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

Lolol

 

I boat update picture dump. I christen this model ready for beta test production. Also shown a close-up of the new interchangeable sliding rudder mount system that I am retrofitting into all of my hulls. Editable .step files for the rudder servo plate will be uploaded so you can tailor fit to your own servo. Will also upload a "generic brand" mounting base you could sand/shape to fit and epoxy into a traditional hull to otherwise utilize this system. I expect this will replace most of my original rudder servo mount setups, but want to retain the compatibility with my existing servo/rudder geardrive systems.

Anyway, sexy 1080p .png time:




And rudder closeup:

 

Any particular reason you didn't use the Invincible superstructure that Brian Koehler posted a while back?

 

My guess is that he didnt want to step on any toes with selling the ship kits using parts made by someone else.

 

Exactly. I don't want to offer someone else's designs as my own. BK's superstructure is 100x better than mine, but I would never want to download someone else's files wrap them up in my own project and then offer them for sale/etc to people.

The triangular 00 level of the superstructure, the wedge piece aft of the deck step, is the only piece of my SS that's 100% necessary. It's fit to the plastic hull and we all know how hulls can be a bit different. But you could absolutely take that piece and then use Brian's from the deck level up.

 

Hello gents, I'd like to ask an opinion of the captain population:

I'm looking at potential pricing for the future of the 3d printed kits. Originally, I was planning on offering them in multiple levels of kit-completeness. I'm starting to think I may just offer them as the whole kit n kaboodle, or the whole kit n kaboodle with no deck+SS. This saves the potential headaches of someone buying a bare plastic hull and trying to force fit hardware items that it wasn't designed for.

I'm looking at about $200 for a full up HMS Invincible kit. That is using today's prices for all the material ingredients.

Understand I am not advertising this for sale. I am asking opinions about kit pricing and completeness.

For $200, the kit would include:

3DP Hull sections
3DP Superstructure Sections + Turrets + Barbettes
3DP Hardware items (rudders, some plastic props that may or may not survive, some generic sized electronics epoxy potting trays, some rudder+servo gears, motor mounting plates in various flavors, etc)
1/8" cnc cut deck hatches
Material to build stuffing tubes/prop shafts (tubing, bushings, stainless shaft material)
Material for rudder shafts/tubes
n52 neodymium magnets for deck hold downs
All of the heat set inserts for the hull/rudder mount/etc pre-set in the hull
M4 stainless nuts+bolts to assemble the hull sections + excess prop shaft material for the center of hull reinforcing rods that are part of the hull bottom
4-40 stainless button head machine screws for gearbox motor mount plates, rudder mounting, etc​

Basically, as comprehensive of a kit as I can provide without getting into the messy business of reselling and shipping adhesives. At this point, all you would need to complete a kit would be:

Loctite 680 retaining compound (for retaining bushings into prop shafts, and for retaining props onto shafts if you use my methods)
Waterproof adhesive for gluing the hull sections together
Waterproofing for the wooden decks (lacquer? epoxy? up to you)
Superglue/E6000/Shoe Goo "Goop"
Internal armor material (shower pan liner? fiberglass reinforced dogproof screening?)
And then all the accoutrements for a typical battling model. Pneumatics, electronics, etc.​

The "deckless" (ha ha) kit would save $20 over the full price. In my opinion, not worth the cost reduction for basically anyone who'd be interested in the kit. Would include everything minus the decks + superstructure + turrets and such.

This price is about as low as I can get it by buying materials in bulk and trying to pass that savings on to you guys. Just the printed bits alone ends up being about $140~, so the hardware items ends up being about $60. If you had to buy only the quantity you need for 1 boat, you'd probably end up spending 2x that due to material bulk savings.

Would you, vet captains, spend $200 for a kit of this completeness? We are only talking about Invincible here right now, and like I said this is just a temperature check to see if I'm in the right ballpark...the hull has gone through destructive testing but needs to be battled before I could feel comfortable offering it for mass consumption. Cruiser kits would probably end up around $160-175, larger battleships like QE $240-250, largest ships like Wasp or Jean Bart would be closer to $280-300.

 

You might be shorting yourself. You spent time to develop the model which should be worth something. Plus the wear and tear on the printers. Maybe $250 to $300?

 

There is a minimal amount of overhead in the $200 price that helps pay for spare parts for printers, cnc, etc and contribute a coffee or two to my time.

