Recent content by Builder 2010

Ryan Sizmanski wondered why the rudder was so fabricated. i suggested that it was to reduce weight. While this seems to be a non-issue with somthing that already weighed 47,000t empty, it really is a concern. Every ton of extra weight means less armor and less magazine stores. It's already...

All the changes to the rudder hub are done and both halves are downloaded to the printer. It was worse thinking about it than doing it. Today I did all the design and exporting of the rudder's framing. Went smoother than expected. Split the construction into two parts to fit on the printer. The...

Actually, if you buy Tamiya Airbrush Cleaner is the exact same chemical composition as their normal liquid cement at a fraction of the cost. $6.00 for 40ml (Cement), $11.00 for 25oml (Airbrush Cleaner). 8X more for 2X the price. Like I said, it's a better way to buy Tamiya white label cement.

Today was a mixed bag. The rudder forging did print well and required very litte post-print work to make it work. I made some steel dowel pins, and, using the drain holes on the joint surfaces, was able to nicely mate the two halves. Again, I used Bondic to close the drains on the outer...

The wear surfaces are metal on metal. Only those over-large openings on the cross heads are resin and they're not really in contact. I think the lube I used is also good on nylon gears as it's designed for model train drives. The parts just finished printing. The holes are drains to flush out...

It's been 14 days since I started designing the rudder bearing for 3D printing. As of this morning I was getting ready to throw in the towel for the whole project. Between the binding of the ram mechanism and my seeming inability to design the bearing, the whole project was going nowhere fast...

Milestone day: got the ram system assembled. Leaving off the brass bushings on the crosshead slides did provide enough slack so the rams slide. That said, one of them is still binding a bit mid-travel. If I can exercise it and add some lube I can still go with Plan A (animated versio). If I...

I have been going slowly crazy attempting to put a skin on the Rudder Forging sent to me by John Miano. It's a AutoCad version file that import as a wire frame. I split it in half to make it "easier" to add the skin to it. Those quotes are intentional. There is a tool, Sandbox, in SketchUp...

Thank you! The upper part printed well except for the welding flanges. I going to remove the bad ones and reprint just the flanges and glue them on. There was no errant resin stuck to the barrier film. The leading edge just finished printing and is perfect. I didn't realize that the curved...

The lower rudder hub printed beautifully. The only thing that didn't were most of the plugs that are created when you "drill" drainage holes in hollow objects. The plugs are tapered so they can be pressed in. With a little sanding, the holes disappear. All of them save one ended up stuck to the...

I replaced the 12k Mono LCD on Thursday. Elegoo has a method on video that has you literally disassembling the entire chassis to get to the underside fo the LCD and then popping it out. It's held in place by strong double sided adhesive strips. Then on FaceBook I found a simpler method where you...

The previous post was Friday's. Today i cut the four cross head guides after changing the abrasive cutoff wheel on my MicroLux Mini-Cutoff Saw. MicroMark sells this, but the unit and all the wheels were out of stock. I found many on Amazon. They arrived yesterday so I was able to cut the parts...

All of the upper motion parts machining is done. I'm now determining the assembly/paint processes to do it most effectively and efficiently. After measuring the proper length of the crosshead pins, I cut off the excess with a cutoff tool in the lathe. My MicroLux Mini Cutoff Saw needs an...

Thanks! That's kinda why I like this kind of modeling too. It lets me pull out all the stops. Due to waiting for our HVAC tech to arrive, got very little accomplished today. Whenever you go on a trip, when you return something's not working. This time it was the 2nd story HVAC unit. It's quite...

I seem to have missed posting just before I went on the trip. Here it is now. It was an important one, so I would be sad if you missed it. Today saw more successes. The scheme to create realistic and robust ram rods was flawless. The groove to receive the 1/16" reinforcing brass rod was sized...