NavyShooter

So, in one of those 'glad for another set of eyes...disappointed that I missed it myself' moments, I gave a scaled down version of the 3D printed bridge to another modeler for his 1/350 scale model of the Bonnie, and he was able to give me some constructive feedback indicating that I'd screwed up some dimensions. In 1/96 scale, it was 29mm short... So...I did some mucking about with scaling, and ended up increasing it's size to 111% tonight. And then I spent some time adding some additional detail bits (see all those bracing struts?) and tweaked a couple of minor errors in the model based on the latest print. This also made it too big to print in the large pieces I've been using...so it's now cut apart into two halves, and a top and bottom. I have another 50 hours of printing ahead of me I guess! Version 6, here we come!

Gaelic perhaps? Looks like a great build! A suggestion for your prop (I see you hammered one out on your own) there's a guy in the UK that is able to make custom props- the Prop Shop - his name is Simon. https://www.prop-shop.co.uk/ I've bought a bunch of props from him - kort nozzle ones for a tugboat, WW2 style ones for my aircraft carrier and my Liberty Ship. (Note, I had to sand off the tail-cone of the prop here to fit with my rudder.)

Having the work bench partially cleared let me lay out the Trackers. I've got a full squadron of 8 printed, and they're ready for assembly. The sharp eyed might note the small, copper jacketed, lead cored weight that I'm planning to install in the nose of each of the fuselages. A bit of drilling, a bit of glue to secure it, and I'll have a nice (mostly) lead weight holding the nose down as the Tracker models are all notoriously tail heavy!

So, the overall performance of the ship 'at sea' is fairly poor in terms of turning radius, so I cut and formed a new rudder this evening. Took about an hour or so to cut, drill, drill and tap, then form the shape. I'm going to wait for a nice calm evening and see if the turning radius drops from about 50 feet to maybe 30...the low speed turning performance is fairly poor and I realize that a scale rudder is usually limited. The scale rudder has been added inside the hull for ballast.

I'm also now onto Version 5 of my 3D printed Island. It'll be finished up about this time tomorrow evening!

I spent a couple of hours out in the shop this evening - I spent most of my time working on tidying up and building a new rudder for my Liberty Ship - and I put up the shelf that I'm planning to have the Lib Ship hang out on - but then in order to get work-space on benches sorted out, I put the Bonnie up there. There will be a larger, lower shelf for the Bonnie.

Not sure why the Banshee pic in the post above isn't showing up...so here it is again. Also, here's the 3D printed Landing Light platform that I put together. Damn near perfectly flush with the flight deck!

Welcome aboard! I might have a pdf of a printed ship model of a Canadian Mine Sweeper that I can dig up and send you if you're interested? Not sure if that's what you're looking to build. Enjoy your time here - there are some master builders on this site, and I'm no-where near their level of skill! This place is open to folks of all capabilities!

Thanks for the suggestion Lou - that's about all that seems to come up when I hit google.

Decals on the Banshees are done. At last!

Good afternoon all, I'm on the hunt for an Anchor Winch. I've got an R/C Aircraft carrier (see my thread on the Bonnie if you're interested) and I'd like to have a functional anchor onboard. Can anyone recommend a good, functional winch system that I could buy? Thanks! NS

I woke up...and here's what we have: That looks a lot better! I started another print as I headed out to work this morning, so I'll get home and find another one waiting. I've reached out to order some decals for them now as well. Progress! I've also created myself a 'print queue' for what I've got to print, and it's looking pretty busy: 2x HO4S 2x Tracker 1x Larger scale Bonnie Hull (I can fit about 1/680 scale onto my print bed!) 4x Sea King 2x - Mystery Plane 1x Tool Holder for my Hex keys and snippers

Parts arrived for the printer - 3 hours of fiddling about to figure out how to rebuild and more importantly re-align everything, and we're printing again. I'll wake up in the morning to a HOS4....

Here's an example of the failed print of the HO4S helicopter - the problem was with a leak in the hot end of the printer, so I was getting a pool/puddle of hot liquid filament on top of the heater block...which would randomly drop onto the model while printing, resulting in the poor results see on the left with the helo. I also found a 3D model of the Bonnie (complete) that I tried printing. She's a bit small (see the #8 screw head for size comparison) but you get the idea.

