Taking The Plunge to 3D Printing

[VADM Fangschleister]

Thanks to Iain's inspirational posts with his 737 both here and on LSP, and many years with my mind nagging at me, and...the projects I want to do that no one will ever mold in kit-form, I have purchased a Crealty 5 Pro.  The price has come down to something relatively "affordable" and I plan to learn the skills needed to create the necessary bits over time to design, print and assemble some nifty things.  

 

I already have good spatial skills and have carved and fabricated many things from scratch.  Not to the clunky level of the TLAR (That Looks About Right) qualities but to a very close standard to make things work on kits and for the purpose of fixing shape errors on existing kits.  

 

I won't reveal my first and highest priority for my desired effort but I will ask the modeling public, including Iain, who I've already PM'ed for input on a good but inexpensive laptop for 3D programs and a good noob program that has growth potential without a wicked or murderous learning curve.  I need something that has a tutorial that will let me "make the bunny", then the car then the complicated shapes and then the more high-tech facets of cockpit windows and other complex shapes from scratch where I can draw within the CAD program an scale as well.   I'm pretty good at self-taught methods and can usually find answers after some periods of frustration but I need also some things to keep my mind exercising and would like to produce something that everyone would appreciate and some would want before I move on to the great beyond.

 

Some of you know how I felt when I lost my beloved dog but to add to the story, I have returned to my beloved state of South Carolina, after years of feeling displaced and out-of sorts in Kansas, then Connecticut.  I am home.  And my prognosis with the stage 4 cancer is good thus far but I do have some before-I-die wishes.  One is to work in the yet-to-be-built garage and finish my 1981 Porsche 924 Turbo 1/1 scale and to make a kit of the plane in the scale that most fascinates me that some may want in the scale that makes it really show well.  

 

So come one, come all with any 3D advice and please be kind and tolerant of my stupid questions as I will likely have many.  God Bless you all as I have read so many posts and enjoyed so much talent here.  Good folks with limited griping and some fun rib-poking.  Someone once said they missed Rusty Shackleford.  Well, that was me so many years ago.   

 

My sense of humor has been hammered mostly flat but it's still there.  I miss those days in some respects as I lived in a small apartment, working for an airline and having very little money to spend.  But I had a small hobby bench and could develop some skills.  Now I'm retired with some time left before I go to the great hobby bench in the sky and would like to leaves something behind that says I participated.  

 

Cheers

 

Fang

Edited November 27, 2022 by VADM Fangschleister

[Da SWO]

Good luck.

 

I just bought the same printer for my son with the caveat that he has to learn how to make parts for me.

[VADM Fangschleister]

18 minutes ago, Da SWO said:

with the caveat that he has to learn how to make parts for me.

LOL!

[Bob Beary]

Can you post a link to lain and his 737?

 

Thanks.

 

[VADM Fangschleister]

https://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index.php?/topic/87279-132-boeing-p-8a-poseidon/#comment-1242442

[Bob Beary]

Thank you!!  WOW, that is a project!!

[VADM Fangschleister]

Just now, Bob Beary said:

Thank you!!  WOW, that is a project!!

Truly

 

Iain is devoted to plastic aircraft and his many postings exude a passion for helping others while pushing the envelope of modeling.  I admire what he's done and look forward to his next foray into whatever adventure he's undertaken.  Kind of like watching Indiana Jones but with plastic...and without the Nazis....and the snakes....and the chicks.  Okay...so it's nothing like Indiana Jones but it's still very attention-grabbing.  

[Trojan Thunder]

I'll be interested to see how you go Rusty Fang 😄

 

Don't forget all those other ideas you had about the 1/48 bizjets as well.

 

I'd also like to get into 3D printing but I can't be bothered with the CAD just now. I'll follow along and quiz you about cetain aspects down the road when you have the good 'gen'

 

 

[VADM Fangschleister]

13 hours ago, Trojan Thunder said:

I'll be interested to see how you go Rusty Fang 😄

 

Don't forget all those other ideas you had about the 1/48 bizjets as well.

