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Kevin-the-lubber

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Everything posted by Kevin-the-lubber

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. Kevin-the-lubber
    Well done indeed Bill. That's two of the three major milestones completed in a year, which is extraordinary.
  6. Kevin-the-lubber
    Well, that's spoilt my day, that was exactly my plan for when I get that far.😝
  7. 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.
  8. Kevin-the-lubber
    The rigging takes it to another level, keep at it Bill
  9. 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.
  10. 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.
  11. 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.
  12. Kevin-the-lubber
    The fife rails tip is one thing that really lodged in my head. Is CA gel the same as CA thick? Or even thicker?
  13. Kevin-the-lubber
    Thanks, and sorry, I didn't mean to give you heart failure 😁. That settles it, Campbell it is then.
  14. Kevin-the-lubber
    The glue tip is going to be useful for me. Although I tried to make the new deck as close as possible there will still be some slight gaps here and there. You said it’s white glue, does it dry grey or did you paint it? Note to self: if I ever use my spare kit I’ll replace the entire waterway; this issue could be easily avoided by having the deck sitting on top of, rather than butting up to, the waterway, and be more true to the ship into the bargain.
  15. Kevin-the-lubber
    I got a few myself several years ago when I discovered our sterile services dept was throwing them away if they had the slightest damage. I wish now I'd been greedy and taken the whole crate.
  16. Kevin-the-lubber
    Looking good. Music wire is a good idea - it occurs to me that the thinner wound guitar strings might pass for served cables if blackened.
  17. Kevin-the-lubber
    Marc, I can’t take too much credit, the software has a handy gear generator and the rest is just simple engineering. It was a nice little side project as I’ve paused for a moment while I build a heated enclosure for the resin printers. I’m getting too many fails right now, which I think may be down to the garage always being a bit cold. This is a very simple machine to make and I’ll happily share the (scrappy) F360 / STL files with anyone that wants them.
  18. Kevin-the-lubber
    I’ve never done any casting, it’s another method that I must try sooner or later. PE still knocks spots off resin in terms of super thin parts, but I didn’t see anything in the Titanic resin add-ons that isn’t do-able on our home printers. However, as we’d all testify, there can be a lot of pain between do-able and done. For sure there are industrial grade resin printers out there like the big Formlabs, at a cost of £15k - £20k, but I suspect the difference is probably as much about the choice of resin and design work as the printer itself. However I can’t bring myself to spend £100 per litre and then some. I’d love to see a professional resin kit like those parts up close, see how they orientate and support. My impression is that their supports are beefier. You’re right that printing can be pretty slow. Even if I had all the parts done perfectly for the Cutty sark I expect it would take two or three weeks just to print them.
  19. Kevin-the-lubber
    Made myself a serving machine 🙄. I hedged my bets, gave myself the option of 1:1 gears and 1:2. The latter works fine. The gears are a bit noisy, even though it has bearings I found in a drawer, but serving is quite a relaxing thing to do, isn't it. I'll sort out those long set screws once I've found a bit of wood for the base.
  20. Kevin-the-lubber
    That makes sense, doesn't it. I did wonder how the the writer drew those conclusions but decided he knew a lot more about it than me. Re' enclosures: I've decided it's about time I got a stable temperature sorted out, after thinking on your earlier advice. My larger resin printer is on a worktop in the (usually quite cold) garage and I've been noticing more fails compared to the small one, which is in my warm office. So I've just bought a large kitchen base unit i.e. a big mdf box with doors, and a small thermostatically controlled greenhouse tube heater. That should do the job.
  21. Kevin-the-lubber
    To be honest, if I had your CNC machine I'd probably be using that instead of printing a lot of the time, I at least always know where I stand when working with wood or metal. However, printing has it's place. Only being able to print one at a time: I'd check my FEP tension, you can do this with various apps that measure the wavelength or something, but I just look for it to have a tinny pitch when I tap it with something. But be careful, it dents easily and if you get any pinholes it's a right PITA. Regarding curling etc, you can just heat the part in a cup of hot water and bring it back into shape, handy if, like these window frames, they're going to be glued to something substantial. I noticed on the spec for that CNC machine that it had the option for a filament printer head, have you done any of that? The scope, scale-wise, is huge, way bigger than the desktop printers. Some people pooh-pooh filament as not able to give anything like an acceptable finish for scale modelling and unable to do micro detail, but in my view that's exaggerated. I'd expect to just about get away with those window frames. While writing, would you mind me sharing your library of Cutty Sark photos with another guy who's looking for detail pics? I wouldn't want to do so unless you were okay with it.
  22. Kevin-the-lubber
    Are all the settings identical? That looks like something is slightly different in Lychee. I use both lychee and chitubox, generally prefer the latter as I hate having to wait for the ads to finish in lychee, but I do like being able to mirror supports. One thing I have learned with resin is that changing the exposure by just a small amount I.e. half a second, can make the difference. But it can be hugely frustrating. One other thought - Brisbane can get damn hot, and temp plays a part, though in your case I’d have thought it should be needing slightly shorter exposures.
  23. Kevin-the-lubber
    That should made them pretty solid. While I'd like to print on the plate more often, I don't like the elephants foot effect, especially if the part has to fit to another, so in these instances I use supports and, contrary to logic, put them on the facing side, so I still get a reliable mating surface. Most of the time it's fairly quick to polish up the face
  24. Kevin-the-lubber
    To be honest I'm not sure I can, which makes my day. You've made a very good job of the painting, that's for sure. If I had to guess I'd say the two pairs in the middle are mine? Have you tried the blocks yet? In both instances, please critique freely, it'll only lead to improvement.
  25. Kevin-the-lubber
    While messing around a couple of weeks ago aimed at making whisker booms from copper wire, I just used my plumbing blowtorch and plumbers lead-free solder, as I always have some of that in the toolkit. I prefer using a flame rather than soldering iron, just because it's quicker and you can draw the solder to where you want it a little more easily. As and when I see myself doing this for real on models, I'll look for a true mini-torch, for ease. There's are loads of 'mini's' on amazon but they mostly look like standard size. I wouldn't spend too much either. A torch is a torch.

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