3D Design/3D Printing/CNC Service - South Jersey Shipyards

Hey gents,

I've said to a number of people in the hobby how I want to make my tools available for others who might not be able to afford or find a place for a big ass CNC machine or a pair of large format 3D printers.

To that end, consider this the official opening of Will's printing and CNC service for the hobby.

3D Design:

If you require custom designed parts, I can accommodate that. 3D design service will be on a per-item basis. Design cost is $20/hr. A fishtail rudder for your favorite billboard boat will be much cheaper than an entire superstructure for your IJN Pagoda. Superstructures/etc will require digital plans of the ship in question. Inquire via PM and we can discuss your project.

3D Printing:

I have two large format 3D printers with build volumes of 300x300x400 mm. These printers are in a heated and insulated cabinet and print almost non-stop with white bulk ABS filament. These two have produced four different boat hulls, over a dozen superstructures, and who knows how many smaller functional parts like gearboxes and servo mounts and rudder gears.

This service is not a service for modeling your parts. This is simply a 3D printing service. You send me an STL file of what you want printed, I print it for you do a quality check and then box it up and ship it out or arrange to have it delivered at a boat battle.

The printing service is $10 as a flat rate setup/coffee fee for the first print job, and then $5 for each additional job. Also $.05/gram for material usage. Most 3D printer slicer applications will give you an estimated material use, that is what this number will be based off of. Shipping is not included and would be additional, based on the size of the item and what flat rate box I can fit it into.

To give you an idea, I just printed a complete LST superstructure for @Beaver which was one print job and the total material cost worked out to $4.60. Plus the setup fee, and the total is $14.60 plus shipping.

To further explain the setup fee, let's say you want 50 rudder gears. I can only fit so many on the build plate of my printer, so you would end up needing to have two separate print jobs. So that would be $10 for the first and $5 for the second. For something complex like an entire Queen Elizabeth superstructure which may be five separate print jobs due to volume, it would be $10 + $5 x 4, + material cost @ $.05/gram.

I'm not willing to use different materials, these two printers are so dialed in for this specific filament that I would not want to change any settings for a special one-off job. White bulk ABS is perfect for our hobby for basically all uses.

To find items for printing, check out the "Resources" section of this website in the bar at the top, or inquire.

CNC Machining:

This one is a little bit more difficult. The CNC has a working area of roughly 850 millimeters x 1250mm and a Z working area of roughly 60mm. At this time the material that I'm willing to CNC includes:

Baltic Birch Plywood (1/8, 1/4, 3/8)
Lowe's/HD foam board (any thickness up to 2")
6061 Aluminum (up to 3/8)

I do not have prices set up for the CNC yet, if you have a job you want done contact me I will lay it out and we will work something out. Once again this is not a service for designing you parts that would be cut on a CNC machine. This is for you to send me your drawing or your part and for me to cut it out. If you need me to design the item for you, we can talk.

Disclaimer!

Due to the destructive nature of this hobby, I cannot warranty these items in any way shape or form once they are in your hands. Superstructures will get shot up and sooner or later will crack and deteriorate. If you are concerned about this, apply a light layer of glass cloth to the bottom levels and you should be fine. The same thing goes for turrets, secondary guns, basically anything that is not protected by impenetrable material. All items will go through a quality control check before they leave my possession. If the print is warped, shows any signs of poor layer adhesion, etc, it will be restarted. I reserved the right to decline any job, however I'm more than willing to work with those who may be less technologically inclined to help them get the parts that they want/need. I claim no ownership of any third-party 3D print files sent to me for printing. I reserve ownership of any and all designs I make, and reserve the right to make those designs available for others / free download via the RCWC resources section. I'm not a lawyer, don't pick apart my disclaimer.

EDIT:

Please see the official SJS development pipeline here for what we're working on. I will try to keep this up to date at least weekly.

 

Shown here are some small functional items that are available either here on the forum uploaded by myself or others, or designs that I have made and not yet uploaded.

