1/700 & 1/350 scale BH Cygnus builds

PrimitiveDave

Active Member
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...
 
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.
 
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...
 
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.
 
Hoo, just got my bits, as promised. Top of the Power Centre tank and the main body of same. More bits are pending. There are some visible grow lines and it will benefit from light sanding but it's pretty decent as-is. Pics soon. STOKED.
 
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These are the botched, overscale versions, Dave, so they're actually bigger than they should be. I finally fixed the bug that was preventing my "integrated" top and drum from working properly, so the next version will be 13% smaller and a single part where this is two.

Even given that, it is alarmingly huge. :lol Right now I am struggling to get my outboard module below the filesize limit. Almost there, it's ready to go other than that, a bit frustrating. I've included a lot of extra detail; stuff which was on the drawings but which Disney cheated via silkscreening or paint. I might have to de-include some of that. :(

Don't talk daft! :) Full credit to you, if it wasn't for your project I'd almost certainly never have dared to try this. Wouldn't have believed the frameworks could possibly work. As always, I can't wait to see your next set of pieces!
 
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Did it! Finally. Right, Shapeways...let's see you print THIS, lol.

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

1-700-1-350-scale-bh-cygnus-v4-0026.jpg-92529d1335619735
 
Wow, I think I broke Shapeways. :lol 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?
 
WoW, thats friggin' awesome! I've always wanted to see someone do the Cygnus proper.

How has your experience with shapeways been? Based on what I've seen them produce for you, I'm thinking about having then prototype some things for me.
 
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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.
 

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