I'm planning on a 'full' air department, though flexible. 10-12 fixed wing at a time, and 4-6 rotary wing. At various points in her career, Bonnie had 4 types of aircraft - H04S Helicopter, F2 Banshee, S2 Tracker, and Sea King. I have found 3D printable models of all of these, and am working towards having a few of each available to put on the deck. That said - the Banshees and Sea Kings never actually 'shared a deck' on the Bonnie - the Banshees were retired before the SK's came into service in Canada. I have decals for 8 Banshees, 8 Trackers and 4 Sea Kings, and I will be getting decals for the H04S printed up. Referencing the pictures I've found - the ship never seems to have operated more than about 10 fixed wing and 4-6 rotary wing aircraft at the same time. Chatting with some of the former crew, they indicated that the ship, while having a 'listed' max aircraft of 28, seldom had even 20 onboard, even with hangar storage. So, my plan is to have a 'rotating' air det when I sail the ship. Banshees and H04S plus maybe a Tracker or two to represent her 'early' Air Det. Sea King and Trackers to represent her later Air Det. I found a picture the other day of the Fly-past of the Trackers for the Bonnie's Decommissioning - there were 13 in the picture, plus the 14th being the aircraft that took the picture. At no point have I found more than 12 Trackers in a picture of the ship, and it's usually 8 - often 6 parked on the bow in the deck park, and 2 in the 'work area' of the flight deck. Having recognized that most aircraft on aircraft carriers had their wings folded at every moment except when at the catapult for launch, or landing...while I had 8x Banshees printed and ready to decal...I had to print 7 more with wings folded. So now I have 15 Banshees...but decals going on 8 of them. I also had about 8 or 10 Trackers printed, then I found a better 3D model of it, and so I'm printing 8 more of the new version. The old ones were - marginal...good from afar, but far from good due to flaws in the original files, so I threw most of them out. I have 1 Sea King printed - and was ready to hammer out a few more until my printer had a hiccup last week - parts are on the way and should arrive tomorrow. The H04S 'demo' print was when the printer had it's problems - so I don't have any of them done yet. It's a work in progress...each airplane takes about 24-30 hours to print at fine resolution on the printer. Good think I'm not in a rush!

There are 25 decals per Banshee.... I have applied 139 so far on 8 aircraft. 2 are complete! 6 to go. 61 decals left to apply...

I went to a production line system for the roundels....there's a lot of decals to go...

Another 'detail' is the ship's boats. I have an idea about making them functional RC Boats...but my skills with tiny RC stuff is currently non-existant. That said, this boat will be printed at about 95mm long...which is right on the cusp of being do-able. This is not even version 1 - this is version 0 - I got the 3D model from another person on Thingiverse who had it for his USS Wasp model, and have scaled it, and started modifying to look a bit more like one of Bonnie's boats. Lots of work left to do, and I'm working in Tinkercad on this one because it uploaded there better than it did in DSM. I just paid the Fedex bill for my printer parts - the import fees weren't too bad. They are due to arrive tuesday. In the meantime...my printer is awful quiet.

A suitably impressive build! I've been working on some basic 3D modeling for details going on my HMCS Bonaventure model in 1/96, and I am far from having the level of skill that you display here. I'm also working with a filament printer not a resin one, so our build processes are slightly different. I think I might have to mock up a 1/96 scale engine and cart for my Banshees and Trackers!

I had her out for a sail again last evening - ended up going for about a half hour around the lake and decided that it's pretty relaxing to stand at the dock and sail a ship around the lake. I also decided that I'm going to make a slightly larger rudder for her - this one works, but gives very poor handling when going astern. I'm thinking that a longer rudder might give me better control. That said, the ship is about 25 pounds, so there's a lot of inertia to deal with. I'm still pondering FPV - not in a rush but it would be neat to have a camera on the ship to see what it sees. At this point though, I'm looking for a 'plug and play' system rather than a kit or anything that I have to figure out.

Looks like I made an error with creating a print file a couple of days ago and accidentally set it to "PETG" instead of PLA. The PETG prints at a much higher temp than the PLA, and so it appears that it let the PLA 'goop' and leak around the filament guide tube in the hot end, and leak up on top of the heating block, puddling, and creating drips that would then drop onto the work-piece at random times during printing. Less of a 'blow out' and more of a 'drip out' I guess. I tried pulling the hot end apart last night to clean it...and the puddle of goop is preventing disassembly. So. New hot end ordered, with a spare...arrives on Tuesday. So in the meantime, last night I took my Liberty Ship for a cruise on the lake, and spent a couple of hours working on decals.

OK, my 3D printer seems to have had a blowout in the hot end. Parts have been ordered (with backups!) and will be here in about 3 days. So in the meantime, I decided to get working on the Air Det that I've already got complete. Tonight...I applied decals for the first time in probably 30 years. A bit of a learning curve, but I'm generally pleased with how Banshee #1 looks. OK...it's Banshee # 434...but whatever... There's still a few more decals to add, but this was a good start.

I've been working on the Air Department for the ship in the background...basically since I started. Last night I was able to find a 3D model of the HOS4 helicopter that was operated on the Bonnie early in her career...and after a couple of hours of work tidying up the model, I think I have something that I can actually try printing. The thing is, there are a lot of 3D models out there that are available for sale for use in computer game design. This one was for '3D printing' but...it needed a bunch of work to get it to this point. Scaling it, and then adjusting elements in the tail, tail rotor, main rotor hub and landing gear so that they are thick enough to actually print is the key. Sadly, that impacts the 'pure scale' factor of it, but in terms of the 'it looks like a HOS-4 - I think I've got that.

Ahoy DeHammer! Welcome aboard, and I wish you all the best with your build!

Looking at your 3D model - the forward cabin would be the Captain's - there should probably be an interior door to enter it from the base of the ladder just aft. Looks like a great design!