Flower-Class Corvette by king derelict - FINISHED - Bensworx Virtual Kit - 1/48 - a log for the less gifted

[Kevin-the-lubber]

1 hour ago, yvesvidal said:

washer/Dryer

I was racking my brains for a comparison and this nails it nicely! It could be especially good if they go big and make the resin build capacity the same as a standard FDM plate!

[king derelict]

10 hours ago, Kevin-the-lubber said:

Hi Alan, one or two years back I ran up against the same issue, where I just couldn’t get the quality of finish on small parts, especially on round objects that had to be printed in the horizontal. I remember trying to print cannons for the victory, going round and round in circles with the settings, trying different nozzle sizes and so on. What I can say is that 0.2mm nozzles will give a finer result, but were more prone to zits and suchlike and still couldn’t give me what I wanted. However this was before I had a heater and upgraded springs so you might find you have less problems.
 

Which is when I took the plunge and bought a resin printer. My view is that having both types is the best solution for modelling. You get immaculate, incredibly detailed prints from resin, there is virtually no tail-chasing with set-up, but there are, nevertheless, drawbacks. Almost everything needs supporting so you have a good side and a bad side, though you can often polish that up. Resin parts tend to be a bit fragile so aren’t so good where a bit of strength is needed, and warping / dimensional accuracy can be an issue. And there’s the additional outlay, plus resin is a bit more expensive than filament. However I virtually guarantee that you would have chosen to print 99% of what’s in your pics in resin and been delighted with the results.

 

The one thing where I think FDM still has the edge is on objects with a flat face. They come out more accurate, don’t shrink or distort and the surface finish can be easily sanded or filled. If you follow my link to the Cutty sark you’ll see the decks I printed, which I think are not too far off being as good as wood veneers.

 

If I’ve tempted you to look at buying a resin printer can I offer a word of advice - don’t get the smallest one, you’ll probably regret that quite quickly. Bite the bullet and get something like the elegoo Saturn. That extra build size will allow you to print a much wider range of items, as the Mars capacity is really quite limited. I did it the hard way and now have two resin printers. It’s not worth selling the Mars as they go very cheaply second hand so I just use it for small stuff.

Hi Kevin

Thanks for all the helpful comments. It is becoming apparent that the finer parts of the Flower build are really falling into the territory of a resin printer. Having read other threads about them I have been increasingly interested in buying one and had been thinking about the Elegoo range. This months donations go to the Homeowners insurance, the iRS and recent UK travel but I'm hoping for a quiet month next month and Amazon must be wondering if I'm still alive so ...............

The idea of a combo printer would be fantastic if it can manage the size of the Ender 3 or better.

In the short term I downloaded a number of test prints and I'm working through them to see what i learn. One possible early result is that my preheated filament may still have been too old or less that perfect. It ran out during a test print and the replacement filament seems to be doing better. 

Reading suggests that the massive printing exercise to make the hull parts should have worn the nozzle so a change will be part of the plan  I'm also going to look at retraction and layer thickness.

Thanks for all the help

Alan

[king derelict]

5 hours ago, yvesvidal said:

 

Alan, for some of the parts, I had a friend print them with a resin printer. The PLA just doesn't cut it.

 

You may try at very slow speed (40% or 20 mm per second) to improve the quality. 

 

Yves

Thanks Yves

I think you are right - the resin printer is a necessity for some of the parts like the secondary weapons, Selfishly none of my friends seem to want to buy one😄

I'll try the slower speed

 

[Kevin-the-lubber]

For what it’s worth I’ve been very happy with both elegoo printers, they’re well built etc, and the aftersales service is excellent.

[king derelict]

What did we learn today

Today I stepped back from the model to focus on the printer quality. I used the Benchy test print. It has a lot of good test points in it. Overhangs, openings, thin vertical sections. It only takes a couple of hours to print and its a bit of fun.

So on the left is the first attempt. The filament ran out in mid print but it was already looking bad with all the strings at the stern. The middle print was a straight repeat with new filament and a better result but a bit ragged still with stringing and extra filament at the openings. At the base of the stern there is still a lot of extra filament.

At this point I went back to the Cura slicing settings and noticed that I still had the settings I had made in an attempt to improve bed adhesion and print integrity before I found it was under extruding. I had reduced the layer height to 0.12 mm (from 2.0 mm) and increased the infill to 100% (from (20). I also still had support generation turned on, and brims. So before trying anything new i reset all the inputs and generated the boat on the right.

This is quite a decent print; no stringing, the stern  is clean and its possible to see the boats name (really)

The print with revised settings is at the rear.

This looked quite promising so I attempted the test piece Astro Phil (a-ment) 

This printed very cleanly; the edges of the boots are nice and sharp and even the treads came out well.

I decided to re-slice the recent 4 inch and 2 pounder gun parts but Windows decided that the afternoon would be better spent installing Windows 11 instead. So we wait in suspense until tomorrow - its curry night tonight so the printer is OFF.

