Egilman

Nice drawings Richard, yep the setup is much the same for airplanes.... Anyone that has built a balsa wood airplane knows the keel and bulkhead method of construction.... Ship hulls can be built the same way.... 80 meters 240 ft, 5 decks, a touch larger than the 35 meter 2 deck Predator..... The Sunseeker 108 Predator's claim to fame? is was in the movie Casino Royal, James Bond... Revell didn't miss the boat.... Thanks for the link....

Welcome aboard Wayne, I have several other cad programs loaded as well, Free Cad, Auto Cad, Revit and a couple of other lesser lights as well... Too many to do them all.... But the basic process should be the same for all of them....

Welcome aboard Mark! I hope we all can...

I have a copy of Rhino, but haven't installed it yet.... And, I am completely unfamiliar with it.... Although I am familiar with Solidworks and have a working knowledge of Fusion 360... Inventor I have just started getting around in... One thing I'm learning is they all have similar workflows for similar subjects... Just different ways of implementing it in the software... My Ideal for this is not absolute engineering accuracy.... Simply using the best images one can acquire without a large outlay for plans, usually lower grade online images... I don't intend for absolute perfection, we are simply modelers so the natural compromises that need to be made for modeling will take it's effect here... My expertise comes from the Boeing model shop and I feel very comfortable imaging airplanes rather than ship hulls, but the process is, in general, similar.... The Predator 108 drawings are simple 5 view drawings... Port Side, Bow, Stern, Weather Deck and Hull Bottom, I also have a cache of photos I've collected from the net... I've had to take them into Gimp to correct them as well so they match each other and the pictures as close as I can make out.... The result of my first attempt in Solidworks I posted in the opening post above..... The USS Nitro is a complete Booklet of General Plans I downloaded from Nara and that is all I have for it... The SS United States I have more documentation, a low grade BoGP from Nara and several dozen drawings from various websites around the web.... Some basic hull lines as well... (and a cache of pictures) I also have the five month series of articles from Popular Mechanics from '52-'53 on building a 36" solid hull model of her.... I learned a long time ago, the accuracy needed for industrial design or production of the real thing is impossible in a practical scale modeling world also, I remember reading my ship modelers assistant and several books on modeling ship hulls where the opinion is that a fair hull can be engineered, but the best judge of fairness is the human eye... (I know, hearsay in the ship design industry, chuckle, hearsay in the aircraft industry as well) Thanks for joining in, any and all tips tricks and advice is greatly appreciated..... I may just load up Rhino and give it a shot as well.... But you've sussed it out, I'm looking towards the process how to get from a mishmash of half-assed online images to a halfway decent representation of a ships hull.... The software really doesn't matter, the process is the same....

Welcome Richard, Any and all expertise is welcome.... Thanks for the link, I've downloaded it thru my Scribd account and will review it... but yes the first one from what I reviewed tends to follow the basic procedures used to make the Predator hull.... It's a fairly simple procedure.....

Welcome aboard Alan....

Welcome aboard Craig, hopefully we both learn something... {chuckle}

Hi all, I've been familiarizing myself with three different software packages.... Inventor, Fusion 360 and Solidworks.... I do general modeling on almost any subject that strikes my fancy, ships being one of them.... and since I just acquired a 3D printer I thought is would be nice if I really learned how to use it.... So what I'm going to do is attempt to build several ship hulls using different software packages.... The first will be a Yacht, a Sunseeker Predator 108 in Solidworks... a 108 foot luxury yacht which has already had a plastic model produced commercially.... (Revell Germany) and a 3D model released... I do not have either one of those models and will be attempting to design it using nothing but drawings.... (I've already done it, just going to show the process) I haven't decided on the second yet, but I'm thinking about the USS Nitro AE-2 a WWII ammunition ship using nothing but it's official US Navy BoGP dated 1945.... (poor condition but complete) This one hasn't been done in either plastic nor 3D yet.... (but you can buy it commercially from SD modelmakers) The third is going to be the SS United States, This ship exists as both a plastic model by several companies, (Revell & Glenco) has been scratchbuilt innumerable times both static and RC, and has been 3D modeled.... but I am going to try my own interpretation from nothing but a low quality BoGP and online images..... This will probably be a long term exercise cause I'm still learning the software, so plan on enduring my mistakes and all advice and experience will be welcome... The point of this thread is to open up the subject of hull building in common solid modeling 3-D design software... (and to sharpen my skills and hopefully everyone elses) So a few examples of the images I will be working with.... Sunseeker Predator 108.... AE-2 USS Nitro.... The SS United States.... The Predator is a simple Deep "V" hull design, the USS Nitro is a typical turn of the century commercial hull design, the SS United States is a mid century large, (990 foot) fast hull design.... If I can design any one of these hulls and produce a workable set of plans for them, then it makes it easier for the modeler to do the same.... Thanks for looking..... EG

