For a disposable quick boat these destroyers that the group in Atlanta are playing with are more along those lines. if I had a full temp controlled enclosure on my Rostock max v2 i could print 11"x11" sections. it would however take FOREVER. 26-30 hours of printing. 3d printers are not quick yet. on the note of print time is that if i like the way that my Shimakaze works and holds up plus what i hear from rcengr from his I plan on looking into the Volcano attachment with the 1.5mm nozzle for the ribs and hard areas. would be rough but would print faster.
Will have a posting on the fletchers when they are ready to present to the hobby. Hopefully a great cheap way to get more into the hobby (and maybe they will upgrade to cruiser or battleship once hooked)
I just got finished with a partially printed ship. Rather than trying to make the whole thing printed, I laser cut the deck, sub-deck and ribs. most of the other parts are printed, including the bottom hard area. The ship I picked was the British M-class destroyer from 1915. In 96 scale, it's about as big as Le Terrible destroyer in 144 scale. Some of the first bottom pieces off the printer. These pieces were printed flat so that I could print the shaft supports together with the bottom. Most of the rest of the bottom pieces were printed vertically. This is efficient space wise on the printer bed, but I did have some warping and splitting. I will print them all flat next time. Here's the first couple of bottom pieces inserted. By inserting the shafts before gluing in the pieces, I made sure that everything lined up. And here's the whole bottom. I tried to print the slots for bilge keels, but because of the warping they didn't line up well. Next iteration I'll just cut the slots for the bilge keels in the ribs and make the printed parts smooth. The bottom was filled in with some epoxy and filler and then sanded smooth. The water channel is printed as part of the bottom.
Here's the completed ship next to a Le Terrible hull. Most of the superstructure is printed. I'm most proud of the helm on the destroyer. It is only three pieces, the base, top, and the search light. It ran great on the water too. With the CAD model, everything lines up. That means that I could make the motor mount and have it line up well enough to eliminate the flex joint. The shaft is 1/16", which flexes enough to take care of any slight misalignment. The drive prop is 1.25" and drag props are 3/4". I had one blade of the prop that touched the hull, so a slight relieve was cut in the bottom. Did I mention that it's the HMS Minion? And yes, that's a 7/32" hole from the battle on Sunday.
That is awesome, Mark. Well done! I love the combination of 3D printing and a laser-cut wooden hull. And I especially like that you can include prop shaft supports and water channeling with this solution. I'm curious, is the rudder still wood or did you print it?
** Mod note: Part of this post was copied and then removed and following posts were migrated with the removed content to the 3dp damage tolerance thread: https://rcwarshipcombat.com/threads/3dp-damage-tolerance.443915/ ** As Ron pointed out, I would print the ribs horizontally, and for the same reasons that he gave. Especially for having fewer layers in a rib, vice a bunch of them stacked vertically. That said, for a small ship (like the Novik DD I've been on-and-off working on), the convenience of printing a 7" long section of the ship in one go kind of outweighs the strength loss in that orientation, when one considers that DDs aren't generally pounded like PDNs are.
The rudder is wood on this ship. I do have the 3D rudder drawn, but in the interest of time I didn't print it yet.
I must say that I'm quite excited by the possibility of having 3D printed bottom sections. I have been thinking about what it might be like to use this technique on larger boats, like 1/96 cruisers and battleships, or even 1/144 battleships. It seems to me that the butt joints between the wooden ribs and the ABS bottom sections might flex/stress quite a bit if retrieving larger boats when they are completely full of water. I could see the weight of the water causing a hull failure in thse larger boats since there is no keel to provide support along the length of the boat. So I'm thinking this technique might need to be modified to work with either a single wooden keel for cruisers or a double wooden keel for battlecruisers/battleships. I'm also thinking that in larger boats, these printed sections would be mostly hollow to save on filament. If so, the hollow sections could serve as ballast tanks to get the ship to sit at the water line by just having holes in the bottom of the water channel and the bottom of the hull.
Seen a few post on here about the 3D fabrication and design. Sometimes it is just easier to draw it on a piece of wood and cut it out. If you do not think there will be any further use for it, digital design and then printing can be a time consuming excercise. And when I apply the value of my time, it is a no brainer. Back when I was poor, that did not figure into it, but I didn't have a 3D printer either then. The key is volume. Whether you are printing multiple things off, or you are willing to do the design because others will use your work, volume of items makes it worth while. Or if it is just hard to fabricate, that helps also. When you can design one piece and you need a couple dozen of them, it makes sense. Or like the ship fittings that RCEngr published. the hard work is done, why not give him credit and use them. Printing is not replacing good ole shop work real soon. The little tugboat that RCengr published is proof it will come, but give it time and still expect some assembly.
Part of it, at least for me, is a matter of enjoyment. Sure, I can go out to my garage and make an item from wood or aluminium, but the fact that I can watch something that I built build it in front of me is really really cool.
It is absolutely worth my time. Over the past three years I've learned a great deal about the process between building my own printers and printing a lot of objects, and there are many things that are easier and more efficient to quickly draw up and print than to go out to the shop and wait for the A/C to cool it from 120 to a reasonable temp before doing woodworking. With the added bonus that I can share the design if I find it useful. Additionally, ABS is a LOT more water-resistant than wood, even with epoxy on the wood. Or if I need a new light switch cover plate around the house, or a part for the dishwasher, or replacement parts for things around the clinic that cost too much to buy from the original source. Many one-or-two-off items that were more than worth the time it took to draw, disregarding being able to make more later if I wish.
Oh not saying i do not appreciate having a 3D printer sitting on the counter, we are using it quite a bit. It just hasn't replaced the one off custom stuff yet. Mainly it depends on how hard the model is to design or if it is already designed.
personally .. a work related injury to both hands/arms makes it insanely difficult for me to do layout and wood cut out by hand (or even running the peices through band or scroll saw) ... but assembling and tweaking my own 3d printed bits... I can do
