AON

Short update and more. If you're visiting you are probably wonder where had I gone and what have I been up to? Well I am back on my build, have been for weeks. I can proudly say it no longer bothers me to remove frames. It used to tear at my heart and soul. Lord knows how many times I've put them on and taken them off in the last few weeks. I do not give it a second thought anymore. I have gotten frames installed past the location where I last stopped before summer. To recap, I had taken them all off back to the Forward Fashion Pieces, and then I swung my hand over the model and snapped off one of the two forward fashion pieces. It has been remade and installed and it is all now looking good with good alignment. After too many removals and re-installations my CDO (OCD for others) is satisfied. The plan is that I will be putting all frames in (sanding to shape when the aft cant and fore cant frames are installed and then again when those between are in) then marking off the gun ports, then removing frames individually, cutting the gun ports and notches for the cills, and finally replacing them as I go along. It will be a long process as I have many interests and diversions and so do not seem to advance as quickly as other modellers. I will only post when I've something substantial or worthy to look at (or am stumped and need advise) so do not think I've gone for good if you don't see a progress report for awhile. Building and installing frames is repetitive work. Meanwhile I have been lucky enough to have had an opportunity to review all but ten of the 150 issues of the Model Shipwright Magazine (1972 - 2008) and have scanned numerous articles, tips and tricks, etc. that caught my fancy. I will be getting a few more next month. From these I got the idea of a hardwood cutting (sawing/chiselling board). So Yesterday I made one. This inspired me to make a holding setup block for my protractor to free up my hand when setting the adjustable bed on my sander. I had tried numerous methods from clamps to different style protractors but the one in the photo below is my favourite and now I can have one hand on the Allen Key and the other holding the bed. I also attached one photo of my build table as of this morning. Before Christmas I had built a 1:12 scale 9 pound naval cannon (posted on the forum). The cannon and balls were 3D printed for free at the local library. After several attempts they got something I could use but it was in two halves (Breech/Muzzle) and I had to 2 part epoxy glue it together. I found the insignia difficult to see through the Plexiglas case so I had increased the size and finally coloured (painted) it to highlight so it would stand out. I have since purchased a 3D printer and have printed a one piece cannon (1:12) with the insignia at the proper size. One fellow at our club at our meeting earlier this month told me how to clean up the plastic a bit and paint the cannon with an acrylic flat black spray paint. He says the insignia will likely be more noticeable if flat black versus the shiny plastic. So I will be attempting this. Meanwhile I've been trying to print it at 1:64 scale. My first few attempts were a disaster. Today's attempt was better but not quite there yet. Too many adjustments to get it right for the small scale and specific type of PLA plastic... the learning curve. The picture below shows my one piece 1:12 print along with the printer attempting the 1:64 in the background. I apologise for the long story but you may not see another post for awhile.

She's white up here also. Guess your getting our left overs! 😂 Edit😆 My mistake is coming from the southwest We (Niagara Region in southern Ontario Canada) are getting your (USA) left overs 😥

Good afternoon Mark, As per your request in our earlier PM's I am posting the info here regarding another method to create a scale insignia, or more properly... "Relief sculpting methods for model details". We had our local club meeting on Sunday and I've just updated our website with blogs and photos from that meeting. The method used to sculpt small details was with Weldbond Adhesive. He applies it with the pointy end of a tooth pick and says he has about 5 minutes time before the supply source (he had deposited on a card that he picks off of) sets up. Then he simply squirts some more onto the card and takes droplets from it with his tooth pick and touches it to his model to shape and build up his insignia. It is white (like white glue) when wet and cures transparent. He says it can be scraped and sanded after cured and if it is still not quite right it can be added to afterwards. It works best on porous material (wood) but he is presently using it on copper tubing successfully. He has examples of actual royal insignia on cannons but they are stored away in his son's garage and to use his words, it was too darned cold out there so he gave up looking! For anyone that wants to try this, he suggests you play around with it a bit to get a feel for it and the setup time before you use it on your model. He will be giving a demonstration at our April 14th meeting. For anyone interested in seeing a small sample of his sculpting a photo is posted on our club website: https://modelshipwrightsofniagara.weebly.com/ Please go to our BLOG page and scroll down to January 13th.

Mark Re making mistakes... I know this feeling well. Walking away always works so long as I remember to come back. Druxey Re Magic tape After googling it I feel a bit dumber than usual. I normally call it Scotch tape or generically call it Transparant tape. I never noticed the packaging claimed it was magic 😉

I just stumbled back here. $4000 gets you the full Standard version of SolidWorks (not the Premium) but anything you print will have a watermark on it.

He mentioned it at our last meeting and I can only hope he has done one of the two and will bring it to our next meeting on the 13th of this month.

