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Kevin-the-lubber

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Everything posted by Kevin-the-lubber

  1. Kevin-the-lubber
    Phil, the hot water trick was used by Daniel (Dafi) over on his Victory log. I guess if you have a former to shape the object to, it’s probably quite easy to re-shape after softening with a little heat. Whether it’ll hold the shape I don’t know. I agree about cross supports, but I’m sure you have some control options for these in Chitubox? I’d guess that in the paid version you can place them by hand, but I can live without that. Interesting to hear about the customer support, it had never occurred to me to ask them when I have problems like my square edge pet peeve. Egilman, what’s the cream-coloured resin in #259? The result looks better than the grey resin? I use way more supports than you, I’ve just gravitated towards more over less over time, as I was getting frustrated by the fails. To get over my recent hump of fails I had to increase the exposure times quite a lot, the point being that I’m having to use different settings for the same object, printer, resin etc from those which were successful last year. I guess (printing seems to always involve a lot of guesswork!) this is down to temperature, humidity etc. I also built a heated booth for the printers as even in summer the temp in my garage can be quite cool. Basically I just bought a flat pack kitchen cabinet + doors and added a small tubular greenhouse heater.
  2. Kevin-the-lubber
    Ps. Nothing wrong with free lychee apart from the ads. The only thing I don’t like about it is that you can’t bevel the raft, whereas you can in free chitubox. I only use lychee now when I want to mirror supports functions, which saves a lot of time, otherwise I just find Chitubox easier and much more tolerant on non-manifold objects.
  3. Kevin-the-lubber
    Manual every time for me. It can be a bit of a drag, doing them by hand, but for our kind of stuff - tends to be small and precise - you’ll more often get the result you want at the first try. One tip: if the item is very delicate, raise it off the bed by 10 or 12 mill rather than the ‘normal’ 5 or 6. Let me go back one step and explain: I remove supports by snipping them off at the raft end first, them gently twist them off the object. The reason for increasing object to bed distance is so that the supports are longer and there is more opportunity for the support to bend when being snipped, as opposed to the object. If they object is super thin and the supports are very short, there is a tendency for the object itself to get broken by the snipping. There are probably other ways of solving that problem, and I’m all ears if so. I hardly ever turn to YouTube as so much of the time the videos are painful to watch, dragging things out forever when 5 seconds would do.
  4. Kevin-the-lubber
    I’m not sure I ever calculated it out, but for the Victory I could see it was going to cost several hundred pounds in aftermarket stuff and even then I was going to have to scratch build quite a lot, so in theory it made sound financial sense. In reality I have of course thrown around a hundred pounds worth of resin in the bin while learning but, just like FDM, the mistakes and fails are generally less and less frequent.
  5. Kevin-the-lubber
    It was the cost of buying all the little bits like eyebolts, blocks, stanchions etc that tipped my decision to also buy a resin printer. That and an acceptance that even with a 0.2 nozzle (0.1 was just too painful) and 0.1 layer height, I was never going to get the finish I needed. If you’re at all tempted, bear in mind that there are loads of very good first or second generation resin printers on eBay now, as people upgrade to the newest models.
  6. Kevin-the-lubber
    While I dare say some may have a view on your choice of colours I don’t think anyone is going to deny that the effect is spectacular, the execution first class and that there’s solid reasoning behind the choices.
  7. Kevin-the-lubber
    Very tempting, as that too is around the £60 mark. Like you I'm very taken by the raised walkways but also that there's a lot of stuff on the decks. As you know, I do like a bit of detail! It was the raised walkway that caught my eye on Rob's Glory of the Seas. We shall have to see. Not least, how I get on with rigging the Cutty - despite the absence of deadeyes etc you seem to have an awful lot of lines on that ship. I'm reasonably okay with persevering with a difficult problem, less so with endless repetition.
  8. Kevin-the-lubber
    Here's the irony - more years ago than I care to remember I worked for a few months in the shipyard in Lubeck, and in Hamburg, though not Blohm & Voss, I'd probably enjoy both experiences even more if I had that time again. But nevertheless, obviously quite different to the Preussen. Seems like plans are not hard to find https://hec.lrfoundation.org.uk/archive-library/ships/preussen-1902
  9. Kevin-the-lubber
    9” longer than the Victory is getting large - I guess that’s why they went for 1/150, so it’d still fit in the average house. I read somewhere recently that this was part of the general design brief for these larger models. Its a pricey kit though, about £150 it seems, whereas the Passat is only £65. So many models…. I’d best finish the CS before getting distracted!
