iMack

Todays work with some rather slow progress. Added the small overhang on the bow and have done another few coats of primer. Created a proper base and cut some metal rod ready for spraying the hull.

I've been looking for some plans of mast spreaders but can't seem to get anywhere. Apologies if this is a silly question. Mast spreaders on modern yachts - are they usually the same width of the hull? Also - do they get progressively smaller the higher up the mast they go or are all one width? Cheers, Iain

Cheers EJ. I'm really putting in the extra time to get a really smooth finish. I have 3 weeks left before deadline for this so there will be a lot of work being done in the coming few days. Ready for spraying soon. Vinyl has worked very well - however I feel it has a bit of a cheap finish in person. I'm thinking of backspraying a piece of 0.5 acrylic and heat bending it to the correct shape. Thanks yvesvidal, I really appreciate it. I've develop a great interest in modern yachts and it would be an absolute pleasure to visit the real thing. Very envious that you got to visit them ! I study right next to Poole in the UK which is the construction base for all sunseeker yachts. They are in the process of building the new 155 ft yacht that you can see in the harbour. I'm quite into my quadcopters so I want to try and get some aerial images to share here. Todays work has been a second coat of primer. Cleaning up and tidying any rough edges and drilling the holes for the stanchions. The boom and support have been assembled and just sanding the joints. 3d printed boom with hardened steel rod for strength Slots right into the master. perfect! Having some trouble with the rails. Stanchions fit well but the wire I'm using has kinks in it since it comes rolled up. I've ordered some meter length brass rod which will resolve the problem. There are some difficult bends towards the back that will be... interesting to get. Check this image for those awkward curves at the rear where the seating is. Following things that are top priority this week are spraying the hull. Followed by preparing the cad file so that I can have some fabric printed for the sails. Check the pattern here.

Cheers guys. @micahel: The chemiwood is much denser and slightly less accurate than the foam. The reason is the spindle when cutting tends to vibrate and leave a bad edge - whilst the foam is much softer. The machine is generally accurate to 0.1 of a mm. It's been easter break so I had some time off. This week I've been back at it working double time to catch up. I have designed and printed the keel along with the dual rudders. Deck has been re-laser cut and finally fits perfectly. I have had the boom 3d printed (first on a FDM plastic printer - the kind that splurges out plastic from a nozzle - and then the final with an SLA printer. It cures liquid resin with a laser) and soon ready to assemble. Preparing for a quick primer spray. 3D printed keel with a 8mm hole ready for a tapped hardened steel rode go through and into the hull for extra support. I will have the model sitting on it's keel on the base 3D printed boom tester piece just attached with a piece of elastic. Carbon fibre mast has been added and placed. The mast is hollow but I've filled it with a resin to help give it that extra strength. Also means when the boom is attached I can insert steel rods attaching it to the mast. Black vinyl has been laser cut and just placed on the windows. Won't glue them in until the paint job has been done. View from the under side. Twin rudders placed and holes drilled. Reinforced again with metal rods. Start of the rudder is in the works in this image as well. A side perspective of the yacht. Those hatches are looking spot on finally! I'm enjoying the elegant design of this yacht. I'll be going for the same colour scheme as I've done in the computer renders. You can just seem the in the image below. How she is looking at the moment. Cheers, Iain

I've been working on getting the decking correct using thin lime wood veneer. Having the CAD model means I can laser cut the decking out and it should fit perfectly. However it doesn't always. There are so many lock points with the hatches some of them are out by just under 1mm and it can be quite noticeable. The idea was to have the hatches flush with the deck - like they are in the real thing. I used paper prints to start off to try and scale it closer - and then tried the wood. I'll have to buy some more lime in and give it another go. In terms of using the Laser cutter we have 3 Trotec machines in the studio. These have just been added and no-one is sure of what settings to use so there was a fair bit of testing to get a perfect engrave and cut. Another problem I have run into early on was because some of the lines had not been joined in the CAD file it meant the laser would hover over a certain point for a millisecond longer leaving a brown dot. Check the images below. Half a dozen paper samples printed to scale. Paper samples on the model. Quite a bit of tweaking was needed here and there. First laser cut tester piece that came out with the dots. These lines on the CAD model have since been joined and solved the problem. Coming out of the machine Here she is to date with the wooden decking just slotted in. This will be glued in at a later date once I've sprayed the model. You can see here the hatches not quite matching up. They are only very slightly out by maybe a mill. /Iain

Incredible work! Your work is of such a high quality. Very impressive build and obviously a work of devoted passion. Fantastic workshop as well - very well kitted out.

