HMS Victory by Kevin-the-lubber - Heller - 1:100 - PLASTIC - with 3D printed additions

[Hubac's Historian]

It really is interesting how the printing process creates a subtle and credible grain structure.  Fantastic stuff! 

[Kevin-the-lubber]

Yes, I like that too. Unfortunately you only get it running horizontal to the print, whereas all the areas I can think of where it would make a nice feature - masts, the hull, the boats - would be better printed vertical, with this graining running 90 degrees out.

[Kevin-the-lubber]

Coming along nicely. Everything fits +/- a bit of clearance adjustment. I keep breaking that thin wispy decor on the lower counter, that'll be one where I make plenty of spares. Looks like I lost a bit of fairness on the lower window bottom profile; now that one will be a pain to fix so I think I'll see whether it shows when painted and in situ.

 

      

[europapete]

Well done Kevin, looking awesome. Much nicer and more detailed than the kit, Regards, Pete in RI

[Kevin-the-lubber]

Thanks Pete. Still fiddling with printing, not too much more to do now.

[Kevin-the-lubber]

Oh the frustration! I thought the very slight tweaks I had to make were just a need for a fraction more clearance here and there, that I was being a little too ambitious in my quest for a perfect fit. I’ve learned that it’s actually because resin shrinks during curing; not by much, average about 0.5%, which in 99.9% of instances wouldn’t make the slightest difference. But over a 130mm span that’s about 0.6mm, whereas my design tolerance is 0.15mm. So, I’m now chasing my tail with re-scaling parts, only the shrinkage isn’t even and the amount varies according to the mass of the part in question. I must have done something truly terrible in this or an earlier life to deserve this torture🥵.

[europapete]

would it be possible to enlargen by different amounts on the vertical and horizontal planes to allow for shrinkage of the different dimentions involved? (Says Pete who knows absolutely nothing about 3D printing). 

[Kevin-the-lubber]

It is indeed, you can scale separately on the x, y and z planes, which is where the fun begins. As just about everything is curved, when you stretch one plane the relevant radii change. As before, not by much, just enough to be a royal pain. I did some experiments with design changes yesterday to (literally) give more wiggle room, that gave promising results and I’m sure I’ll find a workaround. Two steps forward, one step back.

[Bill97]

Kevin just the fact that you are brilliant enough to even figure these calculations is impressive!   Seriously doubt you will experience any issue putting dowels in your masts! 😀

I am going to show my complete lack of 3D printing knowledge with this question. Would it be possible to print a solid mast?  Maybe two solid halves that you would glue together?  Just curious. 

Edited November 10, 2021 by Bill97

[dafi]

The shrinking problem and your tolerances are still much better than the correctness of the hull 🙂

Your side pockets look to fit better than the original ones from Heller!

 

As these parts are still made by hand* and not CAD they bear a lot of  "off-measures". I think it is easier to go the classical modelers way with sanding and putty to make the parts fit. And by what I see the fit is already great seen this high complexity of the hull in these areas 🙂

 

XXXDAn

 

*This is not a moaning as doing these parts was state of the art when the kit came out. Those toolmakers did a marvelous job!

Edited November 10, 2021 by dafi

[Kevin-the-lubber]

I found a solution earlier this week and will explain it with some pictures presently. The shrinkage itself isn’t a problem, in the sense that it doesn’t matter that the overall assembly will be about 0.5mm smaller than I intended; my design dimensions were in any case as much my choice as determined by the original kit and, so long as the whole assembly fits nicely together and to the hull, all will be well. There are about 30 ‘big’ parts to the assembly (and loads of smaller bits) and the shrinkage was preventing these from fitting together properly. I completely agree with what you say about the toolmakers, Daniel, that was part of my job in days gone by (not in modelling though) and I would have been very, very proud of the results if I’d made this kit. Especially the feathered edges of the side galleries and the rebates for the wales and rails, that is exceptionally fine work. I’ve settled for ‘close enough’ on my version and know it’ll need a little bit of putty here and there.