My understanding was that the black dividing line was painted by hand in the field to delineate them from the American tanks which used the same pattern as delivered to them.... The tri-color camo was painted at the factory... Looks good to me.... Well done

Ok an FM-1 Wildcat, mid war, off an escort carrier in the Atlantic.... you would be hit or miss on the interior painting.... Prewar, the bulkheads were white or very light grey and the hangar deck was dark deck grey.... They remained that way up to late '42 when the orders came down to remove all flammable materials below decks not consistent with operational needs... And another thing to note, that order was specifically directed to the Pacific fleet, not the Atlantic fleet, (at least not initially) Admiral King didn't make it a fleet wide order till the middle of '43... so if you were building a plane on a Pac. Flt ship I would say yes, bare metal would be appropriate, but your markings indicate an Atlantic fleet squadron flying from an escort carrier on convoy duty.... (late '42 early '43 based upon the aircraft markings) Deck grey would be appropriate and the most likely scenario.... Your images show both believe it or not... and the color shot shows a deck grey floor, light grey bulkheads, light grey overhead.... The aircraft is also in the same color scheme, (pattern) as yours is with similar markings... Prewar aircraft grey period, ('38-'41) it would in general be a typical hanger deck prewar.... (and for the Atlantic Fleet throughout the early war period) Just my opinion brother.... she's looking beautiful....

Well, I imagine your going to put it on a deck grey hanger deck undergoing some sort of maintenance.... When they had those covers off, they were usually placed on the deck, face up, behind the gear under the fuselage...... Nice to see you working on her again my friend....

The Redcoats are coming! The Redcoats are coming!.... Mean lookin dudes as well! Nicely done brother....

Nice work....

Thank you, being a newbe myself I was afraid I would get it wrong.... Agreed, scans of blueprints/drawings are notoriously distorted.... Working with scanned or microfilmed BoGP's I soon realize they are only as good as the skills of the original photographer.... Then there is the automatic issue of lens distortion, then age deterioration... Lots of issues to deal with to convert them into useable drawings... Back when I started out with 3D in Maya then Blender, there was a tutorial I found on prepping drawings for use in 3D design software... There is a lot of issues to fix especially in scanned naval drawings, given their size they are difficult to scan accurately.... But that is how I was introduced to Gimp and how to fix and correct drawings which is a huge rabbit hole itself... (no time for that here, too big a subject) Most of the time coming up with perpendicular or parallel lines is impossible.... The most accurate line we have is the keel line.... My method of getting a straight scale loa measurement in fusion 360's calibrate function is to use the edit canvas feature to move my first point I want to measure from to the origin, then close and move the canvass to match the vertical origin line to the left side of the screen... Then I activate the calibration function and measure horizontally from the point I want to calibrate to, to the edge of the screen... you can get awful close to horizontal this way.. (within a very small window of deviation) Once calibrated to size/length, you then open the edit routine again and move the calibrated drawing to where ever you want it... It even works for drawings where the stern is inches higher than the stem..... Use the edge of the screen for your base ruler and move the point you want to measure from to it.... Then you can make the first calibration point anywhere along that line vertically.... it's like drawing a vertical baseline except it's a virtual one... Or you can add a vertical line to the drawing in PS or Gimp to use as a base line... There are several different ways to do it my friend...

