AlexM
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Posts posted by AlexM
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Let’s see how the materials perform whit a wing-section. This part is way more difficult to print, since on all parts, the area at the leading and especially trailing edge, where the meet the printing plate, had a tendency to warp/lift upwards. To improve adhesion on the printing plate, the parts were printed with so called brim, meaning a thin additional layer around the actual part that is automatically created in the printing software.
Additional the lifting at the leading and trailing edge, there is a crack on the Kodak part. This probably is a tension crack that can appear when the printed parts are cooling down from 250° and thereby shrinking a bit. So, cracks are not good on a wing…
The Kimya part has lifting at the usual areas, but no cracks:The same can be said about the Orbi-Tech part. The e-Sun part, on the other hand, has two, maybe even three slight cracks:
The eins3D part has no cracks, but the most lifting/warping at the trailing/leading edge.
Later, I printed the wing part with lower printing speed, hoping to prevent cracks (no pictures). Strangely, now there appeared cracks on the Kimy and eins3D part.
So all in all, the Orbi-Tech filament performed best on this test. Keep in mind that the results can vary a lot, depending on the printer and settings. The problem of warping/lifting when printing high thin parts remains
Cheers
Alex- TankBuster and LSP_Kevin
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Hello there,
here is a little comparison of various HIPS filaments with 2.85 mm diameter with the following settings:
• Printer: Ultimaker 3
• Printing speed: 60 mm/s
• Printing temperature: 250°
• Printing plate temperature: 95 °
• Printing plate: glass with adhesive spray from 3d JakeAt first, I printed a part that might be the rear of a fuselage. From left to right, I used following brands:
• Kodak, white
• Kimya, light grey
• Orbi-Tech, medium grey
• e-Sun, silver grey
• eins3D, blackHere is the Kodak part. I generally like grey or silver colored filaments, that will show some noticeable color contrast when sanding, so see where the part needs more attention (and 3d-printed parts with that way of technology will always need sanding if the parts should be used for modeling). Unfortunately, as far as I can see, there are no grey HIPS filaments from Kodak. The others I found on the internet are colorful like red and blue. Besides this, the part turned out good:
ttps://imgur.com/S6sl7YS
https://imgur.com/S6sl7YShttps://imgur.com/S6sl7YS
Next, there is the Kimya part. The filament “feels” soft on the spool. The printed part has a nice dull finish, and turned out good:The Orbi-Tech turned out good, too, and has a rather satin finish:
The same can be said about the e-Sun part. It feels a bit harder than the other filaments:
The black eins3D part also turned out well. It feels similar “soft” like the Kimya one. I got it for a very good price (10 €):
So all in all, this part turned out good with all tested filaments.
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Thanks for that tip. But apparently, they don't ship outside the UK.
I just ordered some HIPS from so far unkonwn brands: Orbi-Tech, Kimya and Kodak. I'll test them to see how they perform.
Cheers
Alex
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Hello there,
I have a question for those of you who have a FDM printer which runs with 2.85 mm diameter filament.
There is a printing material called HIPS, which stands for High Impact Polystyrene. It is basically the same kind of material that is used for model kits, and therefore can be glued with typical model glue.
Over the years I tried HIPS filament from various manufactures, and experienced quite some differences. Some are harder, some are softer. For me, the most important characteristic is how well the printed layers adhere together during and of course after printing. Some filaments proved to be rather weak in that regard.
For my 1.75 mm diameter printer, I use HIPS filament for Fiberlogy, and I like it very much. But unfortunately, Fiberlogy doesn’t produce HIPS with 2.85 mm diameter.
So I wonder which brand of HIPS filament with 2.85 mm diameter you can recommend.
Cheers
Alex
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Here is a youtube video from german model shop Modellbau König, visiting the production site of Takom in China. It's in german language, but probably still very interesting for non-german speakers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lf9yUqXC2_A
Even though it's somehow shown on video (starting at about minute 21), i don't quite understand the process of how the steel molds are made from CNC machined copper molds
Cheers
Alex
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Hello everyone, time for an update:
In the last days I’ve been busy painting the rear fuselage and wing-tips. Fist, some old-school pre-shading. Then, the rear fuselage/tail was painted yellow. This was followed by some major masking for the areas that should remain yellow. Especially the three diagonal bands around the fuselage proved to be challenging.
Here you can see the separate elevators. I drilled 1 mm holes at the position of the two inner hinges, so that the elevators can be connected to the tail by 1 mm styrene rod, which is hidden by the hinges. This works pretty well, and the elevators now won’t need any glue.
At the risk of sounding blasphemous, I would like to note that I am not the biggest fan of separate rudders/ flaps in general, as I usually always display them in a neutral position. For me, those separate parts that are common in modern day kits very often are difficult to attach without making a glue-mess. In this case, the flaps and ailerons turned out OK. But on my build, the ailerons are a bit too thick compared to the wings, especially at the inner end. I attached them so they align well to the upper wing, but on the under side, they stand out about 0,5mm at the inner end. So, for everyone who builds this kit, I recommend to thin them down a bit.
After masking the yellow areas, red paint was sprayed and masked. Finally came the camouflage colors. I used Revell 39 for the green. Then came the thrilling moment of removing the masks. Besides some flaws here and there, that will be addressed later, I can at least say that it didn’t turn into a complete disaster
Cheers
Alex
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To quote Chuck in his epic A-20G build: She's got legs:
At the rear fin, tare no hinges for the rudder, so I added some rectangular Evergreen stripes, which also help to attach the rudder.
Rudder glued in place:
Slowly but steadily, I'm getting closer to the point where I can start painting.
Cheers
Alex
- leoasman, HB252, patricksparks and 15 others
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I began work on the flaps and ailerons. They still need some fine-tuning to improve the fit, but so far it looks promising.
