Starfighter

Cool subject! The printing quality of your kit seems to be acceptable - I have seen close up photos on Facebook and I can only descibe the printing quality of that one as shockingly bad.

Virtually no sanding at all is needed - only in areas where my 3D modelling is not perfect. The Mighty 8K is a very good printer, and it has become even better with the 12K upgrade.

Cheers Gentlemen! Hercules, I will probably print a master and have it cast in clear resin this time. Polishing a clear printed canopy takes a very, very big aount of time and I am not really willing to do this more than once again. The master has to be perfect, of course. I am continuously working on the CAD files. Adding all the small details takes a lot of time, but my aim is to make my parts as detailed as possible because I don't want to do too much by hand once the parts have been printed. Cockpit. That's just the basic structure; I won't go crazy on the rear one as almost nothing will remain visible. I have found a very nicely detailed TF34 on one of the online 3D marketplaces - I think it was CGTrader. I was able to integrate it into my design and the result looks quite spectacular. And a look at the model as it looks at the moment. The area I'm working on at the moment - the main landing gear. The wheels are the ones I have designed for my scratchbuilt Viking back in the day. Stay tuned for more!

I love it, that's some great progress! Regarding slicing software - I use Lychee to create supports, export it as STL and slice with Chitu and I am pretty happy with the results. I have missed the info - or at least I can't find it - but which printer do you use?

Absolutely superb to say the least!

Cheers mate! As you know, your 48th scale Shadow is a big inspiration for mine! Hey mate, not this time. My groove lines are much finer now and I have revised a few shapes. I have more references now than back in the day. Thank you, Rainer! Printed parts? Here you go! The Mighty 8K produces superb surfaces. I have upgraded it to 12K in the meantime and it's even more betterer now. Stay tuned - there's more to come...

The rivet is projected onto the surface again. This circle is then used as a dividing tool - so you divide the surface in question with the circle that is to become the rivet. The surface of the rivet can then be pushed or pulled outwards or inwards. This rivet can then be duplicated along a path. I'm very sorry, but my interface is in German, so I don't know all the exact English names for the Fusion functions. You need accurate side, top bottom and front views. Plus, if possible, fuselage formers and wing profiles. However, some of this can be constructed from the existing views. At our university, this was called descriptive geometry. From this, you construct a kind of virtual wireframe model, over which virtual surfaces are "pulled". This basis in combination with a lot of photos and a sense of proportion hopefully leads to a formally coherent model. I want to build models that no one else or as few other modellers as possible have in their collection. CAD and 3D printing are simply tools for me to achieve this goal. Finishing a self-constructed model is just as satisfying for me as a scratch-built model and is actually always much more rewarding than building a kit. Which of course is still huge fun!

More surface detail. It feels like a never ending process - and it is still not finished.The cutouts for landing gear bays and weapons bays have been added as well. To become a Shadow, more lumps and bumps were needed. I have to revise the radomes again as the seem to be a bit too small in diameter.

Fusion 360. Depends on what you would like to do - for groove lines, I first draw them onto a plane next to the model. Just lines, no need to add thickness. These lines are then projected onto the model. A plane is placed along the path (the projected line on the model) onto which I draw a rectangle with the desired width and depth (I use 0,15mm width and a depth of 0,3mm). This rectangle is then lofted along the projected lines, which then "carves" the groove lines into the surfaces. The same method can be used to do raised surface detail as well. Yes, it is. The 16 ES-3As were converted from existing airframes.

Yeah, I know. There are other projects to be finished first... but the urge to finally have an ES-3A in my collection was too big. I need to do more research to finish the Vigilante (don't have enough photos and/or drawings of the ejection seats), so I decided to start yet another new project. I did a lot of research for my scratchbuilt Viking a few years ago which came in handy this time. The beginning does not look very spectacular. We need a top view, a side view and some formers to stretch the surfaces into the desired shape. The basic shape is almost complete. As you can see, quite a few sketches are needed to guide the surfaces between the formers in order to obtain the correct shape. The transition between fuselage and wings was an area which already caused me a massive headache building it the classic way, and doing it digitally was no different. It took many attempts and a lot of time to get this area more or less right. Once the general shape of the fuselage was done, I started adding surface detail. A very, very tedious process but it's the time a model comes alive. Looks bit like a Viking already, doesn't it?Stay tuned for more...

Another adventure to follow - great! I'm looking forward to witness your exponential learning curve. Keep the updates coming!

Great work! Exciting times we're living in - love it!

Couldn't agree more - absolutely superb, Derek!

The thing is difficult to photograph... but I hope you get the idea despite the rather bad photos!

Thank you all - as usual, your comments are highly appreciated! It's a very big aircraft, hence the very long printing time. Printing the fuselage takes over 120 hours as well, so doing an entire "kit" takes several weeks. Luckily, my printers are well dialed in and I know more or less where to place supports in order to avoid failed prints.

Thank you! It's labour and time intensive indeed - and I am pretty sure the Airfix guys are working with more powerful software and computers than me. Just a little update - she's starting to look like an aircraft again. I expect the first inner wing to be ready when I come home. 62 hours printing time...

Absolutely mind blowing!

You guys must think I'm sleeping, but I am actually very busy - I've been working on the wing surface detail since more than two weeks. It doesn't look like much but it's actually one of the most labour intensive areas of the entire model. I'm almost done, there are just some rivets missing on the flaps. Next will be the wingfolds; I hope I can make a first test print of the wings soon. Stay tuned!

Another very cool project, Dan. The Regulus II is on my list as well... but I have to finish that Vigilante first. Keep those updates coming!

Brilliant work and a great setup! Regarding the parts I need to have cast in metal, I was thinking of printing them in castable resin and asking a goldsmith whether he'd be able to cast them for me for a reasonable price. I guess the "reasonable price" thing will be the issue...

Did I mention adding surface detail takes a lot of time? Just in case I didn't - adding surface detail takes a LOT of time! That's just the top - and it's still not finished.

I wouldn't even charge the CAD work as I did the thing for myself. But still, Maxim's assessment should not be too far from reality I'm afraid.

Let me finish the 3D data first - then we'll see what can be done. The potential price tag could be unsettling for some by the way... the thing is huge and requires a big amount of resin and a lot of time to print and prepare the parts.

This has nothing to do with "modellers love them". I would not waste my time adding the fasteners if there were none... maybe you couldn't see them from a distance, but the photos I have lead me to conclude that the Vigilante was one of the aircraft on which the fasteners on the wings were most visible.

Progress is slowing down again as I am going down the rabbit hole of adding surface detail again. It's super tedious and boring and knowing I already finished that task on the old, incorrect wings doesn't help. Anyway, it's progress and we'll get there one day I hope. I am doing various test prints to ease assembly a little as the thing is really challenging to build. Having said that, I may change my mind on making the model available as I am getting requests for it on a regular basis. That would mean I can print the model on demand, selling the STLs is not an option. That's not something which will happen in the next few weeks as many problems have to be solved - finishing the CAD files would be the first one.