Yeah I'm kinda wrapping my head around this as well... The order of features you add can have a dramatic effect on workflow for just a single component... And the more complex the component the the more complicated it becomes.... As far as a note feature for sketching? there is none, and there is a request in their support forums to add it... But it's not getting a lot of traction....

That's the thing that made it stand out for me, a Pz III could be easily disassembled with a simple derrick or boom truck, it didn't need a Strabo Crane to do any lifts.... I wish I had captured it.... It was easily repairable in the field with common hand tools.... I can't conceive why they would be lifting one end of it...

You need one of these to go with it..... BR-52

And they say you can't teach an old dog new tricks..... Nice addition to the tool box.....

You only need to remove it from the rolling surface and inner flange, the rest of the black should make a good primer for the very dark oxidized rust coloring.... My suggestion would be to use a sharp blade and cut it off along the rolling surface edges then use a rubber eraser to remove it from them, it should peel right off

Gun lifts and Turret lifts are always nice, you don't see too many of them and the images are mostly Panther turrets with a few Tiger's thrown in.... Engine lifts are good as well but they generally didn't use a Strabo for an engine lift.... There was one shot I saw a decade or so ago where a strabo was lifting the whole front end of a Pz. III but for the life of me I can't find it again...

That's the understatement of the year! It's curved in like four different directions all at once..... You know the obvious way is to fill it with putty then shape it, another way is to paper mache it... Multi layers of thin, hourglass shaped strips soaked in watery paste glue, once dry, light sanding should handle the edges.... Saw that done on one of those German forums....

I know I'm kinda late to the party here HG, but for future reference.... One of the dimensions of a ship is very important to describing the shape of the hull, it's a basic dimension and is usually synonymous with Waterline Length, but not always... LBP, Length between perpendiculars. It can be calculated or, it's usually marked on the profile drawings... When inserting a drawing as a canvas in Fusion 360 it installs it on the plane you selected, once done you close it and it shows up in your design tree on the left side of the screen. there will be a folder labeled "Canvasses" open it and right click on the drawing you just installed and it brings up a menu, one of the selections is "Calibrate" what that does is put your canvass in a mode that will scale it to whatever length you want it at keeping the aspect ratio constant... You mark one point on the drawing, then another point on the drawing at the end of a known dimension... Fusion 360 enlarges/scales the drawing for you to the dimension you specify... Once that is done, you again right click on the drawing in the Canvas folder and select edit, you can then move it to line up whatever index point on the document you wish to use with the origin.... The point of this little operation is you now have a drawing in accurate scale on a known dimension, you can take dimensions directly off the canvass within Fusion 360 cause your drawing is now indexed.... everything you draw or sketch out will be in scale with the blueprint.... A big huge timesaver to having to constantly do the math.... Let the blueprint be more than just a guide for overdrawing/tracing, let it do the job it was drawn for, convey the actual data.... EG

Probably, but we are modelers, so what ever works is good as well.... {chuckle}

The problem with the 1/32nd AM corsair cockpits for the trumpy kit is they replicate the fuselage walls along with all the bits for the cockpit itself...., you have to removes the details in the kit fuselage halves and thin the resulting cockpit sides to make it work.... I actually read about a gent that cut off the cockpit section of the halves then glued the AM between the remaining forward and aft sections of the fuselage... he finished it off by building up the outer fuselage surface to match the two sections and rescribed the detail.... A lot of work.... personally when I do mine I'm going to try the Black Box cockpit designed specifically for the Revell bird.... It's actually more accurate and fits beautifully without any complex surgery..... This conversion will work I"ve seen it done, just use your modelers patience and common sense brother, (you have them in spades) and you'll make it work.... it looks so much better than the kit offering.... Your very close now, it won't take much more.... Looking good, very impressive skills being shown....

We went thru this same situation with Craig's ALF pumper hoses.... I don't know what he did to resolve that one, but here is the link to the suggestion I made.... Scale hose problem.... There were several suggestions made from several brothers....