Shown in this image are the following items:

550 motor direct drive mount. Designed for 9/32 stuffing tube but modifiable to others.

775 motor direct drive mount. Designed for 3/8 stuffing tube but modifiable.

Single and dual rudder servo mounts designed to be used with the also shown servo and rudder gears. A third option is available, which is dual rudders with a 2.5-in idler gear for boats with narrow rear ends to push the servo closer to the center of the boat. Other combinations can be arranged, like a single rudder with idler gear.

A simple dual gun barrel mount.

Servo City plastic chain compatible sprockets to be attached to your servos and rudder posts.

A replacement for the Traxxas Villain gearbox many enjoy using, along with three different motor plates compatible with either original Traxxas or 3d printed versions. 19mm/25mm/29mm for small brushless/550/775 motors.

 

Lookin' pretty fancy there, bubba!

 

Fantastic idea! I know I would love some pieces done as one or two pieces instead of 7 since my cnc only has a 300x300x40 working area. Great for ribs, not so much for keels and sub/decks.

 

Shown in this post are examples of CNC decks + subdecks and a full 3D printed superstructure made to order for a fellow IRCWCC captain.

 

Those look fantastic!

 

Another full superstructure with CNC subdeck and deck.

 

And sneak peak of another project I am currently prototyping, to compliment my plastic cruiser kits...



This picture was taken probably 12 hours worth of modeling ago, and now the first prototype is in production. We will see how it comes out.

 

Still working on the superstructure, but the prototype hull is in production. Future hulls will have a cnc cut 1/8 piece of plywood or aluminum for the casemate decks/all stringers for strength.

 

Would you ever consider converting these programs into more of large scale models and selling them? Like with non "cut hulls"? I would definitely be interested in putting some together as non combat RCs.

 

You could take one of the 3d printed hulls, skin it with balsa and then fiberglass the outside for a surface runner model. But drivetrain wise its set up for fastgun, so it wouldn't really work well with scale sized props/rudders or even moderately oversized vs scale rudders/props.

 

True, guess it would depend on if you wanted the accuracy vs Functionality

 

How heavy is the QE hull going to be compaired to a wood hull or a glass hull with wood deck. I have one class of ship that glass with wood deck and the same ship with glass hull and glass decks and the glass/glass is a lot heavier 2lbs plus. That’s a 10ah nimh.

 

I will compare to the old, super thin glass hull Barham/Malaya I have. It's not a super fair comparison as this has most of the water channeling, battery trays, motor mounts, servo mount, etc modeled into it. But the glass hull is about that finished so can compare.

Here is the weight of the first two sections, this accounts for the first 23" of the the ship length wise. Excuse the doggo. 2lb 4oz so far. A mathematical guess says that the entire hull should weigh 5.5~lb

 

I’ll try to remember to weigh the two QE I have in the basement. Both have extra glass from Bob P the old with casement style. Both would be ready to run with SS. Just no guts for wiring or air.

 

That is pretty cool seeing the rest of the design.

 

And the first plastic Malaya/Barham hull is done production. The superstructure is specifically Malaya, there are some noticeable differences between the two, but I don't think anybody would cry foul if you built this superstructure and called it Barham.

Just got my McMaster order for shaft material, hoping to have it mostly assembled in time for Nate's battle next weekend. When it's designed the way this is set up, it really is super simple to knock out a battleship in a weekend.

 

I checked the two QE I have for weight. Both have: fiberglass hull, wood sub deck, water channeling, prop shafts and props, rubbers rudder servo, sheeting.
They did not have: motors guns or decks installed or any other guts.
One is 8.6 the other 9lbs. What does the plastic one weigh it the same state?

 

The plastic hull with water channel, subdeck, motor mounts/gearboxes, rudder servo mount, battery trays, bottle holder, no shafts/props, no rudder servo, weighs 5lb 7oz.

 

What would you say is the time difference in printing the hull to this state with design time included verses setting up a plug and mold and glass a hull.

Very impressed with all the work. Hope to see video of how it performs and holds up.