These are really tiny! Mark Taylor (post 1021) mentioned where you can buy them that small. One of the fellows in our local club is sculpting his monogram on his barrel with liquid metal, dental picks and files. I'm not sure if this is an option but thought I'd throw it out there

Completed. Thank you all for following, your "likes", comments and help. Wishing everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

You are correct! ** The problem is that it is practically indistinquishable in black shiny plastic on the black shiny plastic... and worse when forced at a distance (through an acrylic case). I even strayed by making the insignia a little larger this time in the hopes it might make a difference but it did not. What the eye cannot see (even my good eye) is sometimes unbelievable. I learnt this lesson during my industrial heat treatment furnace designing career with safety yellow perforated machine guards. The eye will not see through them but will look through black so I would have portions of my machine guards painted black so operators and maintenance people could see motion through them. I did not agonize over this decision as I did with a few others. It is pretty nice looking... and I like it. Unlike learned people like yourself and others on this forum, most people won't know and will hopefully be focused as I am at how damn good looking it is. Father, forgive me, for I have sinned. **NOTE: please see post #124 dated 26 Feb 2012 for an update on painting the royal cypher

After recovering from my worst yet needle in the eye .... I cleaned the supports off the trunnions and glued the two pices of the cannon together. I will not be touching the piece up at all as I want it to be realized to be 3D printed. I had smoothed off the cannon balls a bit which resulted in a dull finish and they are almost unrecongizable as having been 3D printed. I am happy with them but do notwant the gun looking anything like this and do not want to have to paint it black. We had had a presentation on Adhesives (Glues) at our September meeting of the Model Shipwrights of Niagara ( https://modelshipwrightsofniagara.weebly.com/blog ) and were told about the websites https://www.thistothat.com/ and http://www.thebestglueforplastic.com/ I found the best glue for PLA was a 2 part epoxy and it worked wonderfully. I also painted** the royal insignia by applying a small amount of paint to my finger tip and dabbing it to the raised insignia. Literally waiting for paint to dry now. **NOTE: Please see post #124 dated 26 Feb 2012 for update on painting the royal cypher

I picked up my new 3D prints from the local library this afternoon. This was extremely fast, they must have enjoyed the challenge. It was different from the usual mundane items they print. Two sections printed vertical (standing on end). One muzzle and two breeches with one version of the breech with the insignia. This is what was on the note they sent me: In terms of the flat insignia, it didn't come out very clearly when we used the file's default thickness, but when we added another millimeter to its depth it came out much more clearly. You should be able to sand this thicker version down to get the look you want. The version of the breech with the insignia on it also looks surprisingly good. All files were printed on the "Hyper" resolution setting with a layer height of 0.8mm. When printing the insignia, I slowed the print speed down to 20mm/s to ensure the details came out as precisely as possible. They look a million times better than the earlier horizontally printed halves. Judge for yourselves...

Yes, post #90 by Hexnut.

Had my meeting about 3D printing at the local Library this afternoon. I brought in my list of suggestions supplied by one anonymous forum member (thank you again!) and it was very helpful. Their machine is a 2 year old commercial printer. I was told the 8 Mb file size limit is set by the Library's internet file transfer size limitation. If I bring my files in on a thumb drive (stick) they can be any size I care to save them at. By this logic I can split the gun into merely two pieces, a muzzle half and a breech half. The split will be at the edge of the 2nd reinforcing ring just past the trunnion to keep the printing supports under the trunnion short. We discussed printing the insignia flat as the wrapped version has a maximum offset of 0.01 inches (0.254mm) at 1:12 scale. As the PLA filament diameter is 1.75mm (0.069"), or x12 = 0.828 inches full size, this would be one layer of plastic on the machine bed. They feel it would be very difficult to lift off without breaking it. They asked if I could print it thicker (taller) part as two layers might be easier to "peel" off the bed. I've just e-mailed them a couple more questions regarding this... trying to understand the difference between filament diameter (1.75mm) and layer height (0.15mm) as it relates to my build scale (1:12). They also suggested I print a second breech end of the barrel with the insignia on. They are not sure how this will turn out but they don't have any problem with trying. So that is what I will do. As Christmas is around the corner they are swamped with requests to print stocking stuffers. I told them mine was not a Christmas present so I haven't any problem waiting. Meanwhile (soon) I will cleanup the parts I have, acetone slovent weld them together and paint the insignia with my version of yellow ochre. I am back to re-making frames for my 74 but won't be posting there until I have something worthwhile showing.

Update.... I received a PM from a forum member who took my file and attempted to print the small section at the insignia horizontally with his printer. The results were similar. He made many suggests: print vertically, 2 to 3" long sections; divide at an top or bottom of a ring not through it. Layer height no larger than 0.2mm. Infill of 20%. Wall thickness no less than 1mm (1.2 seems to be ideal without being overkill) Print with Brim of 5-8 lines (this will be a layer surrounding the parts that helps them adhere to the bed). He concurred that printing the insignia separately and flat would likely result in better quality. I have a considerable amount of info to discuss with the library staff. Now I need to make smaller model sections. This should be easier by reusing the original sketch.

