daveculp

I've been treating my freshly printed decals by first spraying on a couple of light coats of clear enamel, then when dry applying a coat of Microscale Decal Film. It's been working OK, but I think the decal film might be too thick. Maybe it's getting thicker over time? I see that it contains Propyl Alcohol, so I'm thinking I might be able to restore it to proper consistency with some IPA. Has anyone successfully thinned the decal film solution? Or, am I barking up the wrong tree?

I just watched a cheezy old sci-fi film from 1960 called, "Beyond the Time Barrier", on TCM. There's an airplane in it they call the X-80, which is just a modified F-102 (and sometimes an F-106 in some of the stock footage). It looks like the airplane is a basic F-102 except for the stabilizers that fold down from under the wings. IMDB link. To me the only interesting thing in the film is how it foreshadows the look and feel of the first Star Trek series that followed 6 years later. -- Dave

I think there's room for the fan and LiPo's. Here it is next to a 1/32 Tiger:

Sounds like a great project! Sorry I don't much, if anything, about the E-1. I see Collect-Aire makes (or made) a 1/48 kit. If you start work on the E-1 I'd love to follow. -- Dave

Yes, it reminds me of my two current vacuform projects, except this kit starts off a light-year ahead. So far the only thing that looks like a big problem are the panel lines - they look like canyons. The model will have to be resurfaced and scribed. -- Dave

I don't know. I did open the box and have a look. The kit doesn't have a lot of pieces. The main components are held together with metal screws. The tires and pilot figure are molded in black rubber. The intake trunking is long, but not full length. It comes with a lead weight. Overall my impression is that it's useful as a starting point for further detailing. It looks like a scaled-up 1/48 kit. I'm be 3D printing some things for it. Other than the inlet cover I can't think of any component that is missing, but I'm sure some of the parts could be replaced with more detailed versions. -- Dave

The modeling community is all abuzz in Las Vegas because a new shop opened up today, Hobby Island. Today is their "soft opening", and they'll have a grand opening later in the month. Hobby shops have a hard time in Las Vegas. Many have bit the dust over the years. I went to the soft opening today to support the new business and came away with a kit. I have a habit of buying large kits even though I have no place to put them. I built a 1/32 scale F-86 when I was a teen, painted up like my father's F-86F that he flew at Soesterberg. This one will be the same. It's not in the build queue yet. -- Dave

Great video! Yeah, I think if it was live audio all you'd be able to hear is the wind hitting the microphone. -- Dave

Thanks, all. Yes, this paint is supposedly thinned already, and it looks thin, but not enough it seems. I'll try the leveling thinner. Maybe living in a very dry climate is making it worse?

This is going to be fun. It's a good way to flex those engineering skills. Following.

I'm trying to spray MCW acrylic lacquer, straight out of the bottle. This is the result. Any ideas on what causes the spider webs? -- Dave

Wow. You can really feel the noise and motion. The lights add a lot of realism.

Jim, I recommend the Elegoo Mars 2 Pro (or whatever is the latest version). It's cheap and runs like a top. I keep it indoors in my office in the Winter, and as soon as the garage gets above 75F or so I move it there. As for resins, I've tried a bunch of different kinds and have settled on the Elegoo standard grey stuff. I have not had success with clear resin. I tried water-washable resin and didn't find any advantage to using it, so went back to IPA-washable. For the slicer app I use the free version of Chitubox. I buy my IPA bottles by the dozen - you'll go through it pretty fast. I also go through paper towels quickly. I recommend buying a couple extra resin vats. -- Dave

Did they have to wait until it ran out of gas to recover the airplane?

Thanks, Zac. Let me know if you run into any problems getting the parts printed. A reminder - I used Chitubox for slicing (it's free) and the Elegoo Mars 2 Pro for printing. There might be issues trying to slice with another slicer. Some slicers are very picky about meshes. Chitubox is not. -- Dave

Here's an exploded view of the parts (minus the exhaust stacks which I forgot to add to the image). 42 parts in all.