 

Bill, the problem with resin printing small tubes is that you create a ‘suction cup’ in the centre during printing. Air gets trapped between the cured part and liquid resin which plays havoc with the centre hole. And when the tubes are this small, I’ve found that the hole gradually gets closed in anyway. If I had a lathe I could of course just bore them out post printing. But I don’t and, if I did, it would be miles easier just to turn them as solids from wood or steel! So, I tried making the centre of the main lower yard in 14 (!) sections that dowelled together. Nothing magical or scientific about the number 14, I just wanted to see how it went if I made lots of short, stacking tubes that I could bore out back to size by hand. I especially wanted to see if the inherent brittleness of resin meant the yard would crack on bending, bearing in mind the CF core. It didn’t, I could bend it way, way more than I expected without any damage. But it would need a fair bit of filling and smoothing of the joints - not that this would be a problem. Although I’m far from drawing any firm conclusions I think it’s quite possible to go down this route. My next experiment will be to try two halves, exactly like the kit, and see how that comes out. Seams around the ‘barrel’ are much easier to hide than those that run along the length, but I’ll try it anyway. In fact ‘round the barrel’ enhances it in my view, makes it look more handmade than machine part. Then see if either method works well all the way through to the very thin spars, where there is only enough room for a 1mm CF stiffener. The great challenge is that, once again, you’re dealing with super-thin wall thicknesses and the fragility of resin becomes an issue. It would be such a heartsink to be halfway through rigging only to have a spar literally snap off on you and you can bet it would be right in the middle of a complicated web of ropes!

[Rick Lutowski]

On 2/21/2020 at 8:37 AM, John Ruy said:

I have a similar story, where I started a 1/96 USS Constitution in my 20’s that was never completed and was eventually thrown away. A little over a year ago I found that same model on eBay and began my journey. Very rewarding once finished. Good Luck and may your perseverance win out. 

 

Interesting.  I had a similar experience.  Bought the very same Constitution kit in my 20's, started it, then things intervened to prevent completion.  Except mine went on the shelf for 40+ years instead of the trash.  Here is a link to the gallery for the final fate of the kit:

 

[Kevin-the-lubber]

I’m sure this happens quite often. I’m no longer in any hurry at all to get Victory finished, though it will be nice to make tangible progress at some point and be able to take a detour into starting the Cutty Sark. Your Constitution looks built to a very high standard, good work.

[Kevin-the-lubber]

Messing around learning Meshmixer now. I made the basic object in F360, then sculpted the flags and feathers in Meshmixer. Looks nice, doesn't it. Pity the sculpting is all but invisible when printed! I guess this is pushing to the limits of DIY resin printing (you can see it's bridging many of the gaps) and I need to exaggerate the detail a bit, and/or try a bit of paint and ink to get the relief.

 

 

 

[Kevin-the-lubber]

Dress Rehearsal:

 

The 'kit' (more or less):

 

Assembled:

 

 

 

 

 

This is just glued up, I haven't touched up the joints yet and probably never will on this version. I have yet to paint the trophy of arms and do the glazing, I'll cover these in another post.

 

I'm pleased with the outcome overall. There are some tweaks to be done (at a later date); the lower balustrade on the side gallery appears to protrude, it is more the case that the main stern plate needs to come out a fraction more. In real time the error is almost imperceptible. At the time I made the figurine integral to the middle window row I still hadn't learned how to sculpt 3D files, and is a poor effort. This will be re-made to match the depth of the scrollwork and to be more lifelike. I gave in to a lack of self-confidence when painting the stripes down the edge of the stern plate and just painted one stripe. I should have been braver or thought about it for longer and painted all three. I have a method in mind now, for next time.

 

Most of all though, I'm just glad to have got it finished to a 'good enough' level. I was not enjoying this anymore a couple of months ago and would have gladly thrown in the towel if I wasn't such a stubborn chap. So, apart from painting the trophy and doing the glazing, I'm going to put this to bed now, have a bit of a break, try out some different software and mess about with much, much easier areas such as the side entrance and cannons.

 

[Ian_Grant]

Outstanding!!!  Superlative!!!  Very very impressive result!!!  Your hours spent mastering Fusion have paid off in spades!!!

 

I've run out of words..............

 

I give you 💯out of 💯......

[Hubac's Historian]

This is just incomparably better and more crisp than the stock stern plate and quarters.  Mega-impressive!! 

[Kevin-the-lubber]

Thank you, gents. It's certainly been a learning experience. Odd though it may be, it's the corbels that give me most satisfaction. These are so very tiny and it took me many, many attempts to find a way of making them that didn't have them literally breaking apart as soon as I touched them. These would probably have been better done as decals (it's on the 'to learn' list).

