High detail, low cost hulls

[Kim Sleep]

In that particular case, with a Revell production model, you can get the replacement part thru Revell, so you really don't have to plop down all the money for the scanner, set up reproduction process and make one part. .

I was on the phone with Revell earlier this year, and they no longer keep replacement parts. If you want a Revell part, you have to fabricate it, or buy another kit.

[george]

I`ve read his post on RCG and I think it "smells" like a person who disappeared with customers money for submarines that they never got. Who is going to work hard to scratch build a hull, common or new to the market then scan it so someone can print it out on a 3D printer and go from there. What about the initial developer and his time and research and material. I see intellectual theft there from my point of view and kinda dumb to even ask about doing it also.
George

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

NO?????.........I expected A four page rage……. seems those medicines are capable of surprising anything these days.

Indeed, I had prepared a plasma temperature, hair-on-fire screed. But, Ellie saw the draft and put the kabash on sending it out. So, the 'no' was all she would let be blast down the wires.

M

[bwi 971]

NO!............

NO?????.........I expected A four page rage……. seems those medicines are capable of surprising anything these days.

[Von Hilde]

Aha! So even you yourself admit to making copies.

Of course, out of production, parts antique models and copy's of a copy,, not to mention the counterfit 20s I am forced to run off my laser scanner on to the bleached out one dollar papers, to pay for this expensive hobby, Making copy's of firearms from bootleg parts is where I make the grocery money. I even copy mymom's recipe for spaghetti sauce. I am a Federally licensed pirate, Florida Keys Wreckers society. It's all good as far as we're concerned, we don't belong to the USA. Conch Republic est. 1982 we seceded from the state of Florida and the United States.

[redboat219]

In that particular case, with a Revell production model, you can get the replacement part thru Revell, so you really don't have to plop down all the money for the scanner, set up reproduction process and make one part. If it's a small company that you want to copy, it just ain't right. Scratch build a rudder takes about 5 min. I had a problem loosing hatches. So I took one resin hatch and stuck it into a sculpy clay block and made a mold and baked it. Now I just take a flat piece of clay and use the mold to cookie cut as many as I need. BTW the original resin hatch came from leftovers of a combat kit, so if you know their story, it's all good as far as I'm concerned.

Aha! So even you yourself admit to making copies.

[Von Hilde]

All other things aside, 3D printing is not a cheap way of producing quality hulls anyway. To get close to the detail and resolution of a decent GRP or injection moulded hull, you would need to use high end machines like Objet, and they don't come cheap.

A basic costing for say a small hull of about 20" with a 1/8" wall thickness at Shapeways comes to over a $1000. You can buy an injection moulded plastic kit for less than a tenth of that. For even less you can get a bit of plastic pipe, make stern and bow pieces using traditional bread and butter construction techniques, and a sail from plastic sheet.

3D printing is a fantastic tool, but this notion that it's a cheap way of making things for the man in the street is pure fantasy at the moment. A few years time it won't be, the processes are getting faster and faster, so high definition quality prints for a few pence per cm3 is not that far away, but we're not there yet.

Thats what I'm talking about, cost effective. It's like counter fitting $100 bills that cost 500 each to print.

[Von Hilde]

In that particular case, with a Revell production model, you can get the replacement part thru Revell, so you really don't have to plop down all the money for the scanner, set up reproduction process and make one part. If it's a small company that you want to copy, it just ain't right. Scratch build a rudder takes about 5 min. I had a problem loosing hatches. So I took one resin hatch and stuck it into a sculpy clay block and made a mold and baked it. Now I just take a flat piece of clay and use the mold to cookie cut as many as I need. BTW the original resin hatch came from leftovers of a combat kit, so if you know their story, it's all good as far as I'm concerned.

[redboat219]

Even if for personal use?

So you're saying if I ordered a Revell Type VII and one of the rudder piece got damaged in transit and I happen to have a scanner and 3D printer or even some RTV and casting resin I can't copy the other rudder piece or risk legal action from Revell.

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

I think scanning and 3D printing would be ok if you need to reproduce a missing part like a dive plane or parts of the conning tower but not the whole sub.

NO!............

[redboat219]

I think scanning and 3D printing would be ok if you need to reproduce a missing part like a dive plane or parts of the conning tower but not the whole sub.

[trout]

Bob, you are right, it is stealing. While the enthusiasm for getting things available to 3D print, some have lost sight of those that took the time to make that hull and want to earn some income from their work. The long term effect is the artist (craftsman) will stop making fine quality hulls to sell. I am all for someone using a CAD program to build a sub and they put their own work up, I am not up for copying someone else's work and distributing it for free.

[Subculture]

All other things aside, 3D printing is not a cheap way of producing quality hulls anyway. To get close to the detail and resolution of a decent GRP or injection moulded hull, you would need to use high end machines like Objet, and they don't come cheap.

A basic costing for say a small hull of about 20" with a 1/8" wall thickness at Shapeways comes to over a $1000. You can buy an injection moulded plastic kit for less than a tenth of that. For even less you can get a bit of plastic pipe, make stern and bow pieces using traditional bread and butter construction techniques, and a sail from plastic sheet.

3D printing is a fantastic tool, but this notion that it's a cheap way of making things for the man in the street is pure fantasy at the moment. A few years time it won't be, the processes are getting faster and faster, so high definition quality prints for a few pence per cm3 is not that far away, but we're not there yet.

[Von Hilde]

Scratchbuilding will free your soul, one off stuff that you make yourself, rather than buy somebody's copy of someone else's idea. But that's just me.

[He Who Shall Not Be Named]

Well. What can I say? Other than ... thank you, sir!

Well said.

David