I try to do this stuff to help the hobby, not make any kind of profit. I've been the poor kid looking in at this craziness, if I can do $200 for the (invincible) kits and not take a loss I'd like to keep them as affordable as possible. Theres a *ton* of cost even after this complete of a kit that I can't help reduce, so I'll help where I can so you can spend where you need.

I will say $200 doesn't include shipping. I need to figure that out yet, shipping will be highly dependent on how well I can nest the hull pieces into the smallest possible box.

 

Put me on the list for one.

 

I like what I see. I'd said I was up for buying 2 of these I-Boats at the $100 price point that was mentioned in the "Truck Gun" thread and donating one or both of them. That offer still stands, at the higher price.

 

FYI, I reached out to Brian and he generously gave his approval to bundle his super structure parts with hulls, etc. Thank you, sir : )

 

Silly strength test video #1: https://photos.app.goo.gl/pkZc6K88gp5cu5am8

More, equally silly, equally unscientific test videos to come this weekend.

By the way, I am not a small/light guy. I'm also not photogenic, nor am I a good skate/snow boarder. 6'1 250~ lb.

That price figure was originally for a bare, nothing additional, plastic hull. The $200 price point reflects a lot more hardware and whatnot included. I'm not in a position to take orders or offers at this time, but will be after the prototypes are battled tested.

 

Joining sections with bolts seems damn near revolutionary sir. Well done. For context. I bought my Derfflinger in 2002 for $500, it was worth every penny and it came ready to go, with guns and radio.
The price you are asking for comments on are very reasonable to me. And I appreciate what you are doing for the hobby.
Would you please consider more german ships or non aligned, Sverige or Espana. I do see you will have Von der Tann and the Kaiser in the pipeline. Maybe a Ostfriesland or Emden(Dresden class) cruiser could be possible.
Thanks for everything you do sir.

Sincerely
Daniel

 

That's mighty thoughtful of Brian to give you permission to use his designs. By the way, consider anything I've posted on this site free to use however you like. The only stuff I'm feeling protective of is the stuff I haven't shared on the site, and, well, yeah. Even then, I will probably share them eventually, possibly as soon as a few weeks from now, because I'm sure the world needs a 3D printable Colorado class superstructure.

 

This is my general attitude. If I've posted it on the site resources section, feel free to use it. However, I respect the contributors to the site's resources section and would never want to bundle their files with a project that I'd be producing and selling for people. Look at my Suffren cruiser superstructure. The aircraft catapult from rcengr's Dunkerque superstructure is perfect for it...but I'd never want to download his files, pull that out, and then repackage it with mine. Instead, I direct people to those applicable files where they can download them themselves. Same with the dual 5" guns that are highly detailed and available on this forum and any US superstructure I've made. Ditto, again, with SS/Turrets and my hulls.

That's all. It's a respect thing. I want to remain as far afield from "Oh screw that guy, he just bundles up other peoples work and sells it" as I possibly can. Plus, this is fun for me

Thanks for the kind words.

Generally ships that I am personally interested in are at the front of the queue. Kaiser is my next model from scratch, right now I'm finishing up the existing projects and getting them all ready for prototype production. After Kaiser I have a 1920's Pennsylvania class on the docket, followed by the French Predreadnought Danton, followed by the newly-legal-for-IRCWCC 1920 South Dakota class, followed by the Town-class or Crown Colony-class cruiser, depending on exactly what flavor I'd like to model.

When it comes to what ships I will/will not model, there are a ton of factors including my own personal desire to own said ship.

Availability of plans
Quality of available plans
Expressed interest from other captains
Is this ship already over-represented in the hobby? (Nagato, Kongo, North Carolina, Bismarck, Seydlitz, etc)
Potential difficulty in modeling this ship vs expressed interest from captains. (Am I going to spend 30 hours working on a model, 3 days printing it, to make exactly 1 for 1 captain who pestered me into doing?)
Potential difficult in actually building this ship to battle (a 1.5lb Destroyer Escort would be nearly impossible, for example)
​

So with those criteria in mind, I would probably consider Espana but I'd probably not consider Sverige. In IRCWCC Sverige wouldn't be allowed a sidemount which makes her rather undesirable vs other slightly larger PDN's and ACR's. Emden is a 4.5lb class 1 cruiser that is roughly the size of the Mogador destroyer I've posted, but 3 full seconds slower. While I might not do Emden, I could take a look at one of her slightly larger, later-war offspring that would be more friendly to build and maintain.

