brahman104

That avionics tray is pure genius! Looks very much like the real thing I just love the constant innovation in this build, but that instrument panel and those consoles just blow me away every time. It is my dream, as far fetched as it may be, to one day be able to do something that good! This build is testament to what can be created from nothing. Craig

Rich, You are a life saver!!!!!! Just ordered some too. Much appreciated! I feel Mr. Aldous will suddenly be doing very well out of the pewter trade.... Cheers, Craig

Totally agree with Martin's sentiment there....... If you call yourself a mere kit assembler, than that makes me a 3 year old struggling with Duplo! Pure brilliance as always mate, can't wait to see more Cheers Craig

Hahaha, absolutely Hubert! There have been many valuable contributors to this build and each of your efforts are gratefully welcomed and appreciated! I know Kev..... I'm scared too! Mark, once you start looking into the 3D world, you find the possibilities are endless. Also, having said that your skills are such that you don't really need it, but don't let me stop you! So am I! Sounds dangerous Cheers Shawn! Thanks for twisting my very weak arm Jim Thanks Peter! Although I can't agree this is on another level from your F7F... remember, you showed me the way. I owe this to your inspiration Thanks very much Rich! I've just been back having a look at your B-17 on a trailer build again to see how you tackled the sheeting on the outside, considering you replaced the raised rivet details exceptionally well. One question, I know you get your Pewter sheet from Sylmasta.com, but I tried ordering some from them and my order ended up getting refunded.... no explanation, no pewter.... Do they still stock it, or do I need to try someone else? Cheers, Craig

Brilliant mate! Looks awesome in the civvy colours Craig

Perfection takes time Jay! I shall be waiting patiently..... Craig

So I took Hubert's advice, literally! The only way forward is a little backwards at the moment. First of all, let's have a look at how the new nose measures up against the old #3.... Hmmm, could I leave it like that? Not a chance So here's the plan: Given the new fuselage has a tendency to flex and "bow," I needed to make sure the shapes of the bulkheads were accurate, even before I properly secured the new cockpit sections. From now, good alignment is fairly critical to success, so I went back to my rhino drawings and extracted the inner bulkhead profile for #1, 2 and 3 bulkheads. Number 4 not so much, as it has to graft onto the HK bit. Here's what they look like in the "print box" for those who are interested (this is for the Up Mini printer.... interfaces, colours and contents may vary) Then I'll take the left hand side and join it to the HK part against a nice flat surface, supported by each of these bulkheads from underneath, if that makes sense.... In the mean time, in a scene that is starting to look fairly common in this build........ In order to try and preserve the cockpit section, I somewhat (not with a great amount of finesse) carefully removed the necessary sections of the left hand side ready to accept the new cockpit. Probably don't try this at home kids....... Somewhat pleasantly, most of the sections came apart without too much effort and this is what we have...... Now, for those of you taking bets on what I'm going to do next, remember option 3...... Just kidding....... I've anticipated possibly even building a new instrument panel, so the order went to Mr Airscale this morning for some supplies. Do I have a plan? Well yes, but it's kind of like one of those "choose your own adventure" books, and will depend on how the next couple of steps go...... Maybe in the meantime I should go back and have a look at the long neglected rear fuselage Cheers, Craig

Aha! It all becomes clear now! Thank you kindly for taking the time to explain the process Geoff. I look forward to giving it a go at some stage. Can't wait to see more progress on your epic venture. Cheers, Craig

Thanks Matt. Honestly I thought I was doing pretty well until I came across that factory drawing. After seeing it, there was no way I could be happy with what I had. Hahaha, don't worry about the notion of creating extra work for me, I'm already doing a pretty good job of that myself! Thank you kindly Cees. I can definitely say the same about your manchester. Hahaha! I sure do Hubert. I can guarantee you carnage and entertainment on this project Hahaha! You know me way too well Terry! I think you have pretty much predicted which way this is going to go...... and I did find some more justification this afternoon to convince myself I just knew you'd come up with a much less complicated and far more practical solution...... You can rest assured Wolf, that I attend similar kinds of meetings every time I have a look at what you've done with that mozzie and before that your spitty I'm always keen to hear from anyone; if someone has a convincing argument then I'm all for seeing their point, so feel free to chime in at ANY stage.... I only get offended by stupid people and thankfully I have never seen any of them on here! As a B-17 aficionado, I am always keen to hear your thoughts Tom; I'm sure glad you're enjoying the build as much as I am in sharing it. This project has definitely allowed me to learn a lot of new skills, least of all the brave new world of 3D printing. There's a lot to be said for it, and certainly has a lot of merit with the projects that you undertake, as long as you take it for what it is and don't believe that it could outdo anything a skilled craftsman such as yourself could do. Hell, the rate at which you build, you could probably scratch build what I did above quicker than the time it takes to print the pieces anyway! I do encourage you to give it a go though, once you get a feel for it, the possibilities are pretty much endless. If you have any questions feel free to ask; I'm no expert but I can speak from the experience of a lot of failures Thanks very much to all you guys. You are certainly doing wonders to keep me moving along and pushing the limits of what I can do. Cheers, Craig

While eating my lunch and contemplating Option C, it suddenly occurred to me that perhaps the best solution overall was to separate the rear of the cockpit at the #4 bulkhead and add the 2mm there. This would give me 2 more mm to play with in the overall length of the flight deck, so the seats wouldn't look as cramped together as they do now. It would give me more space to add the fold down table in front of the rear seat and while I am there, perhaps alter the height of the rear seats as I think they were supposed to be slightly lower anyway. I'm calling this Option 3a..... Feel free to tell me if this idea sounds reckless, stupid or otherwise foolhardy, but I feel that's the direction I need to go Craig

