thibaultron

I've been drawing up the Armstrongs and Fredericks. Drawings and photos show them without the rings. The Blomefields I'm working on now do have the rings.

The printing of the design on a red painted sail will not work at home. No home printer can print white. I relies on the paper, or decal film being white. There used to be a printer that could do this, it used print ribbons with white being one of the ribbon colors. It has been a couple of decades, though, since they made the ribbons, so that option has gone away.

My guess is that the crossbeam is rabbeted in the area of the strap, to allow it the curve around the axle, and rectangular the rest of its length.

If you don't already have it, pick up a copy of "How to run a Lathe" by Southbend Lathe company. Grizzly and Amazon carry it. It was written in the 30s, but is a great reference for manual lathe operation.

Due to family obligations, I have not gotten any further in my modeling. Physical projects at least, I have been doing a few CADing projects.

There should have been a roll of plans showing each assembled frame in scale. I scanned each frame and used the prints of each as a pattern when assembling them.

I was thinking more along the lines of using a 4 jaw chuck. setting the screw ends against the chuck face, to index the nut so the top machined surface would be facing out. Tightening the jaws, then machining the top surface. You could loosen two jaws, check the fit, and then return the nut to the chuck, without losing the setup. You would have to remove the screw, between checks and reinstall it. If the jaws are too tall, make up a spacer to fit firmly between the chuck face and the screw. If milling the part, use parallels under the two ends of the screws.

Maybe, if you do this on another model, drill and tap the screw hole, then clamp the nut by a sacrifical screw, and machine the outside areas of the nut measuring off of the screw? Use thread locking compound to take up the slack between the screw and nut.

The trouble with the Washable glues, is that they do not hold well.

Nice!

I think the Powder Boys reaction is about right, for what is about to happen!

Why the H..L is the breaching rope being held to one side??? Not to mention the loose cannon ball on the deck.☹️

Nice metalworking program you have there! Glad you like the thread!

Part 17 This section will cover what happens if Netfabb finds major errors with your STL file. If you have gotten a STL or OBJ file from a third party, these types of problems should not be a problem for you. If, like me, you are working on a file you created, the problems below, can occur. These are problems like holes or extra things, that make no sense in a real object. For this section I created a file that had two major problems. The first problem is that I deleted a small surface, so that the model had a hole in the outer skin. The second problem is a zero thickness tab hanging off the model. The tab is simply a sheet with no thickness. This can happen when you are editing a 3D object, and miss a small area that should have been deleted. In this example, it is easily spotted for correction, but sometimes they are so small, the you might miss them without a highly magnified surface scan of the original model file. After you open the STL and select the Red Cross symbol, your model will be displayed in blue with yellow error markings. You can zoom in to look at these areas using the mouse wheel, and rotate around the model by holding down the right mouse button. I ran the repair script, and after I replaced the old part, there was still a problem! Netfabb did not remove the tab! It seems the program sees this as a valid object. You will have to go back and delete it from the original drawing. This should only be a problem if you are creating your own models. If Netfabb has found problems like this with one of my drawings, I rerun the repair script again to make sure that there are no artifacts like this tab left, after the first attempt. Naturally, it still shows this obvious fault, but if this had been a small one, I might not have noticed the problem, without the second check. We will continue as if the tab is alright, for now. After the first repair run this screen was displayed. We will now save the file, and see if the second check will fix this. It says it fixed something. I opened this STL file in Lychee. No, the tab is still there! I would have to go back and fix this in the original drawing. I reran the original bad file to show you what the tab looks like after running a second Repair Script, and the program displayed the problem differently. Instead off highlighting it in yellow, it displayed it as red and green, with question marks in the script screen. Here are a couple of graphics of different ways this error was displayed when I was doing this write up. I hope this thread has helped you on your way to 3D printing!