I added styren card at the outer sides of the flaps to close noticeable gaps to the ailerons (I also managed to flood the right aileron with some glue )
Just for fun, I 3d-printed some bombs. Maybe I'll use them instead of the kit's bombs, as the printed ones have no glue seams at the fins.
Cheers
Alex
- Isar 30/07, LSP_Kevin, HB252 and 12 others
- 15
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Great work
I built the kit a while ago using the kit's decals, and it was also a struggle to persuade them to lay down on the fine corrugated surface.
Cheers
Alex
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2 hours ago, Thunnus said:
Another question, Alex... what does the cowling attach to? The engine? Or the bottom fuselage near the exhaust stacks? I'm still bogged down in the tedious removal of rivets... there's LOTS of them!
Contrary to what is somehow indicated in the instructions, the cowling does not seem to be connected to the fuselage via the engine, but only via the radiator.
Talking about the radiator, which consists of several parts and forms some kind of unusual V-shape when viewed from the front, i got two very noticeable seams. I don't know how the real thing looked like on close-up, but I decided to fill the seams with some styrene (radiator and cowling just plugged to the fuselage without glue at the moment):
- Fanes, MikeMaben, Isar 30/07 and 7 others
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For enamels like Model Master or Revell, I normally use "Terpentinersatz" with good results as thinner, which apparently is called turpentine substitute in english
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_spirit
It can be bought in large quantities for little money at the hardware store. One litre of this liquid for just a few bucks lasts for quite a while.
Alex
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16 hours ago, Thunnus said:
Very nice work, Alex! I love your additions to the prop hub! Did gluing on the small extension tubes to the exhaust work out better than gluing the tubes onto the engine backs?
I'm not sure which approach is better.
Gluing all the different exhaust parts together and aligning them was quite a hassle. But in the end you can hardly see anything of it, as it is mostly covered by the engine cowling. I think it would even work if you just glued the exhaust to the bulkhead and didn't bother with attaching it to the engine.The hollow two-half end piece must be attached to the exhaust. The raised "nub" onto which the end piece was to be attached was not exactly a perfect fit. So I removed the nub and just glued and aligned the end piece with my Mk1 eyeball. I did not take a photo of this, so I made this highly accurate drawing:
- LSP_Kevin, scvrobeson, coogrfan and 4 others
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7 hours ago, MikeMaben said:
Welcome back Alex
Hi Mike, thanks for stopping by
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Nice to see that you are making progress with the project. I am really looking forward to it.
Cheers
Alex
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Thanks guys. I have been on holiday in South Tyrol for the last few days, which is why this project has been on hold.
On 6/19/2023 at 7:08 AM, Hans said:It does indeed! It also almost falls together. Hardly any filling or sanding.
This is probably due to the poor photo quality
Since I wanted a more or less sharp trailing edge, there was a rather large step from the upper wing to the wing root fairing which required some filling and sanding. The surface details of the wing roots have suffered.
That was before I went on holiday. Today, I sprayed some grey paint on the area. I guess it could be worse We'll see if I can be bothered to restore some of the surface detail.
Cheers
Alex
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Amazing! I finished the same kit a few weeks ago and it doesn't even come close to yours. Excellent paint job
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Great start
Quite possible that I'll learn a thing or two here for my Val.
Alex
- Rick Griewski, Thunnus and Jim Barry
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That looks quite stunning
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Time for another update. I painted the propeller with Alclad II aluminium:
Just afterwards, I decided to add some styrene to dress up the propeller hub a little bit :
The back of the propellers still needs to be painted brown.
So here we are at the moment. Engine and cowling currently are only loosely stuck/taped on (sorry for the picture quality. It's getting dark outside):
Cheers
Alex
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I once thought about making a Ju 52 based on an 1/33 cardboard model. It never came to fruition, but I got some polystyrene corrugated sheets with different "wave-lengths". These can be purchased from this German online shop, for example:
https://www.architekturbedarf.de/model-accessories/structured-plates/corrugated-sheet-plastic/1
Cheers
Alex
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On 6/11/2023 at 8:20 AM, Borsos said:
Nice! You‘re not the only one using such a digital microscope for detail work. Thinking about dipping my tooth into that water, too. So you can coordinate the work of your hands well when you deal with the actual piece(s) but only see a digitally enlarged picture on a screen from a slightly (?) different angle?
Andreas
Hi Andreas. The digital microscope is indeed very usefull when it comes to tiny precise drilling. I wouldn't be able to open gun barrels otherwiese. If you place the microscope direcly in front of you, showing to the object more or less the same angle as your view (so you don't actually see the object you want to drill, since it is hidden behind the microscope), the movement of your hands are more ore less the same as it is shown on screen.
I made some progress with the engines, and glued together the main landing gear. The exhausts are quite challenging, consisting of several parts. But it seems to have been successful so far. Not sure about the grey color of the forward engine part. I painted it with some grey color which tourned out very similar as the actually styrene of the kit , so maybe I'll repaint it with something lighter/less blue.
For the landing gear, there are corresponding recesses on the wings. They aren't very deep, so I glued styrene parts in the middle of the recesses. They are not high enough for the landing gear to be plugged on without glue, but at least they will give the glue a bit more area to melt together the landing gear with the wings.
Cheers
Alex
Recommendation for HIPS filament with 2.85 mm diameter?
in 3D Printing
Posted
Thanks for the advice. Yes, an enclosure is highly recommendet. On my Ultimaker printer with an open upper side and an open front, just closing the front with some plastic sheet makes a huge differnce.
Apparently, there are several different PEI beds out there, some rough, some smoother. Can you recommend a specific brand
Cheers
Alex