Wow Nick, thank you for the very detailed response! I only ask as I'm relatively new to the world of 3D printing and own a small and cheap ABS extruded filament machine. It's good for larger shapes and structures, but lacks the fidelity to make tiny parts. The plus side is it's cheap to run and I can use it whenever I want. Thanks again! Craig

Cool! Your B-25 is going great guns mate.... Nice to see a build with some historical attachment too Craig

Awesome! Thanks Geoff. Looking forward to the pics Craig

So you know that graceful match I promised you? It actually turned out pretty darn good! First of all, some more of the kit had to go.... Then this happened... And now we have this.... Okay, so the swap wasn't entirely seamless as promised... Somewhere along the way I must've stuffed up the roof width.... no big deal, I'll address that later when I do the windows in brass.... So was it worth the effort? Here's some comparison pics between old and new. Height of the windows....... Was I on the crack? That was NEVER going to work!!!! Happy with that! One other little thing I noticed.... The bottom of #3 bulkhead encroaches into the opening of the forward door a little now..... The way I see it there are three options: Option A: remove the lower half of bulkhead #3 and place it 2mm further forward, at the same time address the offset nose entry door. No one will notice the difference between the top and bottom when all buttoned up. Option B: remove a further 2mm off the "splice" cut I just made, the overall length being 2mm shorter, but no one will probably notice once it's all together anyway. Option C: cry. Option B is the easiest to do, however it may come as a surprise to learn that I don't normally take the easiest way out Option C is probably not going to be overly useful in the long run. Option A would allow me to sleep better at night, but I could run into problems with the underfloor details....... I shall examine the problem further, but overall I am thrilled with the way that came out and amusingly, how close I was in a few areas considering I was initially using some highly questionable reference material! Thoughts or comments are always appreciated.... thanks for looking Craig

I believe that was a gentleman who posts on here? In any case he did an exceptional job and it does demonstrate that you can build it out of the box if you want Craig

Well done Jay! I am highly impressed at how well the rudder lines up with the fin when the pin goes through...... I could never get that to work. Hard skill and patience have paid off big time mate! Craig

Very nice Craig

Great start mate! Looks good Craig

Wow! I miss one or two (or a couple of hundred) posts and all of a sudden you have an aeroplane! Brilliant job Brian; looks amazing. Craig

Brilliant work Nick! I need to go back and re-read this again properly. Apologies if you already mentioned it, but did you have to do any post print finishing on the 3D parts or is the printer you used good enough that the parts are ready for assembly and paint straight away? Excellent tutorials too mate Craig

Jim, Kev, thank you! As long as it looks a little more like a B-17 than the original, I'm happy!

Okay folks, here we are (drum roll.......) Looks like it pretty much came out okay! I know these look pretty rough, but bear in mind all I have done is separate the pieces from the raft. No clean up, no finishing yet..... but at least you can now see the part in the flesh, so to speak. AS you can see, probably the worst rendered part is the windscreen and frames, but that's okay, as I was going to do these again in brass for extra "sharpness." Same goes for the little windows in the nose. You can also see that I have left the taper "transition" section in under the cockpit roof; that will be removed next. Leaving this piece in meant there was a bigger "footprint" on the print bed, which allowed the part to grip the surface better. A few times now I have tried to print parts without this, and sometimes the action of the print head moving across the top is enough to dislodge the part. If that happens, the print is ruined and it's start over........It is also still there due to the fact that I am not clever enough to remove it in Rhino with the intersections of the pieces, so I figured I just remove it once everything had finished Absolutely mate. It will be more of a "step" in section. This is because I want to preserve the shape of the fuselage to wing join at the leading edge, so I don't run into any nastiness later, and it will theoretically give me more surface area for the join, therefore more strength. The next part about the salvage of the cockpit? Well I sure hope so..... THAT I can live without doing again!!!!! You can see on the above photo that there's been a slight mischief in the print along the bottom of the cockpit side windows... the "faired" area is not there..... No idea why, sometimes the prints just do their own thing. There's no difference in the drawings between the left and right sides, in fact I copied the left side for the right as you may recall. This is a lesson I have learned in the world of 3D printing.... no matter how good or amazing your original drawing is* in Rhino, there's no guarantee that it will lead to success on the print bed. Who knows? I could try a reprint and it might come out better.... but it could also come out worse. I n any case, I can live with that, as I feel pretty happy I've address the two points I wanted to with this redesign anyway Next up, you'll see a flawlessly shaped 3D forward fuselage grafted effortlessly onto the ever shrinking original kit part. Yeah right........... Craig *None of the drawings featured here are good or amazing in case you were wondering

Massively inspiring Geoff! I like your setup and tips for the alignment. I'm learning so much from every post. I can't remember if I asked it before, but would you mind including a pic of how you use the comparator to space the rivets when you do them next please? Cheers, Craig

Thanks Jug! It's been a lot of playing around and more than a little help from TKB and others, but you are right, the shape of this part does seem to be critical. I'm looking forward to seeing how the print comes out. The B-17 is too beautiful a plane not to do this area justice; even if it adds another year to the build then so be it! The rhino/3D printing learning curve has been steep, and I'm far from an expert in the field, but I guess the beauty of it is I can keep going back and tinkering if something still looks off and I can just keep on reprinting till I get it right. Of course at the end of the day it will still not be perfect, I'm only aiming for the best possible blend of the HK effort and my own work, but as long as I'm content that I've given it the best go I could, then I'll be happy with that. Thanks again for joining me on the journey, no idea where it's going but it's a whole bunch of fun! Craig

Amazing effort there Tom. You know it just goes to illustrate the point that even though we can do computer modelling and printing these days, a skilled scratch builder can always give even the most technologically gifted a definite run for their money. The old ways are clearly far from dead and I love it! Great work mate, Craig