Home 3D Printer Project: 1/32 V-1

[aae83]

Found this thread the other day on LSP: a guy bought a 3D printer and is making a 1/32 V-1 kit as a learning experience. He plans to make the basic parts via the printer, scratch-build the details and produce a resin kit from the final master. Thought people on this forum might enjoy following it.

http://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index ... 39444&st=0

Cheers!
aae

[plasticgeneral]

Congratulations, you beat me to it! I have been meeting with people in this industry for a few months now.
A good experiment would be, seeing if you can successfully up-scale a 1\35 tank or turret to 1\32 or a cool 1\72 figure to 1\32. The possibilities could be cataclysmic!!!

The PLASTIC GENERAL

[plasticgeneral]

Well, have you tried it yet. Excited to see.

[aae83]

Congratulations, you beat me to it! I have been meeting with people in this industry for a few months now.
A good experiment would be, seeing if you can successfully up-scale a 1\35 tank or turret to 1\32 or a cool 1\72 figure to 1\32. The possibilities could be cataclysmic!!!

The PLASTIC GENERAL

Am not sure what up-scaling process you're proposing, PG. The guy in the original posting who's using his home 3D printer is working from scale drawings to produce his kit.

When folks create a custom model in these larger scales, they work from drawings and photos but also review existing kits for details and dimensions where drawings don't clearly show them. That's different than taking a smaller scale model, somehow scanning the geometry into a digital model, re-scaling the geometry and outputting something larger.

I have doubts as to how well that process would work: it wouldn't add the detail you'd expect to see in the larger scale. Even if you were able to capture the small geometry perfectly, the limitations in the smaller model would likely look clunky in a larger scale. You can't automatically add features and detail where they don't exist. Enlarge a photo of a 1/72 figure and compare it to one designed at 1/35 and you'll see the difference.

There's also a lot more effort required to produce a digital model than just capturing the outer shape: you also have to model the inner surfaces and interfaces for parts to join. None of those aspects (detail, thicknesses and joints) scale well.

What I found interesting (enough to share here) was this guy digitally modeling and printing the parts for his 1/32 kit at *home* (as gburch on this forum is also doing with his 1/18 V2 and Aichi Val kits). This kit is a smaller scale, and he's using the printer to produce a basic shape to which he will manually add scratch-built details, before casting copies to sell.

If you're working on an up-scaling process, as you say, it would be interesting to see your progress, and you're invited to share. You might want to start a new thread for it to make it easier for people to find.

Cheers!