 

Thanks for writing me back. I should know the rules better, but I thought all the predreads (class 3) got the 1 sidemount including Sverige. I need to go back an re-read.

Have gone an gotten old, ships under 15 pounds are my future I think. Been obsessing over a wood hull Henri IV, never thought I could love any French ship. I really like your Emil Bertin. I can't remember the Danton weight, but definitely looking out for her.

I wonder if the Town class has that ship that killed SMS Emden, HMAS Sydney? Drawing a blank. Oh well. Whatever you choose it will be excellent sir.


Daniel

 

FYI, you can print and sell anything that I have posted on this site. I'm not going to commercialize any of my stuff because I don't want to do the work to market it, print it, box it, ship it, and arrange for payments. So anyone that does print and sell something I've posted is helping out the modeler that doesn't have a 3D printer and is deserving of some profit for the work they put in. Win - Win.

 

OK, update on the "V1" hulls for all interested parties:

All V1 hulls have had a final draft of revisions applied to them. I am getting ready to enter mass production to get these boats out to the parties who have signed up for the Beta Test. If you are one of those parties, pay attention here because it's easier to talk to you all at once vs privately. Each ship's drivetrain is slightly different based on the scale of the ship. Every ship uses a 5/32 rudder tube for a 1/8 rudder shaft.

EDIT: The below chart only references "550 and 380" sizes for familiarity. I am referring to those motors mounting bolt patterns of 25mm (550) and 16mm (380) respectively, and their overall size for clearance vs other bodies and the hull itself. Any motor of that mounting bolt pattern will work with these ships. Suffren uses a unique hybrid motor mounting solution that can accommodate gear drive OR direct drive depending on your use case. The larger ships use gearboxes with interchangeable motor plates allowing for any motor.



The kits are all of the completeness discussed above. The 3d printed props I provide MIGHT work for you. They also might get destroyed if you hit a rock/stick/etc. underwater. So be prepared for your own props. Being prepared for your own props meaning be prepared to deal with my metric shafts on the larger boats.

For the 5mm shafted ships:

I know new things can be scary. 5mm shaft has worked excellently for me for years now. It worked so well other veteran captains have started to take notice. 5mm is the bore of the nice 32p steel RC car gears so it's much easier to find larger gearing options for cheaper than basically any other shaft diameter. It's also slightly beefier than 3/16. I have never in my time using it been able to take a 5mm shaft out of commission. I have completely pretzeled cast bronze Prop Shop props, shafts were fine. To make other props compatible with the 5mm shaft, I just drill out the prop with a 5mm drill bit and then press fit the shaft into the prop with some Loctite 680 retaining compound. (Press fit meaning hammer the shaft into the prop). This press fit + the retaining compound has proven to be so amazingly strong that no other alternative retaining method is required on my boats.​

I will post-process the parts as they come off the printers, but I can't do 100% of the finishing work on every piece for every ship. It'll take weeks. You will want to file/sand any remaining brim/support material clear of the printed parts, you will want to clean up the mating surfaces with some water + cleaning agent of your choice, you may want to clear out holes with appropriately sized drill bits if you notice things not fitting correctly. Any effort required here will be a lot less than needing to cut windows and shafts into a glass boat. You're all smart guys, I trust you can figure this out.

I will install heat-set inserts into all required parts. This is a process that can cause a lot of grief if done incorrectly, so I will handle it for you.

For assembly of the actual hull pieces:

The hulls bolt together using m4 bolts and nuts. I work one section at a time because adhesives dripping everywhere can get messy. The nuts are captured, but the plastic can only hold on so well. Don't put this together using a 1/2 drive impact gun. It just needs to be tight, and mainly exists only to secure the hull in the correct orientation/alignment while the adhesive dries. I have used e6000, JB weld brand 15 minute epoxy, Shoe Goo "Goop", etc. You want an adhesive that is extremely strong, waterproof, yet slightly flexible.
​

Most of these ships are designed for magnetic deck retention. The hulls are cut for a 3/16" thick deck recess and the decks are only 1/8", this is to leave some wiggle room for deck sealing.

I will update this with more assembly instructions/advice as I think of it.

 

You maniac!