Starship Modeler Discussion Forums

A cast cylinder of polyurethane resin. Smooth-on 300, I think. I have a bunch of old medicine containers and I pour resin in them. I have them in a number of sizes so I have a number of resin plugs to use as feedstock for projects. I haven't done anything with this since my last post as I've been bu...

Just as the title says anyone here with a vacuformer? Yep. Also have specified stuff for industrial vac forming. Specifically can I use foam (which I would think would melt) It rather depends upon what foam you are talking about, but if you mean expanded polystyrene foam, then no, it will melt and/...

Unfortunately the definition of "affordable" varies considerably from the world of personal stuff to the world of business. You can probably get the model you have laser pantographed for only a few thousand dollars, which is very, very affordable in the world of rapid prototyping. For my p...

So I'm going to try this technique called thermoforming. Unfortunately, the raised frames of the TIE fighter's windows aren't going to ever give you good results with thermoforming. The process simply won't handle the fact that the frame is higher than the window pane. You need a master that has a ...

To make a general "wash" of any colour, simply dilute it by a factor of 15-25 to 1 of thinner to paint. Use a reasonably broad brush & gently brush over the entire surface allowing the liquid to accumulate in the crevases & low spots. Don't overdo it. Pick a paint & thinner for...

Yeah, the Alumilite is probably going to make this really tricky. It just cooks off so darned fast. The longer pot life Smooth-on products, like the 320, have significantly longer pot life. I usually get 4-6 minutes out of the 320 and that's plenty of time to agitate the bubbles out of the mould. Th...

Dipping the parts in nearly boiling water also does the trick and, in my experience, nearly always the part comes back to the right shape without further intervention. If it still gives you trouble, though, yes, you can clamp, pressure, weigh it down onto a flat surface to get it flat once it's hot....

You're on the right track, but you also have to take absolute size into account. You'll probably need to add some interior gussets to help it stay the right shape. If the sides are 1/2" x 1", then .060" walls are proabbly OK. If the part is 2" x 4" then the walls should be s...

Well, the security manual isn't gonna do it. There is one grainy photo of the Cobra bay and no drawings.

Nothing useful there.

Paul

Absolutely. I _never_ decal without them. Never. Been using them for over 30 years.

Paul

It's readily available here in Canada. Find a Canadian on-line shop and order from them. It can even go by surface post then. We did have a similar issue here in Canada 15-20 years ago when label laws changed to demand French along with English on products. Just about everything model related disapp...

Do you all use Bruges and actually scrub the models or just let them soak? I had a model that I soaked and did a quick pass with a soft brush but paint wouldn't stick. I had to scrape the pains and scrub it down and it was still a bit hit or miss. I soak it in TSP solution and gently swab it with a...

Thanks Tank, your right. I think I'll hold off on the printer right now and use a service until the quality gets better for home printers. Given that we are talking accuracies under one thou and layer thicknesses in the 1-2 thou range, it is unlikely that home machines will approach this for quite ...

Personal 3D printers: (free or cheap) http://store.makerbot.com/ http://wiki.makerbot.com/how-to-print http://reprap.org/wiki/Main_Page Just remember, these two machines are really coarse and not terribly suitable for model parts except to make the basic gross shapes. You wan't get any appreciable ...

To be honest, I've never had to buy it. My company deals with a number of precision machine shops and many of them use various types of these materials. All I've had to do is to ask for their off cuts & I've gotten more than I'll use in a lifetime. You might want to try looking for precision mac...

The bell is about 1" across the base & about 1 1/4" long. I'm going to cast up a few as is as I kinda like the celan, "Merlin" look to them. I'll make others with the reinforcing ribs & such. I'm not trying to make anything specific at the moment, just palying with parts ...

Got a woodworking tool rest for my Taig the other day and finally got some lathe chisels to use with it. Making the curved shape of an engine bell with the normal machine tool controls of the Taig would heve been, frankly, impossible for me. With the chisels? About 20 minutes. Including hollowing it...

Below .002" layer thickness, the clean-up is limited to a light coating of Mr. Surface 500 or Future, lightly buffed to fill any residual jaggies. Only down below .001 can you really make master parts without any clean-up and even then, if the part is suppposed to be polished, like a canopy or ...

Just curious, what are the best/easiest/cheapest 3D modelling programs? I work on a PC so Mac stuff is out. Three very different questions. I'm an engineer, so I only know engineering CAD programs and not any of the 3D image programs. On that basis, I love (love) SolidWorks. It is quite easy to use...

Ahhh, you were talking about minimum thickness of a finished part! I was talking layer thickness. Sorry. Dependiong upon what you are trying to make and the material you are using, small deatail as thin as .010 are possible, but they can't be very big. And yes, 2/3 of a thou layer thickness is possi...

All the other places usually can only go down to 1.0mm thickness. 1 mm is .040"! I think you slipped a decimal place there. :) The crude professional machines can get down to .010" (.25 mm). The better machines (for more money) can get down to less than one thou (0.00066" is the best...

I think it produces parts with .2 mm thickness. I have to try to find that section again. The quality of the items in their photo gallery seemed good although I must admit the Tie interceptor has me a bit puzzeled as well. As DarethViper states, the layers are probably much thicker than .2mm (.008&...

As UMI suggested, tooling board (also called tooling foam) would be a great thing to use for CNC milling of prototype shapes. That is what it's for, after all. The lighter densitiy foams are really easy to machine, even on a very small mill, but will beed to have the open cells filled and fine detai...

If the description of the smaller unit is correct,i.e. that they match machine the head to the platen and that the head is titanium, then it should be a superior product. However, the head doesn't "look" titanium (acknowledging that photos can change the look of anyting), so I don't know i...

Paul, can you point me out to a good one. I have checked on eBay and there's quite a few to choose from... Micro Mark also have a few models: http://www.micromark.com/Optivisor-Binocular-Magnifier,6711.html http://www.micromark.com/All-Plastic-Binocular-Magnifer,6713.html http://www.micromark.com/O...

Optivisor; I have never considered those before. Interesting... My eyes are 'bleeding' while doing tiny stuff. Maybe this is the solution. After many, many years of modelling and, at 51, declining ability to focus close up, I got an Optivisor a year ago. O M G !!!! I can see stuff I haven't seen in...

And, being polyester resins, they are as stinky as h*ll. Do it outdoors or in the garage with the door open. Doing it inside will certainly result in consequences from anyone you live with plus the fumes are NOT good for you.

Once it's cured, it will be fine.

Paul

What file format do you have for the 3D model? If it's a STP (Step) file, then I can import it into Solidworks & slice it any way you want. I can also scale it to anything you want as well. Easy as pie. I can also import a number of other file formats, but they have to be vector files and not re...

I like a quick dunk in water with TSP. That'll clean just about anything. It's harsh on your hands, though. Wear rubber cloves.

If the model is to large to dunk, then I brush the watery mix on with a really soft brush and then rinse.

Paul

Yeah, for ghod's sake, don't use any of the agressive or "hot" solvents on styrene. You'll end up with nothing but a mess of melted styrene plus a bunch of dead brain cells. Styrene parts, properly bonded, are generally a pain to get apart. Expect to use force and expect for some seams to ...