Here's a shot of the completed engine (minus the cylinder-to-cylinder oil lines that have to be scratch built): One part that is missing is the hose that runs from underneath the prop shaft and winds to the starboard side of the engine between cylinders. I don't know what this hose is or where it goes so I left it off. Some parts that will be needed depending on use case: Firewall, ring mount, exhaust collector ring. Here's a link to the STL's: WaspJr-32.zip License is Freeware. Do what You want with it. Let me know if you have any questions. -- Dave

Well I'm glad I asked! Thanks for the info. I live in the desert and have always been disappointed in my results with Vallejo Model Air.

Now I know how it feels to be the guy who paid 500K for Tom Brady's "final touchdown football".

Well, the stress test has been ongoing for a year now, and this morning I heard a disconcerting thump from upstairs. I had a good idea what it was: My verdict is that PLA doesn't work for this use case. I'll have to try again with a different material, maybe PETG. I'll wait until we get full Summer heat in the garage since I don't have a heated cabinet to put over the printer. I've read that PLA weakens over time due to water absorption. In this case the parts were covered with enamel paint, which apparently doesn't help. The PLA weakened anyway. These slow-motion failure modes are annoying -- Dave

I ran into a problem with the wires. The spark plug holes didn't print well, which is common for tiny holes. They tend to be narrower and shallower than the CAD drawing calls for. In this case they were nearly closed up, and this caused the wires to collide with the intake ducts. To fix this I had to drill out the holes with a 0.6mm drill: Once the holes were drilled out the cylinders went on with no problems: I'll need to drill out the front spark plug holes as well. I made the wires a little bit longer than necessary just to make sure they reached the hole, and then I figured the hole would take up the extra length. Of course this only works if there are actual holes One technique you see applied sometimes is to design the holes with extra width and depth, assuming that the printing process will close it up a bit. In the case of these tiny spark plug holes I'd probably STILL need to drill out the holes a little. There is supposed to be an oil line connecting each cylinder to its neighbor. I'll make these out of short lengths of styrene rod (0.6mm diameter looks about right). -- Dave

The build is progressing. Painting is not my forte, but it seems to be coming along OK. I used MRP-104 Light Grey, FS 36622, which looks like beige to me, for the crank case color. The rest is painted with Testors enamels and washed with Vallejo black model wash. First I placed the rear ignition ring in place but didn't glue it. ... then glued on the top cylinder. Hopefully the rest of the cylinders will fit without much bother - we'll see An aside on printing the cylinders. Because of all the surface detail on the part the best place to put the supports is on the bottom, which will never be seen. Here's a screen shot from the slicer app showing some of the supports - in this case I'm showing just the bottom supports. For clarity I've left off some light supports that I added elsewhere on the part because of some overhangs. With resin printing the part is printed upside-down. Because of this there will be some extra material at the base. This is because liquid resin pools here among the forest of supports. The extra material is located here: This causes the base of the part to be a bit curved, so you need to manually shave/sand this extra material off to make the base flat. Tilting the part before adding the supports can help with this, but can lead to other problems. For instance it may require the addition of heavier side supports to keep the part in position during printing, and this will leave marks on the part. It can also leave some concentric rings on the top of the curved surfaces (see my second photo of this thread - you can see that I printed the crank case at a 45 degree angle). -- Dave

All parts are printed and now is time for painting. Here are the parts getting painted before final assembly. I've attached the supercharger to the back of the crankcase, and I've attached the short stack exhausts to each cylinder (one shown). I was planning on printing a collet to hold the prop shaft in place, but I found some styrene tubes with just the right size so I cut off a small piece. The pushrod covers are slightly different for the exhaust side versus intake side. I've printed them in two separate groups so I can keep them from mixing. I also left them attached to the bottom supports and skate to make them easier to handle while I clean them up and paint them. I realized (thankfully soon enough) that I'll have to place the rear ignition wires in position before I glue on the cylinders. Disaster averted

Beautiful Airacobra! I've always liked the P-39 for some reason, maybe because it looks like such an engineering challenge. BTW, looking at the grip on the control stick I see what you mean by "scaled up 1/48 parts"! Special Hobby must think the pilots flew with two hands on the stick.

I'd love to hear how he gets the Vallejo acrylics to come out so nice. That's a pretty Phantom!