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space shuttle stack accurate flight deck question


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23 hours ago, Homer said:

Thanks Tracy for the vote of confidence.  Will try to make the T-0 panels in 1/100 for the Tamiya model.

 

JPaunicka, the parts are for sale now in my shop:

 

https://www.shapeways.com/shops/homer-s-spare-model-parts

Thanks for this, Homer. Again, all very wonderful parts.

 

I, however, already have a resin printer that I bought, in small part, to avoid the overhead of Shapeways.

 

I'd much rather go direct through you either for the parts (which you've noted could unfortunately be some time/years away) or for purchase of the actual digital files.

If you ever find yourself in a comfortable position of selling the files, I'd very much be interested.

 

I understand the potential hesitancy going that route. I have some parts I've developed myself, and have been mulling over whether or not to make them available. But of course, digital file sales seems to be a large part of how the 3d printing marketplace functions these days.
 

Edited by JPaunicka
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SImon, I really like how you put the microLEDs in those aft slots that I tried to shape like the fluorescent under cabinet lights.  I'm looking forward to seeing how the light from those alcoves floods the aft area when it is sealed up.

 

JPaunicka, I completely share your the desire to forego the Shapeways middleman and print my own parts with a resin printer.  I sent off the tiled roof of my beanie cap model a few years ago for a complimentary test print by Formlabs on a Form2 to see if it could produce the parts at the quality I wanted, and the tile detail wasn't quite at the level necessary to keep pace with the Shapeways binder jetting technology used for fine detailed plastic.  There are certain areas where the tiles looked crisp, but in other areas the tiles got smudged together (I think you can see the tile edges lose their definition in the area between two foremost windows).  These two pieces below were printed by their technician with different orientations.  I put my dream of buying my own printer on pause until the technology advanced a little more.

 

Form 2 sample prints

 

Obviously I'm hoping that home resin printers will continue to make improvements and I'm sure at some point I'll set up my own print shop.

 

Oddyssii, thanks for buying my umbilical parts on my Shapeway storefront!  You're the first customer to order the newly posted parts!  Here is a template to aid in locating the square cutouts in the plastic hull:

 

https://www.dropbox.com/s/f0cyzb3rk4ow6oj/umbilical template 2.pdf?dl=0

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  • 4 months later...
  • 8 months later...

Let me boost this thread again by saying I just bought a bunch of parts and the work and detail is fantastic! I'm just starting to break out the actual kit for assembly. I'll be starting my own thread on my build tonight. Looking forward to showing off these parts. My work, no so much, but the parts, yes. 🙂

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Homer, may I make a suggestion re the Shuttle's belly. Before you add on all those lovely details, you'll be doing a lot of manhandling and sanding and filling and sanding and filling of the  belly to get it to the same high level of quality the rest of your model's gonna be.

 

It won't be just that nasty seam, there are a LOT of flaws, uneven surfaces, divots on that belly ... just a heads-up!

 

And thanx Medicmodeler10 for bumping this thread. I just went through it and Holey Smokes, I'd forgotten all about the great things Homer's doing!

 

Pete

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Thank you Pete and Medicmodeler10 for the compliments about my parts; I’m gratified that they are being received so positively by the community.  Thank you to all who have purchased the parts or contributed to this thread.

 

Pete, thanks as well for the heads up about the large volume of sanding/filling work that awaits.  My build is on pause as I try to figure out how to create the tile overlay for the rest of the model surface; HotDog’s plan has a lot of promise, and I think with a laser cutter and a thin rubber membrane, it might be possible to simulate the tile pattern over the rest of the orbiter.  I bought some dental dams and they’re thin enough to blend in with the 0.1 mm raised tile pattern on the Shapeways parts.  Since they’re elastic, I think they might better conform to the curved surfaces than styrene sheet.  But the geometries required to make all of the elements to lie down correctly over the complex curved surfaces will take some trial and error, and I am not going to have a shop space for the next two years to run a home laser cutter/engraver to do this kind of work.

 

I had hoped that my Cricut Maker could engrave the tile pattern on a membrane, but for a variety of reasons, it’s not capable of creating the tile patterns on a thin sheet of material.

 

Hopefully putting down a thin latex membrane will smooth out/cover up some of the imperfections in the kit body and reduce the amount of sanding and puttying that are in my future.  I was hoping that also simulating the thermal blankets would cover us more of said imperfections.