Part 15 Now we will perform the Error Correction Routine. Select the “Red Cross” button. I do this with every new model, even if no warnings are displayed. The error screen will be displayed at the lower left. There are a few symbols that might be shown. A green checkmark means that particular parameter is good. A warning symbol means errors. There may also be a blue question mark, meaning it is not sure. The model will also be displayed in blue. If there are yellow markings displayed on the model, there are gross errors. I’ll cover them in Part 17 of the postings. Even if it shows all check marks, I run the repair script anyway, just to be sure. Select the “Run Repair Script” button. A new pop up will be displayed. I leave it on the “Default Repair” setting. Select the “Execute” button. If you look at the very bottom right of the window, you will see a little white rectangular box. This is the progress bar, and a green line will fill it from left to right as the repair script runs. When the bar fills the space, the script is finished, and the bar will disappear again. So watch it, to make sure the script ran. For this simple model, the script finished too quickly for me to get a screen shot of the bar. When it is finished, we now have to replace the old model with the repaired one. Select the “Apply Repair” button. This pop up will be shown. Select the “Remove old Part” button. The part correction will be applied, and the model will once again be displayed in orange. Now we need to save the corrected model. Right click on the blue bar under the “Parts” window. The name in it will change for each model you work on. Select “Export Part”, then “as STL” Now before you select the “Save” button!!! Look at the default name the program has selected for the file! Most of the time, it will duplicate the original file name twice, in the new file name! For example, "Cannon 25 – Cannon 25(repaired).stl", rather than "Cannon 25(repaired).stl". I have found Windows 10 unwilling to let you correct this file name if Netfabb saves it this way. I think it is because of the “-“ symbol, which is normally not one Windows likes in a file name. Go into the file name and delete the second extra text. If this will be a unique file, no rescaling, not going to be sent to someone, etc., I generally leave the “(repaired)" text in the file name, just because it differentiates it from my original STL file. I like to keep previous versions of my files as a design progresses. If I am going to be rescaling, it or otherwise renaming it, I delete the “(repaired)”. Select “Save” after you have made any changes to the default name. Before it saves the file, the program runs a final error check on it. This second check looks at different parameters than the first one, and may find some problems, it wants to know if you would like corrected. You can choose to ignore them, and continue. I always choose to let the program go ahead and fix these, after all, we are running Netfabb to fix any errors it finds. If errors are found this window will pop-up. Select “Optimize” to let it try to fix these errors. Otherwise, select “Export” to ignore them. If Netfabb can correct these problems, you will get this pop up. The check mark signifies all the errors were fixed. Select “Export” to save the file. Netfabb will, most times, fix all these errors, but sometimes there are a few left. No matter how many times you try to optimize these last errors away, Netfabb just can’t correct them. I just go ahead and export the file, with the uncorrected errors, and have had no problems. These are minor problems compared to those found in the repair script. I don’t have a screen shot of this, as it happens infrequently, and there were no instances while I was writing this, to get a screen shot from. You will be brought back to the main screen, and can now exit the program. It will ask you one more question, before it quits. It asks you if you want to save this project. The is no real reason we need to, so I just select “No”. Part 16 To rescale the cannon, simply repeat the above, but entering the correct scale length for your models. I always go through the entire error checking process, every time I rescale a model. When you rescale something, some scaling errors can creep in do to software decimal place limits, so checking and correcting these is a good idea. You should be able to print an unrepaired file with no problems, if you started with a clean master, but this only takes a few minutes, so why not be safe.

