1/700 & 1/350 scale BH Cygnus builds

Hi! My name is Dave -- I'm still kind of new around here.

I began discussing this topic on a thread in the Studio Scale forum. I had made some pieces for a model of the Cygnus from "The Black Hole" through a rapid-prototyping website called Shapeways. One of the other members offered me very generous assistance with reference materials, etc. The upshot is we both now plan to build our own models utilizing this technology, he in 1/350 and I in 1/700 scale. We agreed we should start a separate thread in this forum as we continue with our builds.

I have some pictures of my first new pieces that I'd like to share. My first set were lacking detail and not proportionally correct. These are much better! Please let me know what you think...

Here's the original thread, in case you'd like to check out the background:

http://www.therpf.com/f11/1-700-1-35...3/#post2224285

Really great work on the pieces for this Cygnus replica. I ended up having to cut all the girders by hand. I look forward to seeing some more of your work on this project.

I think you and Martyn are gonna set a new benchmark with these builds.

Dave, you've again knocked it out of the park, man!

Simon - gah, Dave will, but me, I'm only gonna get there if I can start getting my sums correct! Got everything wrong on what I uploaded to Shapeways; 13% oversized somehow. Rebuilding the power centre module now. Arrrgh, wotta WOFTAM.

Looks like I'm recovering faster than I feared though; I'm going to live with the smaller size for the main girders as they're still well above the minimum printable size. Focusing on just the end faces and replacing the X-bracing meant I got my rebuild about 50% done last night, hope to finish up that section tonight and upload tomorrow, so the delay shouldn't be too bad.

Once that's all done I'll take an evening to review my assets and see what else I can send you in good conscience.

Welp, spent the weekend trying to recover from that mistake. Here's the current Power Centre module CG, hope to have a hardcopy to show soon...

Thanks for the compliments everyone!

Martyn, those renders will come in handy -- my goal for this week is to get the power center module done.

New parts arrived -- here are the antennas and antenna mast bases. Let me know what you think...

Daaaaaaaaaaamn, dude. You really nailed those!

Those parts look great Dave. Looking forward to both builds. This is going to be a first me thinks as far as accurate Cygnus models. There are so many new fresh subjects out there like Jasons Blimp etc. Tiz a good year for modeling.

Yerright, Simon. I can't believe the results Dave is getting. I'm blown away the tech has come this far. Can't wait to see what my parts look like, first test bits supposed to be arriving tomorrow.

I've rejigged my outboard module to 1/350 with printable materials, so that's next up for test printing. Looks like this in rendered form. Still need to give it a lower deck, landing gear and a control module.

Just recorded this film in HD and am watching now. What fun to see this thread up!! AMAZING work!!

Wow Martyn! Those are cool! And huge! I feel humbled. ;-)

I'll have some more parts to show in a few days...

Did it! Finally. Right, Shapeways...let's see you print THIS, lol.

I'm not really very optimistic. Fingers crossed!!

Wow, I think I broke Shapeways. No rejection email yet, and they've posted two smaller models I sent later, but this one still hasn't made it through the autochecking.

More than three hours now...any experienced Shapeways users on here, would that mean likely rejection?

If anyone can do it Martyn... You can......break shapeway's I mean.

Meh. New power module frame got passed, but the big module was knocked back. Filesize was okay but it was at 1.3 million polys. I reduced it to 980K but have now struck non-manifold issues.

Orbital Drydock, Dave will have more to say than me I am sure, but so far so good. They are not cheap but their service is great - IF they can print your model. Getting rid of errors and issues requires some farting about at your end.

Great work Martyn! Cant wait to see the outboard modules at twice the size of mine!

^orbital dry dock: I've generally had very good service from Shapeways. There have been a few glitches. Some have been caused by problems on my end, a couple on theirs. They have been very helpful with the main problem on their end and helped me find a way around it. The others were basically times when I wasn't notified that orders had been shipped or similar. I've been really happy with the pieces I've received. There are limitations to the process, but if you read the information they have posted on the website, you can get a realistic idea of what to expect.

I realized that l should be more clear. The main problem I had was that sometimes they would reject certain obj files I tried to upload, no matter what I did. Customer service told me it was a bug in their system, and converted the file to stl for me. I've output subsequent parts in stl format and so far they have all worked fine.

Simon, I will find a way!

Dave, me too, I badly want to hold one of these suckers up to a light and see how it looks.

.stl files seem to work well. The only problems I have had so far have been sheer size (difficult), manifold issues and carelessness. When I get it right they upload nicely.

BTW, I hope posting so many renders isn't a problem? I'm finding this CG-to-reality transition really fascinating - BTW I'd be really interested to see your renders hint hint.

Just ordered a bunch of stuff. I shouldn't have included this one, it's a proto/test mule only, not really ready for print...couldn't resist.

Dave, a bit of transport pipe ref for ya.

Ha! I'm served for crowing about that main module. I just realized there's an entire category of bracing framing I left out.

We're gonna need to go to decals.

Okay Martyn -- you asked! Here are some screen caps of the center top framework I'm working on now. There are main sections and connector sections. The tubes on the main section will lock over the pegs on the connector section. The meshes look kind of sloppy, because I'm building for rapid prototyping, not for render. Also, they look large in the pictures, but the entire structure is less than 5 inches wide and just over 4 inches long. If anyone has any critiques, please feel free. I plan to order the pieces on Friday.

Nice, Dave, thanks! I have a fraction of that work done myself. I will actually end up with a part that looks very similar to yours, I think. For now I have left the uprights on the outer sections as freestanding pillars because the horizontals for those are a part of the power centre module framing. I should probably address that. Nobody will spot a tiny bit of doubled framing at these sizes. Anyway, no critiques, looks great to me.