This is going to hopefully serve as a build log for my Bismarck. This should showcase my trials and tribulations of a full scratch build. From the ribs to the propulsion to a custom firing system, 3D printed parts and a good amount of detail. I am heavily targeting CURT’s Bismarck as a ‘good from 5 feet’ baseline for detail. The plans came from this site darn near 10 years ago and have just been sitting on my google drive waiting for someday. Since the DXF file was corrupt (everything was on one layer and Fusion couldnt import it) I needed to do some fancy footwork and saved everything as PDFs to print out. Then laid the decking out on ¼” hardware store 3 ply. The ribs are on 5 ply marine grade birch Since my jig saw was dead (my own stupidity...) I started designing things in CAD. And failing. And trying And failing. And trying and meh success but I will redesign again to make it a bit stronger. need to redesign the canons too After I burnt out my dremel trying to cut these out, I went and bought a scroll saw and a new jig saw and cut most of the ribs and subdeck More ribs and subdeck Started on the keels. I have a lot of work ahead of me. A lot of ideas too. Currently the superstructure is all designed in CAD but I need more resin and I need to piece things out to print properly. Or I just buy another FDM printer and use that but the details on an FDM printer arent in the same ballpark as a resin printer.
Ive decided to make it battle ready. So to follow the rulesets, some small updates. Doing a hardbottom of plywood to give the center a bit more mass. The bow and stern will be balsa. Also I hated how the top deck came out. It wasnt compliant anyway but I want the ship to look as good as I can. So... off it goes. It is being replaced with 3mm thick 3D printed decking. This will give me the decking details and the clean lines I wanted.
Very neat. How did you get that nice plank pattern without the extruder path showing up on the top layer? Did you just sand it smooth?
The planking pattern was done when modeling the deck. Each plank is 2mm x 25mm. In hindsight they should be about 80mm long to be scale. It is a .2 wide, .2 deep pattern. Since the nozzle is .4, it makes a paper-thin line, one layer deep (running .2 layers). The top surface is a benefit to the type of filament. It is Hatchbox Wood. It comes out almost like a paste instead of a ridged plastic and flows very well if the temp is spot on. It is also very matte. The upside is it fills out the layer without visible tracks, the downside is it is extremely stringy. Another benefit is that it bends and deforms instead of cracking, making for a ‘splinter deck’ effect like a real battleship. It obviously isnt as durable as a solid wood deck but the great part is, instead of trying to cut a new deck to match if it gets too damaged, I can just reprint the exact part and replace the section. There really isnt risk of plunging fire unless somehow the ship is capsizing and takes a point blank round to the deck. I will need to reenforce it to prevent heat sag and weight sag but a ¼” aluminum section (since the sub deck is ¼”) will keep it perfect.
You could just run a wooden beam down the center. Or print the next one with some crown in it for strength. Just like the full scale ships : ) The deck only has to be 3/8" thick at the edge that touches the hull
can’t put a beam down the center. Thats where the canons are I didnt want to sand down the plywood the ⅛” when I wasnt at all happy with the deck at all. i was thinking of making a slight crown. Maybe on my New Jersey I will go that extra mile.
Going with two. Right now the turrets are printing. As it sits the front deck nicely spans the subdeck opening so it may not even be needed. We will see
Since I am recovering from emergency surgery, work on the hull has stopped. However, 5 days of designing and 3 days (so far!) of printing and most of the fore super structure is done. The funnel section is 22 hours away on the printer.
I wasnt sure I was going to be happy with gluing the entire super structure together (smart guy didnt model in magnet reliefs before printing) but I did model in two locating M5 screws that go into T inserts in the subdeck behind B turret. I didnt think that would be enough to secure the entire SS to the ship... but.. it isnt moving. It also locks the barbette deck in pretty securely. Now I wouldnt lift the ship by the super structure alone, but I’m happy that my little brain fart didnt cost me a load of plastic. Also super happy that I took the time to model the planking. It isnt perfect but it looks nice.
Thank you! Currently printing out the magazine housings. The rotation gears are already printed. These are printed in PETG to have some resilience. I havent decided how I want to arm it. I am -not- a fan of the machine-gun-bumper-boats of fast gun and there are no big gun groups anywhere near me.
GT2 belts. I have a lot of room in the superstructure to house servos or maybe two steppers if I can get some servo-stepper converter boards.
Decking is DONE. I had a major error when I converted to an SVG and extruded making the deck nearly 15mm longer than it should have been requiring me to reprint two sections. But that gave me the opportunity to fix a few issues and redesign some of the pieces. But now a serious issue came to light The hull was crooked! She starts to go off just past midship. The deck is straight and aligns to the edge of the subdeck with roughly 1/16” over on each side. Aligned to the bow Aligned at the stern ITS SURGERY TIME! I used the decking to align the two sections and using some sawdust and wood glue to make a putty (it will fill any gaps and reenforce the glue joint), reattached the keel section. The culprit was twofold. The rear single keel notches were not cut straight so the ribs were tweaked just slightly. That, combined with the subdeck joint being at the same area allowed the keel to flex a bit as the glue initially dried. Now for some glamor shots!
