patricksparks

The aluminum should'nt be too bad, it's .005" sheet not foil, it will be cut into panels like the real aircraft and laid onto the surface with contact cement, because of the large size of this piece I won't have to burnish anything down over any compound curves. The "Turtle Deck" over the cockpit and upper turret area is really the only place where the panels need to be formed a bit, I have already printed a solid top portion of that area to use as a buck to form the aluminum over so to not have place any unnecessary preasure on the resin parts. In retrospect I could have printed the parts heavier with some minor alterations but it's always a learning curve with this stuff... Pat

Another note on the "CHEEK" gun stowage, they both had cables attached to them that went through pulleys with basically a garage door spring attached to offset the weight of the guns, which are very heavy. Pat

I was finally able to draw one of the "CHEEK" gun fairings, it came out ok, I decided to vacuum form it in petg, I was going to cover the clear forming with aluminum but I decided to use the part and cut-out the areas where the windows go, I realized after looking at many photos(war time) factory pics in particular and I beleive that the fairings were not bare metal but instead painted, on bare metal aircraft they appear to be painted silver, also the chin turrets seem to be painted silver as well... Any way, I trimmed the forming primed it and cut out the openings, I then proceeded to cut out the opening in the fuselage, not something I really wanted to do,not in resin.... got away with it though and I referenced photos of the real thing to see how they were cut out of the airframe. I super glued the petg forming onto the fuselage, I have to tell you if you ever going to super glue petg onto a printed resin part, THE GLUE SETS INSTANTLY, I mean zero bond time, I never seen other material bond so quickly... Pat

Thank you !!! unfortunately I am not going to be selling the files for this model. Pat

Thanks Jay, I drew the switch posts at .055" tall(1 inch in 1:18 scale) the top is .025" dia and the bottom end is .015" dia, it sounds large but when printed that size they survive printing and with some slight curing shrinkage they come out pretty decent, on my machine I wouldn't try to any smaller than that... Pat

Got the upper turret frame drawn up this morning and got a print made, looks pretty good so far, I also made a file for a vacuum form pattern that I have to print, I'll be cutting the vac-form up into individual panes to put into the frame and then aluminum strips over both the printed frame and petg pieces. Pat

Thank you Craig, The nose is a vacuum formed piece, I printed the pattern to form it over, wish I could print in clear... I'm not sure if your asking about the skin thickness of the print or the aluminum that I intend to cover it with, anyway the skin on the printed parts is about .020-.030 thick and the aluminum covering will be .005. Thanks again, Pat

I have been buying "KLEAN STRIP" FUEL, Denatured Alcohol, works great, good price and it can be bought at hardware and paint stores. Pat

Made some milestones in the last couple days,First, I managed to draw and print the Bombardier's clear nose, it came out almost perfect on the first shot. I have to try and get some slightly better ones later on but we're pretty much there... Next was the throttle pedestal, I kept studying this assembly and thought that I could print it as one piece and it worked to my suprise !!! Sometimes you get lucky... for now... Pat

Thanks Craig, yes the skin is affected from the formers and stringers that are much thicker than the skin. Working on this right now is literally"walking on egg shells" I have to mindful how I handle the main components and NO DROPPING.... Thanks again, Pat

A little update, I have printed some preliminary seat frames with the armor plates for the flight deck, they need a little tweeking, but pretty good.. I just happened to have a 21st century 1:18 scale pilot figure which has movable joints, which I never thought about how much it can help to get a real image of how things fit together..sizes look pretty good so far.. I had some old printed cockpit parts that were a free download for a RC B-17, instrument panel, throttles they are ok but I have aready drawn a new panel and will also draw a throttle set up to fit better and a bit more detail...I finally got the chin turret drawn and printed, pretty good but I need to tweek it a bitdiameter needs to be reduced slightly which I can do in the slicing program but I also need to open the barrel ports slightly.. enjoy, Pat