 

 

 

 

Funny how each stage presents it's own set of problems. I'm still learning how to glue better, so I have time to make adjustments, no overspill etc without having to sit there holding the pieces together for 20 minutes. I'm even more so learning how to paint, air-brushing in particular. I can do broad sweeps, body shop style, but not yet fine lines and all that.

 

Which kind of brings me on to the glazing. I'm still experimenting with this. For a while I've had in mind to have a 'bottle-glass' effect, not so much for reasons of historical accuracy but because I think it would add texture and character to the stern. You kind of want the viewer to dwell on the stern, be drawn in and I think bottle glass will make the stern more interesting. I've found a nice 'beginners error' consequence of over-spraying translucent, printed resin with clear gloss enamel. If you lay down too much enamel in one go, it puddles and dries in a bottle glass shape. My ongoing experimentation is around how to 'shape' that puddling. It's probably as easy as dragging the puddle with a cocktail stick. Another idea that came to me this morning is to try heat - remember how acetate would deform and bubble if you put a lighter under it (or was that just me being me!).

 

 

 As you can see, below, I've got a more defined trophy of arms now, which I'll paint once the mood takes me. The strange finish you see here is grey primer on the top but black on the underside, because I know from an earlier attempt that this object is way too small in real life to be able to get the paints into every nook and cranny without smudging, so the black bottom will hopefully prevent any flecks of grey still showing and merge the trophy into the stern. At some point I'll probably also try Daniels idea, that it should just be a crown rather than fleur-de-lys, though I do like the FDL.

 

In case anyone is struggling, as I did, with meshmixer, the fix was incredibly simple - I had to first make the object solid in meshmixer, that's all. After that, you can sculpt to your hearts content. Until I discovered this, all I ever seemed to achieve was a complete mess of polygons, vertexs and other things I neither understand nor care about 🙂

 

I want to try out Rhino 3D now, see if it's a better tool than F360. While I like F360 a lot, it has issues that can make it hugely frustrating and I certainly wouldn't want to use it for another project of this complexity unless there was nothing better (for me) out there. I'm also thinking I might change horses model-wise, for a while, take a look at my Cutty Sark, start thinking through what I want to do with that before even starting on it.

 

 

Edited December 5, 2021 by Kevin-the-lubber

[Stoofvlees]

Outstanding, I spent days and days painting the galleries and the stern plate from the original kit, but this is truly another level.

Well doen...

[Kevin-the-lubber]

Thank you, Stoofvless; I gave up trying to use the kit parts after realising very quickly that I simply don’t have the hand-eye coordination to paint that finely. And then spent about 9 months compensating! I keep forgetting to mention, I do have the gunports lids made, just haven’t decided yet on open or closed. I have yet to make the lanterns, these look very simple and a fun thing for an evening or two, though I’ll need to use wire for the brackets.

[mtaylor]

Beautiful and stunning work on the new stern.   It's so much better than the kit parts.

[Kevin-the-lubber]

Thank you Mark. Sadly, I haven't been able to detach myself quite enough and here's a clue as to where I'm headed. I keep thinking of that scene from the Clint Eastwood movie 'The Unforgiven' (I think) where the Clint tells the gunslinger in the bar to walk away. He does, then comes back in 2 minutes later and says ' I had to come back, didn't I' or something like that, and Clint says' I know' (and then of course sends him to meet his maker).

 

[Kevin-the-lubber]

Bit of a note to self; I had an absolute "doh!", slaps forehead, moment today. From the outset a struggle with the quarter galleries was to figure out their profile where they meet the hull. In the end, I really just used trial and error and it's still not as good as it could be. So why on earth did I not see the obvious: it is very, very straightforward to map the hull profile from the decks: you have the precise width (deck width + hull thickness) at whatever stations you choose to use, readily measurable waterline heights via distances between decks, and an absolute reference in terms of where the hull meets the stern plate. Heller even very kindly provide ready made centrelines on three of the decks! I'll be testing this out presently and bet it is accurate to within a very small degree of error. This principle should hold true for anything where you want to model something new to fit the hull, i.e. the side entrances.

[Bill97]

Incredible job Kevin!  Fascinating just watching you progress through your process. 
 

In your comment above you mentioned maybe taking a break from the Victory and tinkering with your stash Cutty Sark. It is a beautiful ship when complete and I did it out of the box except for making cloth sails. I can only imagine what you can do with it through bashing. 