 

I'd also like to get into 3D printing but I can't be bothered with the CAD just now. I'll follow along and quiz you about cetain aspects down the road when you have the good 'gen'

 

 

Heh...."Rusty Fang"   

 

1/48 bizjets?  I nave no idea what you're talking about...

 

CAD scares me but I hope by this time in a year, I will have become something of an expert.   I hope....

[Da SWO]

Buying print plans, is that via web?

[VADM Fangschleister]

16 hours ago, Da SWO said:

Buying print plans, is that via web?

Not buying print plans.  Will have to draw everything from scratch

[VADM Fangschleister]

Okay, so the printer is enroute to my humble home but as was advised to me, my ancient laptop is definitely not up to the task of rendering 3D objects.   That is, using AutoCAD or similar programs.   So I researched it some and found that new laptops that are quite powerful and recommended for the job are way out of my price range.  They can go as high as 30 to 50 thousand dollars and that clearly is way more than what I want or need.  

 

I found a very helpful website that 'splained the minimum of what I'd need and it came down to:

 

• Processor: 2.5GHz (3+ GHz recommended) 
• Memory: 8GB (16GB recommended) 
• Disk space: 10GB 
• Display: 1920 x 1080 resolution

 

So I looked for used laptops with these capabilites and decided on a Dell Precision 5510.  It's a used unit but still cost over $400 with the shipping but came with Windows 10 and the seller listed the "about" page right online with a promise for free returns if it does not function as promised.  I'm a fan of the small businessman so I took the chance and purchased it, expecting it to be here between the 2nd and 5th of December.  This is not just a frivolous purchase as I need a new laptop anyway but will still this old clicky-clack for emails, etc as well as browsing the web.  

 

The Dell meets or exceeds the minimum requirements for CAD.  But this also means that I'm committed to the task of designing a 3D model from scratch and I've been trying to use a CAD program on this laptop with zero success.  This laptop can do Half-Life 2, the computer game but not the CAD program.  The initial page comes up and so in lieu of working on the laptop, I've watched some tutorials on YouTube.   

 

Now I'm really interested.  This is getting exciting in a way that makes me feel like Christmas is really coming.  If I get good enough at this, I can also do some interesting mods.  For example, I always wanted to make models of every car my family has ever owned.  You may be familiar with the TV show, "That 70's Show" which featured a 1969 Oldsmobile Vista Cruiser.  My family had one from late '68 to '73, white with red interior.  Now, there's a 1/25 Cutlass model but it needs to be enlarged by about four inches and the roof, tailgate, etc all needs to be scratchbuilt to make a wagon out of it.  A 3D printer would fit the bill perfectly to create the parts needed.  

 

Plus, detail parts, like I need an engine for my Entex 1/16 Porsche 924.  The hood opens but that's where the battery goes for the motorized bits.  To say nothing of all the needed bits for scale sailboat models that I might be able to make for customers.  The beauty of it being I can tell my sailor friends that I can make a 1/60th scale or a 1/40 scale or many in-between.  Custom paint to match, I've become somewhat skilled at graphics and so on.   

 

Thanks for getting this far in the reading.   I look forward to posting things once I get myself squared away and can actually draw and print something.  

 

("Cover me....I'm goin' in")

[Geoff M]

Good luck on your new adventure and keep us posted.

 

Geoff M

[Scott Smith]

Sounds like a fun adventure.  My son was just telling me I should get involved in 3D printing as well.  So many kits in the stash already, I’d just need it for small detail parts or maybe that unobtanium 1/32 F-111 or a Grumman Duck. 
Where in SC are you?  I’m outside of Camden/Lugoff at Lake Wateree.  Get that printer going and I’ll send some work your way!  