A question for people out there that have some expertise with 3D printing. I have two sketches below. One has the cannon divided into two pieces, almost equal halves, whereas the other has it divided into five unequal pieces. What advantage or disadvantage is there to these divisions if presented as individual 3D vertical prints? The first bad thing that comes to mind for me is that the ribbon of hot PLA plastic having no support at the bands when printed vertically... they may droop or simply fall away... even if they are rotated and printed upside down where possible. The first possibly good thing is that the smaller sections allow larger detail in the 8Mb limited STL file. Is there a better way to divide this?

Thank you Hexnut. Definitely looking at the option of printing vertically in sections. What do you mean by "as a couple-layer flat"?

Just heard back from the library. I will meet with them Tuesday afternoon. They only have the one tip but can adjust the feed and % infill. They are more than willing to try again.

Also... I typed 1.5 mm (0.059") but meant 0.15 mm (0.0059"). Yes... that is a huge difference. I am not comfortable with SI Units. Just barely understanding °C , forcing myself by having everything in the house display that way. If I submit and print half the barrel (vertical or horizontal) at a time it could be saved with more detail to meet their 8Mb max limit. They might adjust feed and speed but then they have a 5 hour max print limit. A meeting with them should help me to understand this all better.

Jud Thank you for the offer. I will make up a short list and PM you before the weekend. At the moment I do not know what accessories (i.e. nozzle tips) the library has or even if they are willing to make any adjustments at all. I will contact them in a moment to arrange a meeting next week.

Thank you for your coment Jud! However, I feel that would be counter to my original intent. Printed locally. Our local College has a 3D printer but they will not compete with local businesses. They cannot even offer to do a "one of" for free, even as a teaching aid. It is against policy. I am not looking for perfection. I have yet to create perfection. I see the beauty in the rawness of this piece's imperfection. Having said that, I would not turn my nose up to something that was prettier! I wanted a 3D printed cannon and that is what I got. I think I will try to work with the library first before I might consider any other avenues. I also want to say, you really have to get quite close up to see what shows up in the photos. My display case prevents that. Or possibly my eyes need a re-alignment / adjustment. I will get feed back regarding the aesthetics from the club this Sunday.

I will contact the Library and attempt to meet and discuss with them what they would be wiiling to do and what I might do to improve the end result.

Druxey and Dowmer Thank you for the comments. The printer was set at 1.5mm layer thickness and 20% fill. I confess I do not know if this is good or bad. Trying again vertically in two or three pieces might be worth trying. The insignia could would be applied seperately. I've been watching numerous YouTube videos regarding gluing and smoothing. Thank you again.

Batteries charged but the photos were surprisingly not much better. The only thing that it caught that the phone wouldn't is the royal insignia. I am considering having it printed a second time so I might try sanding one of them.

Well, the batteries in the SLR are almost dead, so while they were recharging we tried with my wife's new fangled phone camera. Following are some results. I did not clean off any of the temporary printing supports so the fit in the carriage was not in anyway perfect. I set the bottom half in the carriage and then placed the top half on it. Both ends seem to bow away from each other but the good news is they pull together with very little force. I also set the cannon balls on the rack. They do not seat properly. The flat plastic foot seemed to have spread out a bit. I measured the ball and diameter wise it is perfect enough but the flat bottom diameter measured larger than it should have been. I will sand these down to fit. You can clearly see the stepped layers in building the pieces. Funny enough though, you only notice it when you get up quite close. Otherwise the look of it is beginning to grow on me. If I were to sand the whole thing down it would be dimensionally inaccurate... and I might possibly ruin it. The third photo shows the first layer being laid out as three outer strings and a wavey filler. So if you sand it will there be holes? I will leave it all untouched for now but I`ve found online (YouTube) that ABS glue works on PLA plastic, and this I have. Apparently you can weld the parts together by brushing solvent (nail polish or acetone) and clamping them together. I will leave it all alone until after our club meeting this weekend.

Picked it up last night at about 8 pm. Photos will be posted much later today. I think I'll need to get out the real camera and ask the resident expert photographer to do this. The finish is nothing like resin casting. There are visible steps from the layers. Makes the finish look like wood grain. According to YouTube it can be dry then wet sanded from 80 to 4000 grit to get it smooth. I will not attempt this until after our meeting this weekend so the club members can see it as is for now. The muzzle end is warped upwards a wee bit on both halves but does pull down. The plastic is at about 350°F when deposited so I imagine it happened when they slipped the spatula under it to separate it from the machine bed.