 

 

Edited December 11, 2021 by Bill97

[Ian_Grant]

Nice!  Makes me think about cleaning the decades of dust off mine 😃. And fixing the broken bits.

[Kevin-the-lubber]

That’s a very nice bit of modelling Bill. I’m itching to start the Cutty Sark but feel this is of the same order as Victory, a big project, one that may take a long time to complete and I’d like to get to more or less your stage on Victory before starting it. So I’m going to do a couple of things over the immediate future.
 

I bought a small and seemingly simple plank on frame kit, the Bluenose 2, off eBay this week, it looks like someone opened the box, fiddled a bit and then put it away without actually starting it proper. I’ve never modelled in wood and always fancied giving that a try. It was fairly cheap - have to say, I’d have felt a bit cheated if I’d bought this at full price, there’s not a lot to it - and I’ll do it just for fun and learning as, down the line, I’d like to try doing something like HMS Terror to a decent standard.

 

Along the way, I’ve started playing with re-making the Victory hull in 3D. I’ve learned a lot through doing the stern and just want to see what’s possible, whether it’s worth the trouble, can I make it true to the rest of the kit or does it mean I’d inevitably have to remake everything that fits to the hull. I’m not concerned about having to remake the decks, these are easy, but I’d rather not have to remake all the stuff at the bow end! On the other hand, a custom hull would enable an absolutely perfect fit for my stern assembly, a perfectly fitted side entry and steps, thickened gunports and for these to be in the right positions, etc etc etc. The tricky bit will probably be finding a way to blend in the vertical seams as each half will need to be printed in about 6 sections. The horizontal joins are easy, the wales will take care of that.

[Hubac's Historian]

The only issue I can anticipate with your proposal for mapping the quarter gallery join is that - at least as far as the Heller SR is concerned - the hull wall thickness does not seem very consistent from one side to the other, nor from one level to the next.  The Vic, though, is all around a better kit and less plagued by fit issues.  It’s been a while since I fiddled about with my un-built Vic, but I remember thinking that the hull pressings were somewhat thinner-walled and that the quality of the moulds was very high.  i know you will figure if out.

[Bill97]

Kevin the Revell Cutty Sark, like their Constitution, is great out of the box and a nice step back from the mental gymnastics of the Victory. I only wish I could go back now a make the shrouds and rat lines with actual dead eyes. At the time of that build I did not know how. 

[Ian_Grant]

48 minutes ago, Bill97 said:

Kevin the Revell Cutty Sark, like their Constitution, is great out of the box and a nice step back from the mental gymnastics of the Victory. I only wish I could go back now a make the shrouds and rat lines with actual dead eyes. At the time of that build I did not know how. 

Agree with Bill about the Revell 1/100 models. They come with detailed rigging instructions which are a pleasure to follow.

 

Bill, looking again at your Cutty Sark I see the taut shrouds/ratlines look like hard plastic. Is that what they are? Back in the 70's the Cutty Sark came with pre-formed shrouds/ratlines which were sort of thread-like, very pliable, and too thin really. And hard to get uniformly taut at least for my teenage hands.

 

Here are a couple of pictures of my horribly dusty model, which has been sitting out of public view in the shipyard for years but is not unloved. I wiped a portion of the deck with my finger to show how filthy she is.😢  I really should clean and repair her; some of those shrouds have snapped and a few bits have come loose, but then where to put her?  On the other hand I plan to find a place to put Preussen (with the Admiral's approval).....

 

 

Edited December 11, 2021 by Ian_Grant

[Kevin-the-lubber]

You guys tempt me too much, this needs to stop 🙄. Ian, you in particular have a lot to answer for, all that encouragement to do a hull. (A couple of experiments with hidden lap joints today look good). I honestly thought, when I bought the Vic, that a kit in a box that big and at that price was going to come with the mother of all instruction booklets. Bear in mind I hadn't really touched a model kit in 40 years and my idea of an expensive kit was probably around the $30 level. Even now I still haven't got over the shock of the "by the way, we found these in a drawer, they might help a little... well, maybe not" moment when I saw what I got. The great, great danger is that, if I start the Cutty Sark now I might join the ranks of those that start but never finish the Victory. Mark, I think the Vic also has some thickness variation, I'll have to make some simple calipers to check this.