 

The other idea that came to me is to print on flexible resin:

 

https://all3dp.com/2/flexible-resin-3d-printing/

 

I don’t think this will work, in that the thickness of the overlay should be only 0.2 mm thick, but perhaps someone with a resin 3D printer can provide some guidance on whether on not one can print this thinly in this substance.

 

Medicmodeler, please be aware that the parts were created for the Monogram orbiter model.  I am not sure how well they will fit in you try to cut apart your Revell orbiter.

 

 

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4 hours ago, Homer said:

Thank you Pete and Medicmodeler10 for the compliments about my parts; I’m gratified that they are being received so positively by the community.  Thank you to all who have purchased the parts or contributed to this thread.

 

Pete, thanks as well for the heads up about the large volume of sanding/filling work that awaits.  My build is on pause as I try to figure out how to create the tile overlay for the rest of the model surface; HotDog’s plan has a lot of promise, and I think with a laser cutter and a thin rubber membrane, it might be possible to simulate the tile pattern over the rest of the orbiter.  I bought some dental dams and they’re thin enough to blend in with the 0.1 mm raised tile pattern on the Shapeways parts.  Since they’re elastic, I think they might better conform to the curved surfaces than styrene sheet.  But the geometries required to make all of the elements to lie down correctly over the complex curved surfaces will take some trial and error, and I am not going to have a shop space for the next two years to run a home laser cutter/engraver to do this kind of work.

 

I had hoped that my Cricut Maker could engrave the tile pattern on a membrane, but for a variety of reasons, it’s not capable of creating the tile patterns on a thin sheet of material.

 

Hopefully putting down a thin latex membrane will smooth out/cover up some of the imperfections in the kit body and reduce the amount of sanding and puttying that are in my future.  I was hoping that also simulating the thermal blankets would cover us more of said imperfections.

 

The other idea that came to me is to print on flexible resin:

 

https://all3dp.com/2/flexible-resin-3d-printing/

 

I don’t think this will work, in that the thickness of the overlay should be only 0.2 mm thick, but perhaps someone with a resin 3D printer can provide some guidance on whether on not one can print this thinly in this substance.

 

Medicmodeler, please be aware that the parts were created for the Monogram orbiter model.  I am not sure how well they will fit in you try to cut apart your Revell orbiter.

 

 

I too keep on thinking about trying to hijack my wife's Cricut for some of my own work. I better let her figure out how to use it first before I take it over. Regarding what you said on my build thread - I did find that thermal blanket document from Lake County Spaceport and look forward to using it on all of my builds. I am using a Monogram kit for this first one, Homer. The Revells were just easier to find on ebay before they re-issued their 40th anniversary edition. I wanted to use the kit that your parts were designed for first, so I'd have the highest chance of success. Then I can undertake major surgery on the Revell kits to make them work there.

 

Dave

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Dave (and other modelers), here is an SVG file for the paint masks for the windows and the fore RCS thruster that you can import into Cricut Design Space; good luck negotiating with your wife for Cricut usage time.  I already sent you these masks in the envelope with the HUD frames, but since you have access to a digital cutter, you might find having these useful in case you need to make more paint masks.

 

Let us know how your attempt to fit the parts into the Revell goes.

window and RCS masks 2.svg

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  • 4 months later...

This is truly a magnificent build, as are a couple of others on this site. Really pushing the envelope beyond what I would have thought possible for a shuttle model even just a couple of years ago. I am planning on getting a resin printer, probably next spring as I have no place indoors that I could use it during our long Canadian winter. Before I start learning 3d drafting (like I have enough years left), I've started collecting a few projects off the 'net. Namely the files that Vincent Meens is selling online. I mean, who wouldn't?

 

I think it's a brilliant idea for him to be making available some of his models in file form, as well as the completed parts at Shapeways. It seems that even with the limited number of us true space nuts out here, there is room to make enough profit in selling the files to actually be able to afford to buy your own parts from Shapeways, and maybe even pay for resin and an occasional printer upgrade. 

 

Would any of you ever consider selling your files a la Vincent? I mean, some of us would gladly pay just about whatever you'd want, just to have a chance at  breaking into the 3d modelling world. 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by SpacecraftGuy
Found out what the Tab key does here.
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  • 2 weeks later...

Hello SpacecraftGuy,

 

Thank you for the kind words about the parts; I’m grateful to the community that has been so encouraging and supported the project.

