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Any interest in an aftermarket Merlin engine/P-51 engine bay?


rtwpsom2

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37 minutes ago, Johnny Cloud said:

I do not think you get shrinkage with 3D printed parts like you do with resin products.

If the item is designed for a certain kit it should fit perfectly as a replacement for the kit part.


I was thinking of injection-molded styrene kits that take the approach. Aircraft with leading edges that are engineered as separate parts, for example. Sometimes they fit perfectly, sometimes they need a lot of fettling, and sometimes they create little stresses in the assembly that haunt you later.  I see the scale and detail advantages to a wheel well with very thin walls, though.

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Personally I'm not an exposed engine guy, but anything that would improve the hobby, its all good. Have you considered radial engines too? Or like some one else stated, landing gear bays would be cool too, or how about drop flaps, like for the P-40 showing all that bracing for guys that hate PE. :popcorn:

 

Reuben

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1 hour ago, Reuben L. Hernandez said:

Personally I'm not an exposed engine guy, but anything that would improve the hobby, its all good. Have you considered radial engines too? Or like some one else stated, landing gear bays would be cool too, or how about drop flaps, like for the P-40 showing all that bracing for guys that hate PE. :popcorn:

 

Reuben

Unfortunately I don't have blueprints for any other engines or the P40 I might consider it.

Edited by rtwpsom2
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Just a heads-up. There already is a beautiful and highly detailed 3D printed 1/24 P-51D wheel well from ModelMonkey, based on factory drawings and adjusted to fit the Airfix kit. It includes piping and pumps. 

 

Model Monkey 1/24 P-51D wheel well

 

EP9MvA8h.jpg 

 

Richard

Edited by R Palimaka
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In the Airfix 1/24 series, the Spitfire Mk.1a really needs a replacement engine and wheel wells, the Bf-109e needs wheel wells, the P-51D could use an engine compartment upgrade (as previously mentioned, a replacement wheel well is already available) and the 190 enhanced engine compartment detail and wheel wells. Both the Hurricane and Ju-87 are OK as is.

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I'm an engine freak so I would be very interested in the 1/16 or 1/8 scale engines.  Would you consider sellling the stl files?  I have several 3d printers, both filament and resin and woulld be interested in buying the files themselves.

Curt

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I would like complete engines for the Merit/Hobby Boss Dauntless, P-38 and FW-190. I would accept, on cost grounds even just one cylinder head of each, and then home cast the others. I just might be able to scratch the front end of a Jumo for my 262 though.

Dreaming on, in 1/32, Beaufighter, Lysander...

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22 hours ago, curt66140 said:

I'm an engine freak so I would be very interested in the 1/16 or 1/8 scale engines.  Would you consider sellling the stl files?  I have several 3d printers, both filament and resin and woulld be interested in buying the files themselves.

Curt

If you look in my signature you can see a a grabcad link. I post all my CAD files to there as I complete them.  I've even included STL files in the case of the upper crankcase.

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Further to my previous, while a replacement engine for the Airfix Spit 1a would be ideal, in the absense of such a product, the Airfix Hurricane engine, which is very nice, can be made to fit. The down side of the latter suggestion being that you have to have/buy a Hurricane kit.

t0nEzZ3.jpg

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I was fooling around on my 3D printer, an Anycubic Photon Mono X, and found I could print up to 10 crankcases at a time.  That got me to thinking what the hell I would do with 10 1/24th scale merlin crankcases and the idea of letting anyone who wants one have one was pretty much all I could come up with.  I'd love to send one to anyone who asks, but 3D printing resin is expensive and I don't have the money to throw around to do that right now.  But I had been kicking around this idea of starting a patreon page for a few months and when I combined it with the 3D printer I thought I might have come up with something that would actually get some support.  Well, as it is it's not a complete idea yet, so I'm not going to do a patreon yet, I want to have a more concrete plan before I do that. But the general idea would be that I could 3D print parts of the Merlin as I complete them and then send them to people who had subscribed at certain tiers for a certain length of time. Once it was all done you could assemble a complete 24th scale Merlin to do with as you please.  It probably wouldn't include internals just because those would be too small, but it would be the most accurate 24th scale model of a Merlin available.  

 

Well, that's the idea, I don't know if it's feasible or not, I'm just looking for feedback.  I do want to branch out into other areas, too.  One would be to do some stuff for the 24th P-47 from Kinetic like gun bays and landing gear, but I don't have R-2800 blueprints yet.  Still looking for those.  I also would love to do a kitted out engine bay for the Trumpy 1/35th Mi-24 Hind kit.

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37 minutes ago, D.B. Andrus said:

Does the Trumpeter 1/24 Hurricane have a decent engine?

 

No.  It's rubbish.  It's 1/32 scale and quite inaccurate.  For example, the manifold from the supercharger to the engine is missing.  If you have one, try fitting an Airfix Hurricane engine.  That's what I'll be doing when I eventually build my Trumpy Hurricane IIc.

 

 

Cheers,

Michael

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First test shot just came off the printer:

 

zbobpbF.jpg

 

Here is a gallery with more images, hopefully the detail level comes across.  I'm a little giddy at how well they turned out. Tomorrow I plan to print an 8th scale one just for the halibut. I'll update you then.

Edited by rtwpsom2
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