[VADM Fangschleister]

3 hours ago, Scott Smith said:

Sounds like a fun adventure.  My son was just telling me I should get involved in 3D printing as well.  So many kits in the stash already, I’d just need it for small detail parts or maybe that unobtanium 1/32 F-111 or a Grumman Duck. 
Where in SC are you?  I’m outside of Camden/Lugoff at Lake Wateree.  Get that printer going and I’ll send some work your way!  

Hey Scott!

 

I'm halfway between Columbia and Sumter.   I have been tinkering with Fusion 360 and noted over at LSP other people are getting into it as well.  Maybe it's an exciting time to be alive, I dunno.   Lately I've been busy with other things though and the whole effort will be in fits & starts like most things I do.  Many have offered where to find the best tutorials and I've watched some and understood so at least I'm not a poor student.  I've been away from the laptop but  I will say that make sure you have the computing power to handle the program.  

 

Our needs I guess may be quite simple compared to major "engineer-ware" but then, I thing the more complex the shape, the more computing power is required.  I may be just plain wrong on that but as a noob....I will assess, evaluate and speak about it as time goes on.  Mostly, it appears that you just have to jump in and do it....make mistakes, learn, try again, etc.   

[gregg77]

On 11/27/2022 at 12:29 AM, VADM Fangschleister said:

Thanks to Iain's inspirational posts with his 737 both here and on LSP, and many years with my mind nagging at me, and...the projects I want to do that no one will ever mold in kit-form, I have purchased a Crealty 5 Pro.  The price has come down to something relatively "affordable" and I plan to learn the skills needed to create the necessary bits over time to design, print and assemble some nifty things.  

 

I already have good spatial skills and have carved and fabricated many things from scratch.  Not to the clunky level of the TLAR (That Looks About Right) qualities but to a very close standard to make things work on kits and for the purpose of fixing shape errors on existing kits.  

 

I won't reveal my first and highest priority for my desired effort but I will ask the modeling public, including Iain, who I've already PM'ed for input on a good but inexpensive laptop for 3D programs and a good noob program that has growth potential without a wicked or murderous learning curve.  I need something that has a tutorial that will let me "make the bunny", then the car then the complicated shapes and then the more high-tech facets of cockpit windows and other complex shapes from scratch where I can draw within the CAD program an scale as well.   I'm pretty good at self-taught methods and can usually find answers after some periods of frustration but I need also some things to keep my mind exercising and would like to produce something that everyone would appreciate and some would want before I move on to the great beyond.

 

Some of you know how I felt when I lost my beloved dog but to add to the story, I have returned to my beloved state of South Carolina, after years of feeling displaced and out-of sorts in Kansas, then Connecticut.  I am home.  And my prognosis with the stage 4 cancer is good thus far but I do have some before-I-die wishes.  One is to work in the yet-to-be-built garage and finish my 1981 Porsche 924 Turbo 1/1 scale and to make a kit of the plane in the scale that most fascinates me that some may want in the scale that makes it really show well.  

 

So come one, come all with any 3D advice and please be kind and tolerant of my stupid questions as I will likely have many.  God Bless you all as I have read so many posts and enjoyed so much talent here.  Good folks with limited griping and some fun rib-poking.  Someone once said they missed Rusty Shackleford.  Well, that was me so many years ago.   

 

My sense of humor has been hammered mostly flat but it's still there.  I miss those days in some respects as I lived in a small apartment, working for an airline and having very little money to spend.  But I had a small hobby bench and could develop some skills.  Now I'm retired with some time left before I go to the great hobby bench in the sky and would like to leaves something behind that says I participated.  

Of course, creating 3D models cannot do without creative design. Therefore, I entrust my projects to professional designers who can add originality to my models. The last time they used vector graphics  https://masterbundles.com/stock-content/vector/food-svg/ was very creative

Cheers

 

Fang

cool, I wish you luck in your project

Edited December 22, 2022 by gregg77

[Scott Smith]

And since my post above, I found out Tigger Models is coming out with a vac 1/32:F-111 with aftermarket support for cockpit and gear.