Looking for Computer Blueprint Ship Plans for a Battle Ship, The kind I can bring to a laser cutting and get all the ribs cut out,Decks and everything else that can be cut, Would like a USA Ships, Will look and USA type ship, Cutting wood on the band saw ,just not as accurate ,Thanks
take the prints you have and do a rib layout on paint. works better than you might think it will save as a pdf
I don't have any blue prints, I and just working on my mine sweeper now, but want to build a bigger ship, of which I am looking for some plans .Thanks
There is a significant investment of time involved in taking a set of plans and making them ready to be sent to a laser cutter. I would be very surprised if a battleship sized file would be given away for free, ready to go.
Most places can cut raster or vector graphics, so you could essentially get a set of plans cut out but the result will be... Suboptimal. The best results come from people who take the time to loft a hull form and do a lot of work to slice and dice that in to a kit. It is labor intensive. If you want a lasercut battleship you should just go buy one of @rcengr 's Texas kits or ask if anyone has one of Gregs Littorio kits for sale. Much cheaper investment on time and money for you
Probably your best bet would be to get one of the laser cut kits that strike models will be putting up on their website hopefully sometime soon. Other than that you will need to get your own plans and CAD up all the parts yourself in order to send off to be laser cut.
Any extra "accuracy" you can get from a laser cutter vs cutting it by hand isn't really meaningful once you've got the ship built. (unless you're trying to get motor mounts and that sort of stuff in the hull as part of the laser cutting but with the amount of tweaking and modification that a lot of models get I'm not sure doing that sort of thing is that great a benefit, but that also depends on you skill/effort levels) Laser cutting really only saves time/makes sense if someone else is drawing up the plans or if you want to build/sell a lot of them. I like the idea of scanning the plans and doing the ribs in paint or something like that as a quick and dirty method, I think the results would be quite usable and no worse than cutting out the ribs in a more "traditional" method. You might not get the same "kit" style end result like rcengr's sets but for a one-off that might be cost effective and not take a ton of time like a full cad model would. (also it's a good option if you don't have a workspace or someplace to make the pile of sawdust that cutting/shaping ribs typically produces.) When I modeled and got a SMS Deutchland class pre-dread cut I was pretty surprised at how affordable it was just to get 2 sets of parts done. (I think it was ~$40 + S&H ) It took a lot longer to model than if I had just used the plans and cut it out on a scroll saw but it was a fun project and was something I had been wanting to try, plus now I have two hulls that I can build and have matching Pre-Dreads... I had to supply all the parts to the laser cutter guys laid out in one giant *.dwg file but if you're drawing it up in CAD to begin with that isn't much of an issue. (File format required probably depends on who does the laser cutting and what their setup needs and if you want to pay them to convert it or not) I could post the Deutchland *.dwg file that I made if people are interested in getting themselves laser cut copies, it isn't perfect, some of the joints are a tad tight and there are probably a couple other issues which exist but for a Class 3 boat it is a plenty functional start.
If it's really just a one-off ship, I recommend you cut out the parts by hand. I'm experienced in making CAD models and have done a number of ship kits. But the local builders here can turn out a ship by hand in less than 1/2 the time it takes me to do a drawing. And the first time I did a kit it was probably 5 times the hours that it takes me today. If you like to do CAD work (I do) go ahead and try it out. I usually laser cut even ships I know will only be built once, because I like drawing better than sanding and I like the precision of the interlocking parts. Take a look at http://www.hnsa.org/resources/manuals-documents/booklets-of-general-plans-online/, they have a number of plans for US ships that are suitable to make CAD drawings from. If you would rather just cut the parts out by hand, I recommend a set of plans from Strike or BC since they will have the rib outlines and profiles you need for a combat ship.
This!. I figure for a simple kit I spend about (although I also get a kick out of hull modeling) somewhere between 20-40 hours modeling the hull / super, then about that much time doing rib layout, with some extra thrown in if I am really trying to integrate components well. Some times it goes much faster, sometimes a bit slower.
Hello. What other Ships do you have in CAD, I am looking at building 1/144 Scale USS Texas , Or any dreadnought ,, What did the Laser cutting cost Prices Thanks
If you're looking for a Texas, you might look into one of Mark's laser cut kits. I'm not sure if he still sells them or if you would have to get one from Strike.
On a I know about these other leads you gave me ,But I don't have much money, And have a band saw ,So far, I am going to make it from scratch , Blue prints are made already, ,But if I can find a cad blue prints , When I might take that to the laser cutters, Thanks
@ Time Lapse if you can find the plans (profiles, top shots) in pdf .. that can be put into auto cad, scaled, and traced to get the CAD layout that the laser cutter would run on. but the other part of that is to do it 'properly' it would have to be run through a 3d cad program to lay out all the additional ribs and layers (to get the way rcengr's look). being an islander with the knowledge(and the program) to the do that CAD from a pdf I'd be happy to assist... the problem is the ribbing and spacing I'm not to sure on rules wise if you wanted to make a full program file for laser cutting the whole hull. I should be playing with 3d printer by the end of the month so I'll finally be starting on my boat(s) here on the island too
