Introducing USS Chester - A freely available 1.5unit cruiser for novices and experienced captains alike! I've been working on designing a 3d printable hull and it hit me half way through that Chester would be a fun ship to make available to the community. She should be a relatively easy build. At 6lbs displacement she still has an inch of freeboard available and the hull is roomy enough for a single cannon or two half unit guns. I plan to offer 3 different sets of files eventually, STL files to print your own, DXF files for a CNC routered or lasercut wood hull, and templates to cut your own hull out of wood. Hopefully there is some interest in this project as I'd love to see some of these on the water! Feel free to drop any comments or questions below!
I made this because I wanted it and decided not to be selfish and share. Blucher and Tennessee are cool but I'm not itching to build one.
Ah, and here I thought armored cruisers with sidemounts were going to be this year's new hotness. Go figure. All the same, it's very cute, and thanks for being generous and sharing with everyone. I tried to do that once and someone went and ignored the Von der Tann superstructure that I posted. Along with a few others, apparently. (sigh)
Been working on the internal arrangement. Trying to plan everything out so it can be assembled and everything has a place. The overall idea will be purchase everything on X part list and install in a matter of hours. I plan to supply instructions so even a new person can figure it out.
Ok! I think it's ready for the prototype to be printed! I just have to add the connecting tabs to the pieces but otherwise it's ready to go. I had @bsgkid117 look over the model and give his blessing (thanks) and then split it into 4 sections. The longest is 255mm so this should fit on most medium to large format printers.
The "base" version will be a single 50rnd gun. That would be the recommended beginner setup. If you wanted more guns in the future then you can split the unit for a bow gun or whatever you want to do. That much is left to the captain.
You've done a great job. As I said in our little chat while I looked over it, I couldn't have done it any better myself. Most of my suggestions were just from my experience with the transition of digital to physical. Looking forward to seeing a finished product. May print one or two myself just for laughs, I think I can print a whole one in 1 print
Work continues on adding the bosses to bolt the hull together. Unfortunately on this small ship there isn't quite enough room to fit the bosses on the inside around amidships so to get around that I'm going to try bolting the hull together from the outside. The bolt is angled 10° to allow access for tightening. Fingers crossed this works!
I take it since your using connecting screws, that glue isn't strong enough to hold these printed hulls together?
It is. With ABS I use acetone to melt the mating surfaces and clamp them together. This chemically fuses the sections making them actually stronger than the layers alone. The bolts are there to provide a clamping surface while the glue or acetone cures. On my Baby Jersey, I no longer have the bolts in the ribs and the hull is plenty strong.