 

I hope everyone has a great weekend

 

Thanks for looking

 

Alan

 

 

[Kevin-the-lubber]

The Astro-Phil looks like the level of cleanlinesses I usually get on everything since I did all the upgrades but I still use a super quality setting (0.12 layer height) as I found the finish at 0.2 a bit too coarse. That said, I did my first FDM print for two or three weeks yesterday, I.e. the filament hadn’t been heated for that time, and it was quite zitty, stringy and delaminating. I’ll be doing it again this weekend and will have baked the filament for plenty of hours by then so will see if this is the difference, as this would be the first time since buying the heater than I’ve not printed for weeks. Maybe as we’ve moved into springtime the air moisture has increased. This is the frustration with FDM, isn’t it, so many variables; but my gut feeling is that ‘perfect prints’ only depend on a few things. I have to admit it’s ages since I checked the calibration.

 

Windows 11? Jesus, Mary & Joseph and the wee fella’s donkey, as if we don’t have enough troubles already!😪

[king derelict]

Hi Kevin

Yes the number of variables in FDM printing is boggling - and a little depressing when you are trying to address a problem. Online opinions also differ on solutions which isn't always helpful. I'm glad to have got to an acceptable print by modifying the printer in much the same way you have, drying the filament and adjusting the speed and temperature along with trying to maintain a solid bed alignment. I would rather not get into retraction distance, refraction speed and all the other options in Cura.

We are moving into the warmer weather here in South Florida so the air conditioning is running and the humidity in the house is much lower than in winter so its a good season for maintaining decent filament.

Thanks for the great input

Alan

 

[king derelict]

A short weekend update. After a lengthy interlude while Windows 11 occupied my laptop I carried out one more calibration test print; the Polypearl tower. It looked like it might be a test too far but I was excited to see a decent model print out.

I plan to keep the sliced files for these test pieces. My thinking is that given the inputs in the files a decent print should result unless something else has changes such as extrusion rate, filament quality a new and exciting problem with the machine. 

So lulled into a doubtless false sense of confidence I have sliced new files for the Flower using the same settings to repeat the 4 inch gun parts and the 2 pounder and we shall see how they come out.

Thanks for looking in

alan

 

 

[Kevin-the-lubber]

Yep, too many variables and too many opinions on the ‘right’ settings. If only we could all identify and tap into the one person who really knows it all inside out! 

[mtaylor]

14 hours ago, Kevin-the-lubber said:

If only we could all identify and tap into the one person who really knows it all inside out! 

I think you'd have to make that "persons".  Raise the question and let them fight it out and when done, get back to you.  Seems most products these days are done by committee.

[Kevin-the-lubber]

8 hours ago, mtaylor said:

make that "persons

I think there are three, last seen creating mischief for Macbeth.

[king derelict]

I think that's what I'm missing. A cauldron, a broomstick and a black cat

[king derelict]

Today i returned to making Flower parts. I printed the 4 inch and 2 pounder gun parts and was much happier with teh results. The new and old parts are shown below

The 4 inch gun port side

The 2 pounder still on its brim and support but much nicer than the previous attempt

I decided that it was worth making the steam winch again and printed all the parts for that. The slight imperfections on the chain guides is due to me being impatient removing them from the build plate while they were still hot.

A selection of previous attempts for comparison.

I will reprint the hose reels and start priming and painting and a spot of conventional modelling. I may try and print the Oerlikon parts to see how they look. Those are about the only unknowns left in the parts list I think

Thanks for looking in 

Alan

 

[Prowler901]

King Derelict, out of curiosity, what is the layer height you are printing at?

[king derelict]

Hi Mr P

I'm printing with a layer height of 0.2 mm. I may go down to 0.12 for some of the Oerlikon parts but I'll try them at 0.2 to start with.

Alan

[king derelict]

I reprinted the hose reels and primed the winch parts so it feels like we are moving forward again with a model. I did have a bit of a learning experience printing the shield for the 2 pdr gun. The angled shield requires a support and the usual structure was too strongly attached even with the density reduced by half. Instead of playing with the infill details I tried a "tree" support and it worked out nicely

The printed shield with the tree and the brim still in place

Then with the support and brim removed - still needs cleaning up

I assembled the gun onto the shield and primed it. I think it will look acceptable with some paint and a few washes

 

More painting and less printing tomorrow although I do want to get the depth charge throwers and racks done before the voodoo wears off.

Thanks for looking in

Alan

 

 

[Prowler901]

Looking Good!  I've never used the tree supports before.  I may have to look in to giving them a try.  What printer are you using?

 

Todd

[king derelict]

43 minutes ago, Prowler901 said:

Looking Good!  I've never used the tree supports before.  I may have to look in to giving them a try.  What printer are you using?

 

Todd

It's a Creality Ender 3 v2. Slicing with Cura. I think the Ender is a good machine if you factor in upgrading as part of the purchase. 