Part 14 Netfabb is a program from AutoCAD that allows you to perform many operations on both STL and OBJ files. I will cover error checking, repair, and scaling. The scaling will cover both correcting you file to the correct dimensions, and rescaling an existing STL or OBJ to a different scale. This will take 3 posts, as there are a lot of graphics, as I go through using Netfabb step by step. In actual life it only takes 10 minutes or so from start to saving the new version of your STL, unless you have a majorly complex model. Netfabb is available as a download at: https://www.autodesk.com/products/netfabb/free-trial I’m using Netfabb 2018. For my version, after the trail period, they would ask you for a license number. If you just exit out of that window, they will ask you if you want to continue with the unlicensed version, select “Yes”, and you can continue to use it. Every now and then, that same window will pop up, and I repeat the procedure. As long as you are not using the program for commercial use, it is legal to use it. The first part of this section is importing your STL to check that it comes up the right length. In this case I am importing a STL for a full size 1:1 cannon I drew. Following that I will run through an error checking and correcting sequence. When Netfabb is opening you get this splash screen, at least in my version. The program then opens this window. This is the default size of the window, you can expand it to full screen size, like any Windows program. Select the file folder symbol under the “File” menu icon to open your STL or OBJ file. For files like this I like to include as much information in the file name as possible. This is so a few years down the line, I will remember what the h..l I was doing! In this case I put the full description of what cannon it is, the scale (Full Size = 1:1), and the total length to aid in rescaling in the future. In this case, the “for Article” is because I modified the file specifically for the examples in this write up. Wouldn’t want to get this modified file mixed up with the original. The program opens and displays the file. The program found possible errors in the file, as denoted by the warning symbol, in the lower right hand side. We will check these further down. Right now, I first check that the model is the correct length, not a given with the SketchUp version I use. Select the “Modify” button. Select the “Scale” button. The “Scale Parts” window will open, displaying the dimensions of the model. In this case we can see that it is incorrect. The length should be 3118.27mm for 1:1 scale, not 1473.18mm. I selected the “X” box, deleted the existing number (this is required, or the program will mess up), entered the new value 3118.27, and clicked on another box. The dimensions corrected on all the axis. Then I selected “Scale”. The changes are made and the now larger cannon model is displayed. I then repeated the scaling process, to insure that the dimension numbers were correct. Netfabb sometimes slightly changes the entered values, so I always recheck that the scaling came out correctly. If the numbers are different I correct the “X” axis number and resave. Generally it comes out correct the second time. Sometimes no matter how much you try to correct the value, it still comes out with a slightly different value in the second decimal place. I just except it and continue. If you wish, you can change the window to display the whole model once again. Select the “View” menu button, then “Zoom to”, and then “All Parts”. The model will now once again be fully displayed in the window.

I use Netfabb to check my STL files. It works with OBJ files also.

For a 40um layer 90% exposure. As far as alias questions, I don't know. My machine will not do that, so I've never investigated it.

Looked on their web site, and it says the XY resolution is 40um, which would be pixel size.

You can set the layer height at 23um, you don't need to do it in 5 or 10um steps.

What size pixels does your printer have? The value should be on the manf. web site? Angle the print back so that the transom is at 45 degrees, and the supports are contacting the back/inside of the model. Print the model at a layer height equal to the pixel size. For example, my Anycubic Mono 4K has a pixel size of 35um, so I would use a layer height of 35um, when I set a model at 45 degrees. Add a thin sheet to the 3D behind the window openings that cover the whole area and overlap the edges. This will support the thin frames during printing. Make sure the supports do not land near the frames, but do land in the sheet area. Carefully remove the supports before curing. Damage to the thin sheet area is OK, as long as the mullions remain intact. After you cure the print, carefully sand the thin sheet away, leaving the mullions. When you change the layer height you have to change the exposure time, as explained in the 3D Printing thread, about 1/4 of the way down, in one of my posts. Did you test your printer to get the proper exposure for your resin? Earlier in that thread we discussed how to do that. I use Lychee Slicer, it is better than Chicupbox(sp). I started a thread on 3D Printing Cannons. I go step by step through using Lychee, with info on setting up a model to be printed. What resin are you using?

Chuck, be careful! If the illness doesn't get you, the Admiral may kill you for disobeying orders!

According the Wikipedia she carried Upper deck: 26 × 18-pounder guns Quarter Deck: 12 × 32-pounder carronades Forecastle: 2 × 9-pounder guns + 2 × 32-pounder carronades So you need a mix of cannons There is an Anatomy Of the Ship book on her. If you want to go for a scratch build, you might want to get it. https://www.amazon.com/32-Gun-Frigate-Essex-Anatomy-Ship/dp/0961502169

