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brahman104

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Everything posted by brahman104

  1. brahman104
    Cool! Your B-25 is going great guns mate.... Nice to see a build with some historical attachment too Craig
  2. brahman104
    Awesome! Thanks Geoff. Looking forward to the pics Craig
  3. brahman104
    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
  4. brahman104
    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
  5. brahman104
    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
  6. brahman104
    Very nice Craig
  7. brahman104
    Great start mate! Looks good Craig
  8. brahman104
    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
  9. brahman104
    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
  10. brahman104
    Jim, Kev, thank you! As long as it looks a little more like a B-17 than the original, I'm happy!
  11. brahman104
    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
  12. brahman104
    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
  13. brahman104
    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
  14. brahman104
    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
  15. brahman104
    I absolutely love the realism you've got going here Peter, not only in the replication of the tiniest of details, but also your painting, weathering and finishing is just outstanding. Definitely my vote for realest model ever! Craig
  16. brahman104
    Thanks for the feedback Terry! I spent so much time fiddling around with the cockpit windscreen area I completely forgot about the shape where the nose transparency sits. I'm pretty sure I made the same mistake with my first effort too, so I'm glad someone's on the ball! Anyway, with the above corrections incorporated, here's how it stands as I go to print.... The perspective view on the screen does distort the shape a little, but once again I feel I'm close. Anyway, I decided to have a go at printing it and see what happens. Each side will end up being in three pieces. This is partly due to the "print volume" of my machine (about 120mm in height) and partly so I can leave the lower nose separate to detail the interior and do the soundproofing. As I said earlier, this will be a line that parallels the floor, so it should be effectively invisible once joined... there's the theory anyway! The first piece is printing now, so wish me luck! Craig
  17. brahman104
    Thanks Matt! Did a bit more this arvo, including adding the windows. I did these straight off the side view just to see how they'd look, which isn't too bad I might say I'll probably go back at some point and draw them according to the boeing dimensioned drawings that Terry sent me ages ago. I wasn't going to worry about them till later when I made correct brass inserts, but then I had a change of heart and thought, why not see how close I can get it now? She's starting to come to life..... think I got the windscreen "look" finally! As always guys, feel free to suggest any changes. They're much easier to do now than later. I'm hoping to have this ready to print tomorrow. Fingers crossed! Craig
  18. brahman104
    Thanks guys! The more I play with this the more I feel this "re-visit" is definitely worth it. I'm still playing around with the top shape of the sta #3 bulkhead, as I believe this is the linchpin to the whole show. The beauty of Rhino, or really any other CAD program for that matter, is that you only have to come up with a few contours and the computer will do its best to fill the area in between. Every now and then it does something way off and unexpected, but for the most part it does a pretty good job. My favourite function of all is the "mirror." This way you can put all your effort into one side, once, and know it will be fully and exactly replicated on the other in about 0.0005 of a second. This of course, only works if you have a symmetrical object Anyway, I thought I'd show you what I've got so far. Unlike last time, I'm planning on putting in (read remove) all the windows, entry door etc, or at least making them thinner so they can be removed easily later on. Have a look, particularly around the windscreen area and see what you think. The very outboard corner still needs some tweaking as there is a small gap, but overall I think the shape is reasonably good. Once I put the windows in it will make things a lot clearer but hopefully you can get a feel for what I've done so far.... Due to the screen shots being taken in perspective, the overall effect may look a little "skewed" too, but if you close your eyes, you might just be able to see a B-17 More to come, Craig
  19. brahman104
    Ye gods! That is unreal mate. Excellent scratch building Craig
  20. brahman104
    And so in not a great deal of time this morning, I have some nice cross sections built up from the plan. The widths have been derived so that the finished pieces should line up pretty closely with the HK centre section. It seems I was pretty close with the shape of the sta #1 bulkhead, so I took measurements off my original printed nose. The big differences are that this time, obviously my references are much better, my knowledge of rhino is improved and I'm redoing the fuselage shape from the rear of the cockpit (sta #4) forward. This should remove all the issues with sizing of cockpit windows and the like, fingers crossed As you can see sta #3 has a very obvious flat spot. Working from the plans it did end up being about 4 or so mm, as Hubert mentioned for those of you following the F model discussion More to follow Craig
  21. brahman104
    Thanks Jim, At the end of the day one of the primary goals of this build was to address the front end issues. Yes, it would have still looked like a B-17 but it would've always annoyed me. If I get this right, now, the rest of the build should be pretty easy! Hopefully there's some good things to come Craig
  22. brahman104
    Hi Steve, Glad you said it mate! Totally agree.. Through my eyes they were excessively high. I feel that this was due to the original shape of my 3D parts and the action of trying to mesh them with the HK bits. The height of the windows became very apparent when I saw the excellent drawing I'm working off now, and that's exactly why I've decided to have another crack at the title. I totally concur with your point about the size of the windscreen in relation to the rest of the side windows, and this will hopefully address that too. Even after placing a few lines down, I feel it's starting to look better already! I appreciate your comments mate, cheers Craig
  23. brahman104
    Thanks mate, I know hindsight is always a wonderful thing, but if I knew then what I do now, this I feel is definitely the way forward. But I guess like anything it comes down to what you have available at the time. For me this is all about pushing the limits of what I can do and learn new skills along the way. There's still plenty of room for old school scratch building, but hopefully I can make this work Craig
  24. brahman104
    Hi gang, Thank you all for the very positive comments around the shape of the cockpit area. I haven't had a great deal of time at the bench lately, but I've been looking more and more at the shape and there's something that to my eye is still not quite right. Terry was kind enough to forward me on an excellent photo of what appears to be an original boeing drawing of the D model fuselage. The photo unfortunately only shows the forward fuselage, but it was enough to get me thinking about a plan.... At this stage in the build I still have an opportunity to make some major corrections to the front end. After a lot of stuffing around between inkscape and rhino3D, I managed to import the side view, in scale, and am now going to use it as a basis to draw up a whole new forward fuselage. With this drawing, I feel that the relationship between the nose contours and the size of the cockpit windows will be much clearer and cleaner, and it allows me to "massage" the overall piece to (hopefully) blend in to the existing HK parts. Here's what I've got to start with...... The beauty of this is that I don't have to commit to cutting what I've already done until I'm happy with what the printer will provide me. For those of you following the B-17F thread in LSP discussion, if it comes out that they don't address the roundness of the fuselage, this will be the path I will also choose to modify mine (yes I will be getting one or two regardless). If it works and I can make it simple enough, then I will be happy to make sets for anyone that may be interested in doing the same, but that's a whole new project The top view was taken from the warpaint series drawings by Ian Huntley and as you can see, there are some discrepancies with dimensions. I am inclined to believe the more detailed drawing, so that will be my primary reference. I may even delete the top view so I don't get confused. Anyway, just thought I'd put in a quick update of where I'm at and where this is going. Far, far, far from the shelf of doom Cheers, Craig
  25. brahman104
    Nice work! The Mi-8 is such a cool bus. Having flown in them numerous times and lived to tell the tale I have a lot of respect for Russian engineering. You've done a great job on this one mate Craig
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