Alan

[Prowler901]

Cool.  I recently bought the Ender 3 Max.  Upgraded to dual z axis.  I'm pretty happy with it. Still dialing it in.  My first printer was the Anet A8.

 

Todd

[Kevin-the-lubber]

Likewise never used tree supports, in fact had completely forgotten you can do that. I really dislike the mess of normal supports, so I must try trees. I wonder if that would allow the barrels to be printed vertically?

[king derelict]

I think I;ll be using trees more in the future. Its difficult trying to get the normal supports off anything delicate. Getting them off the dinghies was a real exercise in patience.

Alan

[king derelict]

Not a lot of progress today. I got bogged down in trying to resolve details of campanulas foredeck configuration. I've concluded - 

- There is little commonality between the Flowers, even in a build batch

- An individual Flower has changes even between the major refits so raft locations, weapons change.

- There are limited photos of most Flowers - just enough to be confusing

- It might have been smarter to pick a Flower that have no photos available

 

The big conundrum was the railings for the 4 inch gun bandstand. Some photos on Campanula seem to show a splinter shiels around the bandstand with a possible rail to prevent too low a gun elevation. Or it may be a canvas dodger but it doesn't seem to be rigged high enough if it is. Earlier photos just show railings around the bandstand with nothing additional to baulk the gun barrel.

The resolution on most of the phots is not good enough to be definitive. 

I didn't like the look of the dodger / splinter screen so I went with the railings and used brass rod as the handrails and finally did something constructive with the afternoon and put the stanchions in place and made the rails from brass rod. Now ready for priming.

There are a lot more confused details to decide. The photos show H ventilators on the foredeck as well as the funnel type. The armament is also a bit vague. I've read about possible Lewis guns on the aft decks but details are shaky.

And of course not all these things may have been there at the same time. I think I am just going to have to decide on a configuration and go with it. There are going to be discrepancies that I cannot fix so a few wild details are not going to be too terrible

Thanks for looking in

Alan

 

 

 

[lmagna]

Not real certain anymore which corvette this is from my files, but if you look on both the starboard and port rear deck you can see two Lewis guns covered in canvas.

 

[Kevin-the-lubber]

Nice rails. In fact, very nice rails 😀. After wasting a lot of time, effort and plastic on trying to make everything printed I now think it’s way better to just print stuff where that solves a problem but use other materials where better and this is a bgreat example of that.

[king derelict]

Thank you very much Kevin. When I started this I planned to make all the parts with the printer as a demonstration of what can be done. I've moved away from that given the difficulty of getting good small components (al least from FDM). I have put too much time into it and now i want to do the best I can with it. To me it makes sense to use other mediums where appropriate. I started looking at the H ventilators. I could print a series of cylinders and make them up but - nah - its going to be a lot easier to use styrene tube. cutting, filing and gluing will all be easier. The masting will also not be printed and I am going to see what I can do to gussy up the Oerlikons with brass rod, styrene etc.

Alan

[king derelict]

22 hours ago, lmagna said:

Not real certain anymore which corvette this is from my files, but if you look on both the starboard and port rear deck you can see two Lewis guns covered in canvas.

Thank you very much Lou. That is a great photo also for placing the depth charges

I found this photo of Campanula and with a bit of staring and some imagination I think you can see two twin Lewis guns on the engine room roof. They may be a bit of a challenge to make but thankfully its a way off yet.

Thanks again

Alan

[Kevin-the-lubber]

6 hours ago, king derelict said:

as a demonstration of what can be done

Same here, and I’m glad you’ve reminded me of the existence of styrene; I had honestly entirely forgotten to think about that for a bit I’m fighting to make at the moment. Even resin printing will still have you scratching your head at times.

[king derelict]

A bit all over the place today. I put a coat of Tamiya XF-24 dark grey on most of the decks. That made quite a hole in the bottle. I painted the bandstand and railings with the WA blue along with the blast shield and the 2 pdr gun tub.

The 2 pdr gun also got the treatment and I think with a bit of detailing it will look quite reasonable

I did some experimenting with the dimensions of some of the small parts to see if they would print better. I changed the thickness of the oars from 0.5 mm to 2.0 mm and got a respectable print out of it. I think an oar shaft of less than an inch is unlikely. 3.7 inches may be a bit big but not far off.

I printed out two more life rafts which are nice prints

The boss gave them high marks for play value

I hope everyone has a great weekend

Thanks for looking in

Alan

 

[Nirvana]

Looks like my cat "Tigger",  looking at a new toy - thinking "what the heck is that"😁

Nice raft though.

[Kevin-the-lubber]

21 hours ago, king derelict said:

The 2 pdr gun also got the treatment and I think with a bit of detailing it will look quite reasonable

That’s a lot more than quite reasonable Alan, I’d be extremely pleased with that. Same for the life raft.