Part 9 Now, the messy part, Cleaning!!!!!! I cannot give an exhaustive write-up on all the materials, methods, and safety concerns having to do with handling, cleaning, and curing, resin parts. Go Web surfing, there is a lot of information out there, to help you. I spent hours watching videos, and reading Web pages, before I even purchased my equipment. A few notes on some important points when cleaning up your machine: Get yourself a decent quality metal scraper/putty knife, with a tapered edge for removing the model from the build plate! The plastic one many companies supply with the machines, is too brittle for the job! Place a metal or silicone tray under the machines and work area, to catch any spilled or dripped uncured resin. I bought an Oil Drip Tray from the auto parts store, Cut it shorter, and bent the back up to protect the wall. I talked about it in the 3D Printing thread, I mentioned earlier. Buy a package of micro-fiber cloths. I get a bag of them from the auto parts section. I cut each cloth into 4 pieces. When you are cleaning out the vat, only clean the clear film with these clothes, never use paper towels! The paper towels will scratch the film, and lead to early failure of the non-stick surface! You can use paper towels, carefully, on the vat frame. Never use a scraper or sharp object on the film. They can easily make holes in it! Even a hole too small to see, can leak resin onto your printer, ruin the screen, or even get into the housing, and damage the electronics! If your printer did not come with screen protectors, install one! If you have a failed print, with some cured resin left stuck to the film, sit back, and think before trying to get the spots off. You have a few options. 1. Carefully and gently press on the film from the bottom with your finger (not the nail!), and try to pop one corner off the film. If it does pop loose work your way along the length of the blob, until it is free. 2. If the blob is still too soft and just flexes with the pressure, return the vat to the printer, and run the screen check test for a couple minutes, to further harden the blob, and try again. 3. If both the above fail, return the vat to the printer, and pour a thin layer of resin over the bob. Then run the screen test for three or four minutes. This will bond the blob to a larger area. If you have an old raft with supports laying around set the raft down in the resin, in one corner, before running the screen test. This gives you a handle to pull on the larger sheet. Drain the vat, and either pull on the raft/handle. Or try popping one corner from underneath the film. You can generally pull off the whole thing, embedded blob and all in one piece Some more tips: Do not save the dirty micro-fiber cloths, just throw them away with the rest of the cleaning mess. Put a cheap white plastic trash bag in a trash can, or plastic bucket, and throw each towel or other cleaning debris into it. The can holds the bag open, which is easier than trying to stuff messy things in just the floppy bag alone. Why a cheap white plastic bag? After you are finished, tie the bag closed and let it sit out in the sun for a few days. The UV from the sun will cure any un-cured resin, in the waste, making it safe to dispose of. If you used a black or opaque white bag, the UV will not reach the inside. I use an old plastic ground coffee container to wash the build plate, scrapper, vat, and any other item I used during cleaning, that I plan to keep. This contains the mess. When I’m done cleaning, I dump the left over IPA in it, onto the used paper towels in the trashcan, before I close it up. This IPA is generally much dirtier than the IPA in the wash tub, so I don’t want to add it to that. Do not leave the IPA in the washer tub! The stirring paddle in the bottom has an internal bearing, that might get IPA in it over time. Get one or two large clear sealable containers, and pour the IPA from the tub into one. Let it sit out in the sun for a week or two, after the cleaning session. The suspended resin will harden and sink to the bottom. You can then filter this through a cloth to recover the cleaned IPA. Use a large mouthed container for straining this. The resin will quickly clog a small opening. I use a cloth stretched over a bucket. If you have cats and use Tidy Cats Litter, and it comes in the plastic 35 pound container, cut a large hole in the lid, and close the cloth under the lid. Pour the clean IPA into a sealable container, for your next cleaning session. I tried using plastic milk jugs for the storage of the IPA during the sunning, and storage phases, but they have proven to susceptible to puncturing. Part 10 One thing you need is some way to clean and cure the prints! You can DIY all sorts of things to do this, but you will likely end up spending as much as just buying a Wash and Cure machine from one of the manufactures. Save yourself the hassle of building your own. For my Mono 4K I use Anycubic’s Wash & Cure 2.0. it is not expensive, and is sized right for my printer. There are other manufactures out there, so