For the fun of it, this last week I've been designing a 3d printable V-105 class torpedo boat. Printed the forward section today. Had a little trouble with the tip of the subdeck, but the rest came out great.
Just FYI, the model pictured is not complete. The subdecks were just quick fab-ups for the photo. The rear sub deck will be broken into pieces to fit a printer bed. Plus it will have an instep for the deck to sit in like the sub deck piece pictured.
Just to give you guys some hope for the future , this is a picture of my current build, it is a 1/35th scale Armidale Class Patrol Boat of the Australian Navy, EVERYTHING is 3D printed, i bought it as a kit from BernCo models on facebook, genuine nice guy and has helped me sort out some of the little printing errors in the kit, The only parts that are not 3d printed are the Prop, Rudder & Stabilizer tubes (It has active roll stabilization and heading hold with the use of a gyro ) and the bow thruster unit which is a commercial unit that bolts into the bow. it only has 7 bulkheads in the hull and is still quite strong, let me know if you would like some more info and i will start a thread dedicated to the build so it doesn't take over this thread
So pretty! It makes me want to sink it so we can all sing its theme song... 'We all live in a yellow submarine...'
Hahaha, yeah i glued the 2 bow sections together and started to sand & putty the front to see how well i could "smooth" out the printing lines from the 3d printer, thats why the yellowish stains finish in a straight line, In terms of what i liked about it, the build time to complete the 1.7 meter hull was awesome, normally something this size would take 16-30 hours of work using a conventional wood hull and rib construction method (Guestimate as this is the first boat i have built), for me it was about 3 hours total to glue all the sections together with waterproof liquid nails, Also the Superstructure is soooooo easy to build, you dont have to worry about getting anything square or in the right place, its all printed in the right place, all you have to do is simply find the right piece and glue it in the right place, Summary: As an "end user" of a 3D printed kit, it makes life soooooo much easier and takes alot less "Skill" to assemble, on the other hand though, having spent alot of time talking to the person who printed this kit for me, there was alot of trail and error to get the model to this stage as not everything translates well from computer to printer, however with experience, this becomes less of a problem, In essence, it does not remove the skill required to build boats, it just transfers it to the computer modeler to have enough skill to produce a workable design and then print it, Result: I love this build and the idea of 3d printed ships, the printing time is roughly the same time as building it by hand, but you also get computer accuracy and once it has been modeled once succesfully, you can simply download the print files and print an exact copy for yourself anywhere in the world, for me this is as good as when CNC miling and Lathe work was realised to the hobbyist level, If you can, jump on it, 3D printing is awesome, and as you can see, printing a full ship is more than achievable in a large scale
just had a thought that i will try on my next build. to print vertically i should leave a cavity on the inside of the stringers and deck that fits aluminium welding rods to help resolve the issues in multi-multi part printing by adding a solid bit through the whole unit that does not have the same stress lines as the plastic without adding all that much weight. also design in alignment pins for similar reasons on bigger ships like my planned Akashi which is about 30% modeled. Edit: glued aluminum welding rods to the deck spars and got significantly improved durability ie cracked a spar before i glued on the aluminum from a 2 foot fall and didn't crack it from a 6 foot fall afterwords.
so... it was mentioned earlier in the thread that 3D is appropriate for mass production and all, but waiting for hours for mass production doesn't seem too fantastic. Has anyone prototyped with a 3d printer, and then used the prototype to make a mold? I would love to see pics/whatnot, as I have only an abstract idea of the molding process. Alternately, has anyone considered making a hybridized component, in which they 3d printed the complex portion of a part, and then installed it on a mold of the rest of the part? Say for example, you have a mold of the hull bottom section, but print the motor mount and press it into the plastic or whatever in the mold as it sets. I think for more.... exotic and challenging engineering projects that 3D printing and molds may be the only way to go for certain projects. I'm looking at the submarine problem as a way to teach myself how to use Fusion 360, and as a result have been thinking a lot about how to print/mold/fabricate the lower hull of a sub in such a manner as to allow them to be manufactured a la Vac-U-Boat with similar ease in construction. who knows, maybe it could go somewhere.
Yeah I've done that with good results. I got the master printed from shapeways since the quality was was higher than I could get with a home machine. It produce a great master part that need no prep to make a mold from. The cast parts have come out pretty well, the only issues were things caused by me and I could fix those if it actually mattered. I agree that on the whole 3D printing does a lot better with prototyping and one offs than it does with mass production but it's getting better and on the scale we deal with it isn't a huge issue.
Thanks. Yup, that's Smooth-On Mold Max 30 and one of the smooth cast resins. There are a number of different brands that all seem to work well, both for silicone molds and casting resins. Basic molding and casting is really easy and you can do a lot with just the basics.
Cool, I'll have to try out molding once I get settled in WI. I presume that the mold is super rubbery and that you can flex complex parts out, right?
