king derelict

Many Thanks OC Its good to be able to print the smaller deck fittings and see a useable result. Alan

Thank you very much Yves. I'll wear the badge with pride but I'm hoping I don't have to do too much more to keep it. I'm looking forward to knocking out good prints for a while. Alan

Thanks Grant I was getting very close to dumping the Ender and giving up on teh corvette Alan

Thank You Mark As an engineer I do much better with a tangible problem that I can find a solution to. It was frustrating flailing around not knowing what direction to go Have a great day tomorrow Alan

Thanks Lou Its great to see decent quality parts building up on teh print bed now Alan

The PE work looks great Mike Alan

The PE ladders look very nice. I'm missing the PE - might have to get going with Illustrious very soon Alan

The printer has been on duty through the day reliably turning out replacement parts. A last "before and after" shows the aft bandstand showing the poor quality of the earlier attempt that I was resigning myself to using. A set of bollards and cleats has now printed successfully I hope to continue printing out parts in between holiday activity for the next few days. Thanks for looking and for the encouragement Alan

The very diluted black oil paint wash was used to bring up some of the details. Dust and rust next Thanks for looking in Alan

Thank you for the kind words OC. Time to dirty it up a bit. Alan

I air brushed a light mist of buff all over the tank and then deepened the spray over the lower hull to simulate a dusty vehicle rather than a muddy one (might try that next). Its done a nice job of knocking down the decal contrast too. I made a ditching beam from some spare wood stock and dirtied it up. Its just placed for size at present. I'm wondering if it should have iron bands at each end but my pictures found so far are unhelpful on that issue. I have chains to secure it on the ditching rails. First I will air brush a matte finish and then add the beam and chains Thanks for looking Alan

Thanks Mark I think my oven is more suited to the turkey on Thursday Alan

Thanks Grant The Ender is a great machine for the price. It seems to be Crealitys business plan to ship an "entry level" machine and then have a huge range of upgrades to support it. Being originally supplied as a kit it is amenable to being pulled apart and rebuilt which is nice. The upgrades are generally not expensive . The lack of an upgraded gear is a bit annoying though. They do sell a complete new extruder but I'll see how the new gear holds up now that I'm not banging out 30 hour hull part prints back to back. Alan

I did find a third party selling stainless gears but they got horrible reviews for poor teeth profiles and off centre bores that I didn't give them a try. One reviewer stated that out of ten two were useable. Alan

Hi Mark I was surprised that it has already worn smooth in about four months. It has done some pretty heavy printing though. With all the initial problems i probably printed the equivalent of two hulls to get good prints. The disappointment is that in the extruder upgrade you just get the same brass gear instead of a hardened one> creality seems to prefer selling you bags of ten replacement gears instead. Alan

A day for learning. The replacement aluminium extruder upgrade kit arrived. In typical Creality fashion the instructions were an illustration with no text but there is a good Creality video and it is not very difficult. When I removed the original gear from the exruder I found the cause of many of my recent woes. The PLA filament is obviously quite tough stuff and it had chewed a groove in teh brass wheel removing the majority of the teeth and allowing teh filament to slip. This explains the poor detail and poor structural integrity of some of the prints - especially the more delicate ones. Also when I checked the calibration of the stepper motor I found that for a 100 mm commanded extrusion I only got 90 mm. So the printer has been under extruding the whole time I have had it and I think that is why I have had so much trouble with the alignment to the print bed. With the nozzle under extruding the line of filament being put out is thinner and cooling faster so getting good adhesion to the bed is more difficult. I am amazed now watching the printer putting down solid lines which are well fused to their neighbours and not skipping lines as it fills in sections. Its very encouraging to have found a solid reason for the problem and be able to effect a cure. The upgrade kit provides a brass replacement gear and I haven't seen a further upgrade to a harder material so I suspect this problem will come round again but at least i know the symptoms and the cause. I have invested in a pack of ten gears from Creality for $10. The first prints are very promising so here are a few before and after photos. The four inch gun shield (half) And the piece that brought this all into focus - the life raft racks Now I have to decide how far back to go with repeating prints to clean up their appearance. I had only started printing the detail parts so hopefully not too far. Thanks for looking in. Hopefully the next entry will be a bit more boat like Alan

Thanks Mark. I like to make one change at a time too and looking at the parts to change it doesn't impact teh nozzle so it will be left alone for the while Alan

Minor progress. The decals have been added ready to dirt to layered on and the ditching beam Thanks for looking Alan

Thank you kindly OC. Its a great subject. I would like to try a diorama with one. More plans than time as always Alan

Not a lot of progress here; most of the effort has been with the 3D printer. I added the decals in preparation for washes and dirt. Putting the decals on at the end will leave them far too clean. Thanks for looking in Alan

Thank you Patrick. These Emhar kits have been very enjoyable Alan

Flyhawk have made a beautiful kit. Its going to be great Alan

Thank you Bruce - that is a great photo. Its interesting to see the canvas mudguards in place. That would be a really nice scene to try to model with the figures and the turret door open. I might have to get another kit and see if I can make it work. Many Thanks again Alan

Hopefully I am not going to be disciplined for clogging up the board with too many silly little tank builds but I have enjoyed the simple and fun work between wrestling with the corvette build. This is the Vickers Mark E Type A (twin turret) first built in 1928 by Vickers and rejected by the British Army but sold relatively successfully overseas to several countries. Poland bought 50 and a license to build more in-country. First to Fight is a Polish company and this is the first kit of theirs that I have bought. There are no instructions or decals included but on the underside of the box is a diagram showing the placement of parts and paint scheme I wasn't sure whether it was really a wargaming model rather than a serious scale model but it seems quite nicely detailed with two sprues of parts. The fit of parts is nice. I had to open out the holes in the turret halves to accept the pins but everything else was very well fitting with little flash. I kept the one piece track parts separate for the initial painting. At the end of the brief assembly I had a few bits left over. There seems to be an alternate turret base plate, an extra part for the second turret (only one turret has the part - unsure what it is) and a souple of idler wheels that don't seem to fit anywhere. Everything got a coat of black primer and then a coat of Tamiya Buff as the first of the three colour paint scheme. Now the masking starts for the darker colours. The hull looks straightforward but the turrets may be fiddly. Have a great weekend Alan

Now you have me wanting to dust off the Illustrious kit and dive back into some PE Alan