look around. Remember, you need to wash the print and also do a final cure. The print is only semi-cured, and can be easily scratched or damaged until the final cure. The print is also still slightly toxic, until fully cured. When picking a wash and cure machine, balance the machine size to your printer. A machine that is too small may not hold a model that your printer can make. IPA is expensive, and to a degree reusable, but a large wash machine will take a lot of the IPA, which you have to buy, handle, and store after you are done. Once the IPA no longer is doing a good job, even after you have been recycling it, disposing of the IPA has to be considered also. Some type of closable container that will still allow the IPA to evaporate, while keeping it sealed from kids, animals, and ignition sources will be needed. A jar or latchable tub with holes in the lid, or screening, placed away from kids and animals, as well as placed in an open area, to prevent fume build up should be used. Part 11 When your print is finished, you have two choices. One, remove the supports before cleaning. Two, clean the parts while they are still on the rafts and supports. You can use a lower level of IPA in the cleaning tub, if you remove the parts first, but if there are small or delicate parts, they can get broken, in the turbulence of the washing, and/or fall through the mesh of the basket, and get battered by, or jam the stirring blades. In some wash and cure machines, you can even leave all the parts on the build plate, and wash them that way. It uses more IPA, but really protects small and delicate parts. These last two methods also have the advantage of washing the resin off the supports and raft, making them safer to handle. I printed a 1/24th scale model of the large cannon, I used in this write up. I removed it with the supports and raft still attached, and washed it that way. For the group of cannons I showed in the photograph, I washed them while still attached to the build plate. After you wash the parts, remove them from the supports before you cure them! The supports will break off with less damage. You can submerge the parts in warm water before removing the supports, to further reduce damage. If you cure the parts before removing the supports, they will likely make larger divots in the model, or break small parts. Send the raft(s) and supports pieces through a cure cycle after you have finished with the model. This makes them safer for disposal. Also keep a few of the rafts, that still have supports on them, to use as handles for removing the cured sheet of resin during the blob removal I talked about above. Once you have removed the parts from the washer, allow them to completely dry!! If there is any IPA still on the parts, it will leave chalky area on the cured pieces. Also make sure all the uncured resin is washed off. Uncured resin will spread and leave a shiny puddle type blemish on the, generally, matt finish of the model. Part 12 Special considerations when cleaning the cannon, or any part with deep or small holes. Here are a couple of screen shots of the cross section of the 32 Pounder model. The first is an overall view. Yes I cheated, and left the bottom of the bore flat rather than hemispherical, sue me! Here is a close-up of the breach end. Notice the small hole for the touch hole. Yes, I drew that in too! Both the deep bore and the small touch hole will be hard to clean, even with a dedicated wash machine. The bore was not too much of a problem on this large 6 inch model, but still worth a little extra effort. Before I washed the model, I ran a dowel down the bore to break away the internal supports and push any resin at least onto the wall, and not just leave a blob inside the bore. On smaller cannon I would do this a couple times, maybe with a few drops of IPA to help clean out the resin. On a large model like the 32 Pounder, some resin left way inside the bore, will not seep out far enough to mar the external surfaces. With small cannon, it may. Here is a picture of cannons that I purposely did not clean the barrels of. You can see the cured resin almost fills the bore, in these smaller sizes. The touchhole is a special problem, as will be any small deep holes. The resin will fill these and stay in there by capillary action, even during washing. Before cleaning I ran a fine drill through the hole a couple times, cleaning off the bit in between, to force the resin out. Even for small shallow holes, I generally used a Q-tip (Not a Sponsor) with some IPA on it to clean them out before washing. On a general note about cotton swabs, buy ones with a wooden stick, they hold up better when being used around liquid cleaners. Cleaning deep holes or surfaces that are otherwise difficult to reach, I use gun cleaning swabs. These have long sticks with cotton bulbs on each end, One end is the classic rounded tip, the other is a pointed tip. You can get them on Amazon. Here is a link to them, as well as one for a box 0f 2000. I also put a link to the disposable gloves I