Beautiful build. You have such clean and neat work. I especially like that propeller metalwork.

Thanks EJ_L. After trying a traditional POB last year it certainly has it's differences compared to this build. Luckily the university has great facilities meaning I can use a lot of equipment that I would never be able to afford otherwise. I believe the two halves can have a very positive effect on the hobby.

So I've had a chance to fill and sand the most part of the model. I've done a first coat of primer to check for any missed area. Fair to say there is still plenty more sanding needed. Double sided together at the moment. Next job after sanding is to search for some metal rods which will help brace the keel.

Here's a few images from friday. The chemiwoods been cut and is off the machine. Working on some sanding and filling jobs around the edges of the hull. I used a very thin and tall spindle to get the best details on the boat on the CNC. The downside is the height of the spindle means there is some vibration sometimes at tough corners and leaves the edges not quite as crisp as you want. So straight out the CNC machine the model is by no means perfect. Getting her to fit together perfectly won't take long. Hopefully should be done this week. Otherwise I've invested in getting a 3D printer. Not the plastic printers but a resin based one. Much higher quality detail and I'm truly impressed by the machine. It's Formlabs second generation printer Form2. With this technology you must print at an angle. The way it works is - the laser shoots up into a vat of liquid resin, it cures a thin layer and then does a 'peel' mechanism separating the print from the vat. The build plate then moves up very slightly and proceeds onto the next layer. Models that are solid and very large tend to fail because the amount of tension is too much for the peel process. This print is the front of the cabin and I've hollowed it out (2mm wall thickness) so it uses much less material and becomes very light.

@WackoWolf: Cheers Wolf, I'm glad you guys find the process interesting. I'll keep you up to date. @texxn5: Crazy isn't it? The CNC machine itself is already very dated. 1997. @dgbot: It's what they call chemiwood. It's a mixture of fine wood shavings and resin meaning it has virtually no grain. Perfect for all scales. The stuff isn't cheap however.

@dgbot: They are fantastic machines but your right at their cost they are too expensive. You can find small CNC machines for a few hundred dollars but the size it too restrictive. I've heard many people convert 3D printers into CNC's as it uses the same principles but a drill bit rather than extruder. @EJ_L: The prices will continue to drop for 3D printing until it becomes affordable. The printers are perfect for model railways. I am in fact running some testers for a friend of n-guage model carriage prints to see how they come out. HO scale is still a bit large for the printers currently as the price and time is still relatively high. I would fully recommend investing in a 3d printer, as you say - with the cad know how you have no boundaries on your creativity. The final boat parts have been on the CNC for the past week cutting away. A much slower process because of the density of the material, but the finish barely needs sanding. You can see from the images below that the spindle stepdown for the first 'roughing' pass is much more shallow. Cutting to fast - or too much at once the machine screams like a cat! I had some trouble with the part moving, so I had to drill a screw through the side of the hull to keep her steady. The only negative thing with this machine is the amount of wasted material cut away; which is why 3d printing or additive manufacturing is so interesting to manufacturing companies. The image below is how she will be cut in three separate parts. I've sliced the model near the waterline - as a clear acrylic sheet will represent the water on the final mode and fit right on the hull.

Looked through your thread and website. Incredible work. Such attention to detail.

@yvesvidal: Thanks. Well they are both very different approaches. I attempted a scratch build POB model of the Pandora and it required such skill. I am in awe of the work people produce on here. Inspiring. @michael: It's a fascinating way of producing models and it's the way it's done in industry for luxury yacht models. Some modelmaking companies will usually do architectural and marine models together. Very often if they are wanting multiple models they'll create a silicon/fibreglass mould so they can churn lots off. They would fibreglass the hull or brush in a polyurethane resin and use expanding foam to make it solid. @md1400cs: Thanks. I agree whole heartedly with you. It's already beginning with the arrival of that carbon3d printer. I have invested in a form2 to use for this project as some of the small details will be printed. I was in fact thinking of 'renting' out this printer. Means it's not idle when not in use and is considerably cheaper than 3d print websites. I printed a series of canons on another thread you may be interested.

