3D printing Interior of ball turret for B-17 G Fearless Fosdick...

[fubar57]

Great news so far

 

[Night Fighter Nut]

I have finally gone through the process of creating and printing a part for the turret. My first problem was to figure out what to make and what to leave alone. Since only half the ball turret will be visible and only that part that sticks out from the bottom of the aircraft, I decided to leave the mechanism between the gun alone since it was already present and I didn't want to reinvent the wheel so to speak. So what I will make is the internal ammo drum, the ejection chutes from the guns to the bottom of the turret, the gunner's seat, and the support system holding the ball since what the model company made looks awful.

So I started with the ammo drum. FreeCad allows you to put the image of what you are drawing onto the work space so you can trace it if you want to. I tried this first but the drawing was not head on, it was at an angle. Still I had the basic shape.

Then I took lots of measurements to determine what would both fit on top of the guns and fit inside the space I was given inside the ball turret. Once I had this figured out I then added constrictions to each line and curve. Until the 2d drawing is 100% constricted, It will move and can not be made into a 3d model.

From there I gave the part a measured depth and added some depression features. It ended up looking like this... Granted it's not perfect but it was a major step forward.

Once the part was completely defined, I had to save it as an STL file. This is done by highlighting every surface and I mean every visible surface and saving it while all surfaces are highlighted. As an STL file, I then transferred it to Chitubox slicer program and sliced it.

Finally I brought it into the printer program and loaded it for printing. It came out real nice.

What was even better was the fit was perfect!

I've already started on the ring portion. More to update as I figure this stuff out but hopefully it won't take too long.

Thanks for following and if anyone wants a copy of the STL files I've created let me know.

 

[Wurger]

 

[Crimea_River]

Nice work.

 

[fubar57]

Cool

 

[ARTESH]

not tried 3d printing yet! but working on this spear to make a 3d model! program I use for 3d Modelling is called "Blender".



it's part of my "fantasy world" project called "Hextria"

 

[T Bolt]

Very nice

 

[Gnomey]

Nicely done so far!

 

[Night Fighter Nut]

not tried 3d printing yet! but working on this spear to make a 3d model! program I use for 3d Modelling is called "Blender".

View attachment 630707

it's part of my "fantasy world" project called "Hextria"

I found blender a bit of a learning curve for me. Eventually I'll try to master blender but for now FreeCad is a little friendlier, especially with all the YouTube videos.

I now know enough in FreeCad to be dangerous...

Thanks guys for the kind reviews.

 

[Night Fighter Nut]

I did some work during the week on the turret ring. After a lot of measuring and using a contour gauge, I came up with some measurements for the ring. Then I studied some videos to figure out how to make it. Here is what I've been able to achieve thus far.

First I determined the bottom shape then extruded it for the first part of the ring.

Then created the center portion.

Finally added the top ring. Now currently working on the dome and gear part. Thanks for following.

 

[Gnomey]

Looks good so far!

 

[Night Fighter Nut]

Sorry for the delay. This part took awhile to figure out.

The next part is adding the supports and gear mechanisms.

 

[wingnutz]

cool thread indeed...much thanks for sharing...

 

[Wurger]

 

[Gnomey]

Nicely done so far!

 

[Night Fighter Nut]

Spent the weekend trying to figure out how to add the supports. The program wouldn't let me do it in one shot so I had to create a new plane for each support before It came up with what I wanted. Now to cut off the lower part under the dome.

Thanks for following.

 

[Gnomey]

Nicely done so far!

 

[Lucky13]

 

[Night Fighter Nut]

The weekend brought challenges with this program. I tried to add a ridge along the inner edge as I had seen in photos of the ring. For some reason I haven't figured out, the drawing and the part would rotate 90 degrees from each other and I would have to either start over again or draw from a different angle. In the end I just drew from a different angle, extruded it then cut it to size. It came out ok. Of course someone well practiced with this program would have done much better but I like how it has come out so far.

Thanks for following.

 

[Gnomey]

Good work so far!