use. https://www.amazon.com/Tapered-Regular-Type-III-Cleaning-American/dp/B008CPU4JW/ref=sr_1_8?crid=2LNVKNYBP1LZJ&keywords=gun%2Bcleaning%2Bswabs&qid=1681661926&sprefix=gun%2Bcleaning%2Bswabs%2Caps%2C95&sr=8-8&th=1 https://www.amazon.com/Applicator-Accessory-Cleaning-Electronics-Decoration/dp/B083125LX4 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09HMHJBF5?psc=1&ref=ppx_yo2ov_dt_b_product_details Part 13 Now onto curing your model. You do not need to “Nuke” the parts, generally two or three minutes will do for small parts. As in many cooking instructions, turn them over ½ way through. An uncured resin can be easily dented/marked with a finger nail. On a fully cured part, the finger nail may scratch it, but slightly. If you have long flat parts, like in the graphic below, cure each side for a short period, turn it over, rinse and repeat, until it is cured. This will help to avoid warping. The minimum cure time is important in this case. Over long curing of parts like this will cause warpage, every time. There is another consideration with the cannons and hollow models, in general. The UV light has to get inside the model to cure those surfaces, also! With those deep bores, anything over about 1/72nd scale will need to be cured on the inside too. Hollow parts are also created when you print lager items, like say a sphere, or the latest reptile like Japanese monster, for example. If you just print them as is, it will not only take a lot of expensive resin, but the resin inside will never be fully cured! When 3D resin printers first came out, this was not widely known. Many a thick solid model cracked and started leaking uncured resin after a year or so! If you are printing with one of the clear resins, this is not as much of a problem. Remember the hole(s) in the model should allow the whole interior to drain, and clean the out the inside well. I personally have not done one of these models, so cannot give any more advice on the subject, sorry. That Japanese reptile does sound interesting, though! Now how do you illuminate the inside of your model? You make yourself a UV “Flash Light”. Below are links to a set of 12 volt UV LEDs and a set of connectors. I used these, along with a 12V wall adapter I had laying around to build a simple one. It is just the adaptor, the connector, and one of the LEDs. You can skip the connectors, and just hard wire the LED to the adaptor cord, but this is handy, and I had some left from another project. It also allows me to use more LEDs if the interior space is large. For the small cannons, I stuck the LED into as much of the muzzle as I could, and let it shine for about three minutes. If the LED fit all the way inside, I pushed it all the way in about 1/4" inch, did the exposure, then slid it further along and did it a second time. For the 1/24th scale 32 Pounder, I did it three times, rather than two. Do not look into the light! UV is not good for your eyes! Either cover the LED and parts with something opaque, or set the colored printer or washer machine cover over it. Those covers protect you from the UV produced by both machines, when they are operating. Links to LEDs and connectors: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07C61434H/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07TGSRXZ5/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o09_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 Something I forgot to mention earlier. When you drain the vat back into the resin jar, you need to filter it to catch any loose material that may have been created during the print, especially if it is a failed print. Below is a link to the type you need. https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000PA09V0/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o07_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 My son 3D filament printed me a nice funnel for this job. It fits over the outside of the resin bottle mouth, with a spout that goes inside the bottle. You can find files for these on the Web. Just don’t do what I did the first time, and swing around and knock everything over! What a mess, and I lost about 2/3s of my only bottle of resin! Here are pictures of the funnel. First the funnel and bottle. Two views of the funnel. A picture of the funnel with the filter in place. These next two pictures show how well a 3D resin printer can reproduce details. These cannons are prints of the 6 Pounder cannon in 1/32nd, 1/48th, 1/60th, and 1/64th! Even on the smallest one the cypher emblem and fluting are visible! I also printed the 1/72nd, 1/96th, and 1/100th scale versions. Unfortunately, my camera will not take pictures of these smaller cannons in any sort of detail. In the two smaller scales the cypher is faint, but still visible, and the fluting is still well defined. I am designing and printing a HO scale passenger car, and the scale 1 inch hemispherical rivets are clearly defined. On the model they are just a hair over 0.011 inch in diameter. The graphic of the long flat model used as an example above is one side of that car.

Best wishes for a full recovery!