefully it won't blow up the rest of the model when I try. 

 

 

have a great whatever is left of your weekend folks

 

 

[giemme]

I'm amazed at both the plastic and the 3D printed resin progress - stitching looking spectacular on the latter, BTW

 

I think you are really refining your 3D art as you go, Alan - taking it to an over-the-top level  Notwithstanding the fact that you can egreggiously manage a traditional kit at the same time

 

Too bad you live that far, otherwise I'd be badgering you with 3D printing stuff requests....

 

Ciao 

[Bandsaw Steve]

Nice to see those shapes as they bring back fond memories for me, although they do make my efforts look a bit ‘agricultural’. 
 

Oh well. Never mind. Looking forward to see what comes of this. 👍

[Brandy]

I love the clarity of the prints. Having also seen how well Tony, Serkan San, and Steve have printed fine details with the 3 I do think an upgrade is on the cards, but how to stop the striations? No point printing fine detail if it all gets sanded off removing the printing marks!

 

Ian

 

[hendie]

1 hour ago, Brandy said:

but how to stop the striations? No point printing fine detail if it all gets sanded off removing the printing marks!

 

Ian, remember at this point everything has been quick and dirty, i.e. I've been using the default values for layer thickness of 0.05mm.  I'll drop that down to 0.02 or Matt even 0.015 for the final print so those striations shouldn't be quite as visible.  Changing orientation of the print can also go some way to alleviating/disguising that issue.

 

Then my last excuse... what you will see in the end product is the fabric weave of a particularly coarse linen they used that week due to supply chain issues. 

[Fritag]

 

 

On 4/25/2022 at 2:16 PM, Brandy said:

but how to stop the striations?

 

I did read that ArcTan(layer height/pixelwidth) gives you the best orientation angle to minimise layer lines Ian.  Course it can only work on one of your surfaces - so choose carefully 

 

Actually it’s all a compromise in’t it.  On the small parts I’ve been printing I’ve generally been able to get the most visible flat surface vertical to minimise the issue.  I’m thinking at the mo’ that I’d rather have a support stub or two to remove than a surface of layer lines.

 

That’s a mighty fine and encouraging test print Alan.

 

On 4/24/2022 at 4:57 PM, hendie said:

It's way outside of my skill set to reproduce the cockpit coaming padding with all it's wrinkles and lumps

 

Darn it.  What hope have the rest of us got!   I was expecting a tutorial 

[hendie]

On 4/27/2022 at 3:49 AM, Fritag said:

I did read that ArcTan(layer height/pixelwidth) gives you the best orientation angle to minimise layer lines Ian.  Course it can only work on one of your surfaces - so choose carefully 

 

Actually it’s all a compromise in’t it.  On the small parts I’ve been printing I’ve generally been able to get the most visible flat surface vertical to minimise the issue.  I’m thinking at the mo’ that I’d rather have a support stub or two to remove than a surface of layer lines.

 

That’s a mighty fine and encouraging test print Alan.

 

 

Darn it.  What hope have the rest of us got!   I was expecting a tutorial 

 

Yup, it's all a compromise and in almost every aspect. From designing a greeble to laying the model out for print.  As you pointed out in the Hawk thread, you have to determine what compromises to make in detail between what can feasibly be printed, what can be scaled, and at the end of the day, how is it going to print. That means in some cases detail may need to be over emphasized while in other instances just a suggestion of a feature may be appropriate.  It've very easy to get tied down in the minutia of detailing a greeble where the technology just isn't capable (yet).

 

Sorry Steve, no tutorial this time around. It's all just yer basic extrudes and cuts. This is just a brief greeblefest to get me through the week.

 

The upper wing center section got decorated with a few nuts n stuff as well as the wing locating holes and 4 little locating nubs for the fuel tank.

 

 

which will sit bang in the middle like this.  The fuel tank can be offset from the center when the gun is fitted but the one shot I have of 28's 504 doesn't have the gun fitted, and as far as I am aware that particular 504 was just a Squadron runaround at Ambala so was unlikely to ever have the gun fitted. 

 

 

I revisited the tail and reworked the rib taping and threw on a few more greebles visible in reference shots.  Originally I had the entire tailplane as a single item, but that was going to be problematic when deciding how to chop the airframe up for assembly, so we now have a discrete port and starboard tail plane which will be joined through the fuselage by brass rods... much like the 1:1

 

 

A few more nuts added at the wing root and I have since created a couple of rigging holes in the fuselage sides

 

 

More work completed on the engine.  Last time around (Wapiti) I printed the cylinders separately and had fun trying to put it all together.  This time I may try and print the engine as a single object. I know it will be a challenging support job if I go down that route so I'm still mulling that over to see what makes sense.  Note to self - remember to rework the fins - I forgot to make them more prominent on that last session.

 

 

According to the model, it does all fit together with no interferences, but I think there will still be a few tweaks to come on the engine before that job is complete.

 

 

The cabane struts were modeled up. All straightforward stuff, however I think I am going to have to tweak the fuselage mounting locations a little.  The struts are only 0.8mm thick - which is about as thin as I can take them and there's still a little bit of interference on the fuselage. 

 

 

Rigging this area is going to be a whole load of fun.  My plan is to print the struts with a hole down the center to allow me to insert a piece of rod in the hope that it will provide some strength. 

 

 

With the Wapiti, the struts were just over 1mm thick and I managed to get some 0.5mm rod inserted into each strut and it worked.  However I think I was really working at the limits of the old Mars with those struts - I ended up printing dozens of struts before I got a set that I could work with. Most of the time the through holes were blocked at some point. With the Mars 3 I think this task will be more successful though I may still have to increase the overall thickness of the struts as I believe 0.8mm is really pushing the limits here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Brandy]

Would it be feasible to model the struts with a recess down the entire front edge, and add the brass as the front of the struts instead of through the middle?

I use a similar process (adding plastic strip to bent brass) for undercarriage in 1:72.

 

Ian