RMS Titanic by NavyShooter - 1/100 - 3D Print - Pond Float display - Halifax Public Gardens

[GrandpaPhil]

Very nice work!

[Knocklouder]

Amazing work what a ship Wow 

[NavyShooter]

I was asked elsewhere about costs and time...well, you can see the timeline for this build in this thread.  Basically just over 4 months from start to finish.  Here's the blurb about costs that I shared elsewhere:

 

The plastic for printing was $470 - ish.  

The lead shot for ballast was $60

The fiberglass resin for sealing was $120 

The paint was $150 (several cans of spray plus several pots of various colours of other paint)

The epoxy outer layer was $200 - West Systems Epoxy is NOT cheap.

The Stainless Steel Hardware (bolts/nuts/washers) was about $50.

The Aluminum strengthening strips were about $60 (inner and outer)

The Aluminum masts were about $10.

The Line for the rigging was $25

That all adds up to about $1150 or so, give or take a bit. 

 

I bought the printer (used) specifically for this job (and the St Thomas model I did as a test print.)  then sold the printer again, so using it for 3 months cost me about $150.  

 

Print time was about 6 weeks.  Some modules took 50+ hours to print, there were 18 modules in the hull, and 8 more for the superstructure.  The lifeboats and Davits were all individually printed too. 

[Ian_Grant]

West system is great epoxy, but even it needs UV-protective varnish or at least it did when I made my canoe many years ago. Might you need another coat to protect your fine build?

[NavyShooter]

@Ian_Grant that's something I was told about - and is something we will look at in the fall when she comes out of the pond. 

 

The guy who was actually supposed to do the build will be back by then, and he'll be taking her home through the winter to affect any repairs and refitting required.   (He's an actual fan of the Titanic - I'm not - I just inherited the work when he went away for a year on a contract.)

 

I am fairly certain that he's going to want to add extra details, correct some colour selections I made, and that sort of thing.  He's welcome to do that, and I'll suggest that he add that layer of UV coating on top.  We'll see how the ship lasts this summer.

 

[NavyShooter]

I brought the model into the Guild meeting this morning, and we had some good discussion about the ship.  

 

Here's the ballast and leak test from this afternoon.  I was concerned about the model going in the lake and going from being warm to being cold (lake is only recently un-frozen) and potentially having cracks in some of the layers - and then I realized that after driving home with her in the bed of the truck that, well, she was already cold...so...off to the lake with some steel plates, and in she went.

 

20 minutes or so in the lake, some bouncing up and down to test her out, and she seems to hold up well.

 

Most important bit is that there was no water ingress - looks like things are well sealed.

 

Next step will be the 'unofficial' test launch in the near future where I'll put her in the lake here for a couple of weeks to test the ship in a longer term float before we put her into the Public Gardens pond.  

 

I will note, I'm updating this site more often than the Guild's official f-book page, so you guys are getting the news before the rest of the world!

 

[Ian_Grant]

Well done!

[KeithAug]

Lets hope she lasts longer than the original. A great project.

[Sailor1234567890]

Will she be in the gardens this summer? I'll stop by and check her out once she's afloat on display. 

[NavyShooter]

21 hours ago, Sailor1234567890 said:

Will she be in the gardens this summer? I'll stop by and check her out once she's afloat on display. 

That is the plan!  Follow the MSMG on the F-Book place and you'll get updates on when we plan to launch her!

 

In other news, I've been testing my LED flashing light circuit, and based on my test results, a standard 9V battery lasts about 4 days of continuous flashing.  I tried with a NiMH battery pack, gave it a full charge, then hooked it up to a solar panel circuit and it lasted about a week - so...I'm guessing that the flashing light circuit (which was designed for Model Railroad use) makes use of a lot more power than I thought it would.  Which is odd for a simple circuit with just one LED light.

 

So.  Does anyone have any suggestions for a long lasting flashing light LED circuit setup I could use?  A cheap LED flasher from amazon or something that I could simply add extra batteries to?

 

I could buy a 20 pack of 9V batteries from Costco and rig them up in parallel, letting them run for about a month and a half...but that seems...inefficient.