Cheers guys. I can't take credit for what Keyshot does. Magic program! Here's some more CNC-ing. As the CNC we have is 3-axes I have to flip the model around. If it was a 5 axis CNC machine I could do this without moving the model. Each cut requires a 'roughing' pass which looks like the image below. After that you run another file which is the 'finishing'. For flipping the model to cut the deck I had to make sure that it would line up exactly in the center which is why I had the image printed and stuck onto the piece of MDF. I'm using yellow-foam for the testers here. It's great stuff and cuts just like butter. My final will be done in chemiwood which is much more durable. This foam tends to dent very easily.

Whilst this CNC is busy maching the parts it leaves me free (for the most part) to work on more detail on the CAD model. Here's what she looks like at the moment. Modelled in Rhino3D and rendered in Keyshot. I'm hoping to use these as part of my portfolio along with an animation of her sailing somewhere in the caribbean. I'll get that done closer to the time. I have a few more images of the CNC process which I'll get up soon once they come off the machine. If anyone is interested I generally keep my blog/journal page up to date on uni projects and there are some high-res images thrown up there too. www.imacke.com Cheers

Cheers. Last year I used the traditional POB method to make the HMS Pandora. So I thought it would make an interest project to make another boat using a completely different material and method. The plan is to use the CNC to parts of the hull, 3D print many small details and do some investment casting. Any other metal work for capstans as such will be on the lathe. If you have any questions ask away. I'm learning the process of using a lot of the equipment as I go.

In the process of creating a 1:40 scale model of the oyster 885 for my university project. I've been working from some rather basic plans but I feel I've achieved to get the shape close enough. I was busy the past few weeks modelling it up on CAD and have it running on the CNC machine at the moment. Blue foam tester below.

It's taking shape really nicely. I adore the scale as well. What is the putty you applied?

This looks off to a good start. I like the choice of ship, I'll follow this with interest.

Sounds like quite the undertaking, but you seem to be getting a lot out of it in your learning process (not to mention a perfect looking cannon). They are all pewter casts, how expensive is that approach? I've previously only done cold casting, however I aim to try using pewter this summer break. Also is it a RTV silicone you are using? or a heat-resistant matieral. I've in fact printed my cannons at the same scale as yours.

Astounding work, the attention to detail is amazing. How long does it take per cannon roughly?

Lovely work, a pleasure to read through your thread.

Well that's the question. I know I would get a lot of use out of it since I study a modelmaking degree course and use them for adding detail to traditional clay sculpts to architectural models or film props. The machine itself costs £2,400 along with the starter kit and a pot of resin. A pot of resin alone costs about £100. Onto that you have an alcohol solution to clean them in after. So they aren't cheap. In theory you could get 180 cannons at 1:64 scale out of a bottle of resin costing (an estimated) about £1.60 each. (taking into account resin, cleaning solution, consumable bed) I am wondering, would people be interested in buying these sort of prints if they were £2-3? Or is the boat community much more after having a wooden carriage with a brass cannon? The advantage is being able to print out models at any scale. Iain

Here's some of the progress today. I've put some higher res images here compared to the last so you can have a better look (without too much eye squinting). I wanted to do some tests to see how the quality was after a coat of paint. I was suprised that it had such a good surface without any sanding or work done to it (par clipping), I had thought the slight residue that was left might prohibit a nice coat. They were sprayed with cellulose paint (they are just testers, so don't worry about my colour choices). They are all printed 0.05mm apart form the red one which was done at 0.1mm. Detail does look more dull, but the trade off is it takes half the amount of time. It took 4h20mins for 9 cannons at medium detail (0.05mm) I went further adding a coat of high gloss to see if it could pick up and reflect any imperfections in the print - very little stood out. Iain