 

With regards to selling the files directly to modelers, I am not quite ready to proceed in this direction, but I will keep it in mind and consider it if this makes the most sense in the future.  I hope to purchase my own resin printer in about 2-3 years and will see if the consumer level technology at that point will be sufficient to reproduce the details with these parts so that one can forego Shapeways; the Form 2 test prints of the beanie cap that FormLabs kindly made for me a few years ago were noticeably less crisp than the Shapeways fine detailed plastic printed parts.  If my home printer of the future makes great parts, I may just sell the parts directly to the modelers from an online portal like HotDog and others.

 

 

 

Let me know if i can help answer further questions or help you plan further for your build, either here, or via the direct messaging function on ArcForms, or via Shapeways messaging.

 

 

 

 

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  • 1 month later...
  • 2 months later...

Hi,
Im new to the party and wanted to share. First and foremost, thanks to everyone's contributions, images, links and suggestions. Im about to start a build and have been collecting and ordering parts / materials and hope to start soon. Homer and Hotdog have been especially helpful both here and in direct correspondence.

 

My build will be of the Discovery (Flight 51G). This is "My Bird," I like to tell folks as its the shuttle that an experiment I designed flew on in 1985. So, I will be doing a build of the landing scene at Edwards for that flight along with all of the support vehicles and equipment @ 1:72 scale. Im in my late 50's now and hope that I can finish the kit before I retire 🙂.

I did notice that there are a few that have asked for suggestions at the 1/144 scale and wanted to pass along this link:
https://www.modellversium.de/galerie/24-raumfahrt/9985-space-shuttle-tamiya.html


There is an ENGLISH toggle at the top of the page (unless you can read German) that will translate the site. Andreas Gordes's approach was creative and not one i've seen before at that scale, so I thought id share.


Thanks again everyone. Im going to blog the build (since it will take forever) and will share here as well.

</Rittic>

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Thank you so much Rittic for introducing yourself and purchasing the upgrade parts.  I look forward to following the progress with your build and learning from your approach; please feel free to post to this thread.

 

Thanks as well for the fantastic link to the German build; that’s a really clever approach using the mesh to simulate surface textures, both for the thermal blankets and the tile.

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  • 7 months later...

Rosktko, that’s fantastic work, bravo!  Thank you so much for posting.  The third photo doesn’t appear to load correctly - would you mind reposting that one?

 

Actually, I am so intrigued by your masterpiece, if you have more images of your intermediate steps, I would really enjoy seeing how you did your work.  Please feel free to post more in this thread so that we can appreciate how you took the parts to a completely higher level of accuracy, and also how you intend to make the cap removable.

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Here is a 3rd pic of what I 'm doing with the cockpit. It is a work in progress, have some straightening out some knobs, they become evident when zooming in. I kind of slapped it together too quickly just to add this photo. I still have many more knobs to insert on all the consol panels. Eventually it will all be led backlit. I will post as I go. I do have pics when I began if some wish for me to post. Thanx for all the positivity and encouragement my fellow modellers!

 

20230903_171751.jpg

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This is my 90% complete led lit shuttle payload bay. Almost all of it is scratch built. Used all kinds of stuff to get it to this point, from dismantling various electronic tablets and phones to a variety of dollar store stuff. Bashed a lot of things, lol. The only things that are not scratch built is the docking platform, the 3d printed astronaut and the original 1/72 monogram payload bay  shell. Mind you, all these pieces have serious add ons and modifications. It was satisfying when it all came together! The most challenging piece was the clear visor on the astronaut, made from polarized film. Trying to heat and form it to the shape that would fit on the helmut took countless number of tries! I think after around 12 attempts, I was satisfied. Patience is a virtue!

20230906_171038.jpg

20230906_170949.jpg

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Noticed one my flashers has a loose connact at the board, also missing a handle on the white container. Thinking of redoing the cameras, found another way of reducing their size. Very difficult working these details at 1/72 scale, but do-able!  Its been a very satisfying but extremely challenging build thus far! I promise I won't bombard you all with all this stuff, its just exciting to share. Hopefully this inspires others, its facinating exchanging ideas! Take care.

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Now that’s an amazing piece of work!! ,  I knew by looking at the painting of your figures this was gonna look good when completed but I had no idea, thank  you so much for sharing.
 

Will continue to watch with great interest and I can’t stop looking at the pictures. Every minute detail has been addressed including the absence of any decal film, this  is truly inspiring .

 

 

Edited by snichols
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