Just a quick update here guys, as I continue to finish off the printing of the cargo pods. I'll have eight of them done when the ones cooking right now are done, leaving me with three more to print...I have three days off this week, so I should easily be able to finish up with the parts that I have left to print.
I've got a plan of attack for the process of putting the model together. I'll be painting the underside of the pods with a brush, and probably the "nuts" that hold those pods together, simply because they aren't going to really be able to be seen when viewing the model, and it will make it easier for me to keep the parts that will end up having glue on them nice and clean so the glue sticks well. Then I'll be airbrushing all of the parts prior to assembly. The one thing I'm not really sure on right now is the rod itself...I'm not sure if I should attempt to paint it BEFORE sliding pieces onto it, or if I should wait and paint it AFTER parts are slid onto it. I'm leaning towards trying to figure out a good way to do it after, so that I don't end up trying to put any epoxy/glue on the parts of the rod that are painted. I actually found my one assembled cargo pod section, but it's been pretty banged up in it's time with the cats...so I'll just be using that for some measurements and such. I might, however, go at it with the airbrush just to see how well I can paint a set of them that's already assembled...if I can actually paint it while they're assembled, I can probably just assemble them all and paint them that way...but we'll see. Another option is to basically glue ONE of the cargo pods to the three "nuts," then slide that onto the rod...this would allow me to actually airbrush the rod while pieces are assembled on it, then glue the OTHER cargo pods to the nuts AFTER the rod and such are already assembled.
I don't think I'll have enough paint to do the whole thing right now...I'll order a couple more bottles, but seeing as I've never really used an airbrush I wanted to start really lightly.
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joberg, I remember you said that I'd want to paint the ship gray for it to be film accurate...I'm assuming it's a very light gray?? I have a light gray Tamiya color and a white Tamiya color, and I was planning on just kind of mixing them to get a very light gray that I would hope would be suitable for the finish.
Anyway...on to a few pictures...
This was my first ever attempt at Kneadatite, aka Green Stuff. It's not as bad as it looks...the one side was maybe like .5mm, and the other side is like 1mm or so. For some reason the picture makes it look like the gaps were bigger than they are. Along the rear, there's only the Green Stuff on the one side because elsewhere back there the epoxy actually did a good job of sealing the pieces all the way to the edge.
This is the best print I've been able to get of the dish assembly. I'm not 100% happy with it, but once I get some paint on it I'll be able to tell for sure if it's a part I'm going to use or not. The back of it is pretty solid, but the front side isn't that great. There is a piece that goes in the center of the main dish, but I broke it off while trying to sand the filler out. I have it, so I can glue it back into place no problem. The part from Shapeways hasn't printed yet...but they also haven't contacted me to let me know that they can NOT print it, so I figure it's just in the queue to be printed.
Do you guys think those dishes look bad? Or am I just being overly critical and trying to be too perfect on something that, due to it's nature, won't really ever be perfect? Sure, in the SLS world of Shapeways, everything comes out great...but in the world of FFF printers like mine, lines and marks are just part of the deal.
Finally, here are my cargo pods. There are seven sets here. I have a good reference image to tell me which ones need to be where when I actually go to assemble the full model, so they should end up being fairly screen accurate.
I will say one thing about this build...I've learned a lot about printing. I've got hundreds of hours of prints on this printer, but some of these pieces have taught me some new things. For instance, I'd never really seen a purpose to the "brim" feature that puts a flat single layer of filament around a part...until doing these cargo pods. The brim feature keeps them flat with basically no warping at all...which makes a TON of difference when assembling them. This is something that I can use to go back and reprint a few things that I've printed in the past that I just kind of lived with the warping...for instance I've got this cool robot retro sci-fi clock that I printed, and his arms always had some warping so they never really looked as good as I had hoped they would...but now that I know about the brim and what it does, I can print those arms with brims around them and have them come out nice and flat.
I've also learned that in the next six months or so I WILL be upgrading to something with a heated bed...and if I can afford it, something that will do support printing from PLA glue, so that I can just wash a part in water to get rid of the supports. I will for sure be keeping this printer around, as it's great for lots of things, and with a model like this I could get a LOT more done if I printed pieces on two printers at once. I would also like something with a larger build volume...it possible, based on what I end up with, I may revisit this model at 150% scale to get it even bigger than it is...which would be awesome. One guy that finished one and posted it on the 'verse built one at 200% scale, so it's like 8 feet long...it's great!!!!
Anyway, that's all for now. I'm thinking by early Sunday morning I'll have all of my cargo pods printed...then just 30 of the 3x3 nuts, three of the 4x3 nuts, and the two final parts of the dish assembly setup and I'll be done printing. Those 33 nuts should go pretty quick...I can do 3 of them in like 15 minutes...so I'll just load up 9 or 12 of them at a time and get it done in just a few goes.
As a side note, I've been looking for things I'll move to next. I found a cool sentry gun from the movie "Oblivion," the flying drone sphere things, and I think I'd like to give that a go. Should be pretty slick.