Thank you !!!, your "Smurf Jet" is a true beauty !!! Pat

Thank you Jay, and really enjoying your progress on the P-51 !!! For my parts drawing I have used some Aircorps Library, some HK models checks for basic cockpit sizes(not super accurate, I know). I don't plan on making this model super detail accurate, if I did I would probably loose my focus quickly, I,m starting to get like a dog with squirrels near by... I plan to do just enough detail so when you look in the windows there's something there to ponder, and want to focus on the exterior finish more. The CAD that I use is Alibre Atom, I have their lower end program, I am self taught and got started a few years ago with the help of one of the engineers that I had worked with, he started to show me how to use Solid Works. Alibre Atom is extremely identical to it, less expensive. I struggle with it though because I have the lower end product which doesn,t have "mess & spline" features to make more organic shapes, maybe one day I'll spring for the upgrade !!! The resin that I use is the Siraya Tech Fast, I have been using this for years now and find it very good and less expensive than mant others, highly recommend it, also I have bought some Siraya Tech's "Blu Tough" and used it so far to print some 1:9 scale Abrams tank track links and road pads for an RC project., seems pretty durable and prints with good detail, it is also much less expensive than other brands, but I can't vouch for how much stronger the other brands are. Hope this helps, Pat

Thank you Craig, I have to tell you that I have drawn alot of knowledge from your B-17C build and my D that still lingers.. All the work that was done on those two still lingers in my memory all the shapes and things that go on in the B-17's nose that most don't realize until you actually start to build one from the ground up !!!, it's tricky but obtainable. Thanks, Pat

I have always wanted to do this project and now being able to draw and print in 3D it makes things more inviting to me than scratch building. I plan to cover the airframe with embossed(rivets)aluminum and leave it "Bare Metal", Hopefully.... The parts are as large as I can print on my printer which is a Anycibic Photon Mono X. I printed the airframe parts with relatively thin skin, .030, so that it won't get too bulky with the aluminum skin applied to the surface. I hope to be able to use a fairly heavy primer on the interior surface so that I can spray a bare metal finish to the interior of the bombardier/navigator's compartment and the area below the flight deck. I plan on installing the "cheek" gun positions but I have had difficulty trying to draw them for printing, I want to print them as vacuum form patterns so that I can pull clear petg for the windows but I also want to form the aluminum skin over the same pattern for the clear piece to live under and add the assembly to the airframe. Pat

EPIC FAILURE .... Well I was at the finish line when the wheels came off... Tamiya spray can clear nuked the Aqua Gloss coat over the decals, alligator skin on the bottom and sides of the fuselage and lower wings, started to attack some of the decals, looks good from 4 feet away.... Don't know if I'll muster up the desire to fix it or maybe print a new airframe, time to walk away right now... It's home now is the top shelf. Pat

Agreed, I just went through the same with mine today, I was using many expletives to say the least... The nacelles would have printed better as well. Pat

I actually went back and increased the diameter of the hinge point pin up to .200" in diameter, it works but keeping thing straight is still an issue, different shrinkage here and there, slight warping and mishaping all comes into play. Thinking about it today, I should have made the pillow blocks the hinge pin mounts into as separate parts and simply glued them onto the assembled base and trued everything up before the glue set... Pat

Thanks Kevin, it was great to watch your progress during your build, it was a unique situation for me to see what was happening with the parts created from my drawings, I wish that I had the foresight for some of the problems, in retrospect even with my build I have found other items that I would have changed. Thanks again !!! Pat

Following in on the heels of LSP's Kevin's Bomarc build, I finally got moved into my new house and got my work area set back up. I have been working on several projects but I decided about a week ago to go back to the BOMARC and print my parts and put one together. Thank you Kevin for fighting through your build, I was able to take some of your observations and modify some of the drawings to help overcome some of the shortcomings of the design...especially the tower. So anyway here are a few photos of where I"m at, I didn't want to post alot of progress photos only to show the same work that Kevin has already been showing. Just thought I would show a different paint scheme !!! Pat

Hi Kevin, sorry about the mess !!! I was thinking that if you are going to keep the airframe vertical permanently, what if you were to put a brass rod into the launch tower vertically and go down through the pivot point into the base ??? Just thinking out load... All the best, Pat

I wonder if the sand colored B-25 is "KING NINE" from the "TWILIGHT ZONE" episode "KING NINE WILL NOT RETURN". Pat

If the Mono 5 is like their Mono X , the X has high speed print but it also has a "regular" smooth finish speed setting as well. Pat

Looks great Kevin !!! glad you were able to sort out the masking !!! Pat

I remember reading an article somewhere that said that you can mix the higher impact resin with the lower impact resin to get a "middle of the road" resin that gives some more resilience but retains detail. I seem to remember that they used same manufacturer resins to blend and stated that they were going up to 50-50 mixes. Pat