  10. Kevin-the-lubber
    I don’t know how I’ve missed this log, Ian. I knew you were doing the galley but not this lovely little (not) gem. I must read through the log more slowly presently. This is very much my kind of ship, with all that busy-ness on the decks. Actually, I’ve remembered why it wouldn’t have registered - I don’t think I could handle 1/150. How do you find it compared to the Vic? It looks quite large despite the scale. Either way, it’s looking fabulous. Are there build plans available? Incidentally, if you liked that Eric Newby book (which I haven’t read) can I recommend two others by him - A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush, and Love and War in the Apennines. The former was very popular in the mountaineering community back in the day.
  11. Kevin-the-lubber
    I think I've figured out why the deck is too high on revell. The hull bows out / bulwarks lean in, whichever you prefer, in the central section and as revell appear to have preferred a laterally segmented deck, it wouldn't have been possible to fit this if it was 5 mm lower. There wouldn't have been any clearance across the bulwarks. This also explains why the waterways are moulded in when, ideally, the deck would have butted up to the hull. I doubted that this was a simple error, there would have been too many eyes on it for that, and this feels like the sort of sensible compromise you'd make if you were aiming for the kit to be relatively straightforward for your average 13 or 14 year old to build.
  12. Kevin-the-lubber
    I buy in bulk off ebay, 5 UK gallons at a time. Tail-chasing at the moment with both printers and both resins I use (elegoo ABS like & syratech fast). Stuff not sticking to the plate or separating mid-print. Weird, I don't generally change settings and I've done dozens and dozens of good prints with the same.
  13. Kevin-the-lubber
    Mouse trap? Did someone say mousetrap? Just give me 10 minutes... True though.
  14. Kevin-the-lubber
    Another story from my youth. When I was about 16 or 17 years old, we had a job to install some kind of smelting equipment in the Lesney toy plant in Essex. They used to make all the diecast matchbox cars and did a load of injection moulding as well. All of which was amazing to see; the scale of the machines (huge), the speed, the noise, the everything. All of which is just background. For some reason we had to install this thing overnight, when the night shift was on. Like just about every night shift factory I ever worked in - quite a few, as the money was always better - the supervision levels were minimal and the place was half deserted. And that was the problem - half of it was not deserted, and that half was entirely made up of gangs of middle-aged, feral women. Me, I was this baby faced, innocent young boy, and for some reason one pack took it upon themselves to utterly terrorise me. Oh the language, the innuendo, the frankly terrifying descriptions of what they intended! I hid in the toilets, hid behind machinery, hid everywhere I could think of, and in the end I had to volunteer for the worst possible job, being up on the roof installing the extraction cowling. Of course it was lashing with rain and freezing cold, this is 1970's Britain! We did have a little torch though, sure proof that we were coming out of the recession. I'm not sure what was more scary - the fear of falling 60 feet through the ancient asbestos and killing myself, or falling and landing in the middle of the howling pack. I expect they hadn't had so much fun for years and would have probably been more inclined to give me a glass of milk and a jam sandwich, but I refused point blank to go within a mile of that place thereafter.
  15. Kevin-the-lubber
    There you have it. I don't feel nearly as bad now about my verrrrryyyyy slow pace. What you're doing in 3D modelling is essentially the same thing but with far fewer cuts & bruises and of course you can correct your mistakes much more easily.
  16. Kevin-the-lubber
    Someone on here is scratchbuilding the surprise at the moment, based on the book. I’m not sure of the scale. The trouble with 1/48 would be a) having the room for it when done and b) the extra detail required. If I ever 3D develop a model like the CS from the hull upwards, I think I’d aim for about 1/75; big enough to overcome the ‘but it’s so tiny’ issue but just about small enough to display at home.
  17. Kevin-the-lubber
    I think this will kind of go full circle. Long before plastic kits even existed, people were making models. Today, we call it scratch building. Plastic kits came along, with a huge range of models which were more than good enough for their time, and everyone was making them. That supply line is kind of drying up and in any case the quality doesn't match today's expectations. Along comes 3D and, in time, individuals and then companies will produce new kits including of ships that were never available in plastic. Just because we can, whereas previously we couldn't. And at whatever scale you desire. You want 1:700 sir, I'll send that to you this afternoon; 1:100, next week. These are very early days for 3D model-making but people are going to become exceptionally good at it and some will probably turn it into a good business. I rather suspect us oldies like the plastic kits because it's what we grew up on, there's a bit of nostalgia in the mix. I wouldn't be at all surprised if, in 50 years time, our equivalents are hunting out and sharing the files for Fred's HMS Lively or Ville de Paris that he produced in 2030. Ian, I don't think the absence of metalwork and woodwork in schools is really related to health & safety but more about what's current. My daughter did 'design & technology', in which they made things using a laser cutter, cast things using resin and all that kind of thing. Back when I was at school in the '70's, we did the trades, I think in part because that's where many of us were destined to end up. I became a sheetmetalworker, others in my year became carpenters, builders, etc. In the early '80's I could quit a job at 9am and be working again the next day, sometimes even the same day. Nowadays there are hardly any factories or SME's doing that kind of thing. It is sad in a way, but in much the same way as the old guys when I was an apprentice lamented the passing of smithing, which even by then had become a niche, arty kind of occupation. It's as you say, the world has moved on. Anyway, enough of that - for light relief, an extremely bad 3D jolly boat (thanks shipman); In my defence I am doing the 3D equivalent of thinking out loud, just playing around a little to understand how to turn sketches into an extremely nice 3D jolly boat, while sorting out the health and safety side of my printing setup.
  18. Kevin-the-lubber
    Resin kits are bound to be expensive, in the short term at least. It takes seconds to injection mould parts for normal plastic kits and I imagine manufacturers could knock out a batch of a ship, say 500, in a day or two. The plastic itself is probably quite cheap as well. Even with industrial printing kit (cost = £10k or £15k upwards) I suspect the same volume could take weeks if not months to produce in resin. Bringing it down to the home printer level, if I set out to model and sell a complete resin cutty sark (and let's assume by then I had complete mastery of the 3D software on both the design and printing side, which I certainly don't at this point), I think it would take maybe 3 - 6 months to design all the parts and then at least a week to print each single kit. The materials wouldn't cost that much, maybe £100, but you'd be hard-pressed to sell these kits at even £300 - £400 and make any profit. I have no idea what the market is like for mainstream plastic kits but suspect it's much smaller than when I was a boy. Back then, happiness was spending all my pocket money on an airfix spitfire or whatever and, if I was lucky, getting the endeavour for Christmas. But these days I expect it's more about the latest phone game etc. My guess is that it's become more niche, more people like us, who spend months and years on each model and spend far more on the extras than on the kits themselves, so I'm not surprised no-one seems keen on investing heavily in new, large age-of-sail kits.
  19. Kevin-the-lubber
    Well done indeed Bill. That's two of the three major milestones completed in a year, which is extraordinary.
  20. Kevin-the-lubber
    Well, that's spoilt my day, that was exactly my plan for when I get that far.😝
  21. Kevin-the-lubber
    Resin upgrading is cheap as chips. But if I was doing this to sell and make some profit, I'd need to factor in the development time, running costs and low volumes. That's what pushes the price up; and up further still once you sell through a third party as they also need a cut. It's like everything - you makes your choice and pays your money. I think within 5 or 10 years you'll have the option to buy complete, incredibly accurate, detailed resin kits but they'll probably be expensive because each one will be being printed individually. We're already seeing kits where you get the files and print them yourself, but I think that may be trickier once people start sharing the files.
  22. Kevin-the-lubber
    The rigging takes it to another level, keep at it Bill
  23. Kevin-the-lubber
    The strange thing about these kits - because it’s equally true of just about all of them that I’ve read up on - is that a lot of work would have gone into the design and the ‘errors’ must have been conscious choices to stray from the plans. I understand why you’d do that around fine points of detail that might be difficult to mould, or where you want to recycle parts like the boats, but not those like the deck height. I did and maybe still do have thoughts of selling the Victory stern as an aftermarket kit, but haven’t even thought about this for any of the Cutty stuff, mostly because I haven’t done anything yet that solves a major problem. It’s all just making it a little more detailed etc. However, a friend has offered me use of his laser machine and very large filament printer, which I’ll make use of when I do the Kearsage, and if that goes well I might revisit the Cutty.
  24. Kevin-the-lubber
    I think GranpaPhil might have been referring to styrene sheet e.g evergreen. I don’t know how easy it is to mill, given the relatively low melting point. If I had your machine I’d have been tempted to get a sheet of 3mm aluminium. The hull wrapping is an interesting technique. There’s a lady on here, Doris, that builds the most extraordinary card (paper) models, I must have a look at her technique one day. Card modelling seems popular in Eastern Europe, at least I often see card plans from there on eBay, but that looks like a level of skill that I don’t even aspire to.
  25. Kevin-the-lubber
    I don’t think yours will look plastic in the ‘plasticky’ sense, it’s already had too much tlc for that. And I bet that, over the years to come, many a person will assume it’s something other than a kit. I’ll probably be happy with standing rigging if needs be. I barely understand where any of the ropes connect to at this point so the whole thing will be a learning curve. My trouble is that I’m reluctant to settle for a kit part if it looks relatively easy to make a better version, one thing leads to another and I end up where I’m at, remaking almost everything. ps. The boats in the kit are also out of scale compared to Campbell. They should be about 15% bigger. I’m just playing around with remaking one at the moment, to understand how to do a hull in F360, and noticed that when I brought the plans into the software.

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