[Viper1840]

Those F-14D upgrades look great! Are those FDM printed? Have you tried them in resin? (If not, would you want to? I could give them a test print in resin for you). Awesome pieces to see on your Skystriker, and cool upgrades to your upgrades by Highlander!

[Zap Rowsdower]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Viper1840

Those F-14D upgrades look great! Are those FDM printed? Have you tried them in resin? (If not, would you want to? I could give them a test print in resin for you). Awesome pieces to see on your Skystriker, and cool upgrades to your upgrades by Highlander!

Thanks! I haven't heard from Highlander about his F14 builds since that first set of photos. Hopefully he'll stop by with some more shots. He really made those ejector seats pop and I'd love to see what he has done with the rest of his upgrade parts. He's upgrading multiple planes so there should be plenty of sights to drool over.

Yeah, those are all FDM prints with a 0.4 nozzle running on an Ender 3 Pro (stock setup except for a few filament guide pieces I bolted on).

I don't own a resin printer and I haven't had any of my parts resin-printed yet. Thank you for the offer, but I'm unbelievably protective of my model files so unless I buy a resin printer one day or unless I crowdfund 3d model releases or something like that then the world will never know what beauty could come from a resin print of these models.

If a ridiculously safe resin hits the market at a price I can afford I'll be resin printing like a madman. For now, it's just not worth the health risks to my family and me for me to keep and operate one at home.

[Viper1840]

Haha...the world may never know! I fully support the protect⁴ion of what you make, it's all awesome. I didn't see them on your shapeways, that's why I asked about them in resin. Those results are awesome with the .4 nozzle. From what I've read the Enders are pretty good right out of the box, especially once you dial in temperature for your filament. Love all the stuff you create!

[Zap Rowsdower]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Viper1840

Haha...the world may never know! I fully support the protect⁴ion of what you make, it's all awesome. I didn't see them on your shapeways, that's why I asked about them in resin. Those results are awesome with the .4 nozzle. From what I've read the Enders are pretty good right out of the box, especially once you dial in temperature for your filament. Love all the stuff you create!

Not to get into the sour grapes too much, but I don't really put new items up on Shapeways anymore if they need to be fit-tested for compatibility or if they have moving parts. Running test prints there has just become too expensive to be worth it. Between that and how expensive moderately-sized items are to get printed, most of my stuff won't ever end up listed there.

Yeah, my Ender has been very easy to work with and in my case, the dimensional accuracy was pretty darn good right from the start. I never have bothered to calibrate anything on the printer (x/y/z steppers, extruder stepper...nothing). I have been spoiled.

In terms of operation wear and tear, I have been through at least a handful of nozzles, replaced the silicone boot on the hotend at least twice, replaced the hotend cooling fan twice, replaced the flexible print surface three or four times, and replaced the PTFE tubing maybe a half-dozen times. But those parts are all considered more or less "consumables" except for the cooling fan. No major components have failed yet in two-plus years of pretty regular use.

My original plastic extruder assembly is finally starting to crack apart, so I will be swapping in the aluminum upgrade replacement I bought two years ago in anticipation of this eventuality. My rollers could probably use re-tightening (but they don't have any flat spots). Other than that? Smooth sailing on this machine and pretty decent results.

[Zap Rowsdower]

I'm finally forcing myself to start modeling the lower shell of the VAMP/Stinger. It's really hard to measure inside the seating area so I have been avoiding this step for a looong time. Minor progress today:

[Zap Rowsdower]

More progress on the revised bottom shell, but it's slow-going:

[CaliViper]

Before you get too far I think a guy in the GIJOe 3D printing group is selling vamp models. I've seen quite a few prints including some for 6 inch

This is the guy I think:

https://www.etsy.com/ca/shop/Jetfire...c616h-GE-yV4Yw

[Zap Rowsdower]

Quote:

Originally Posted by CaliViper

Before you get too far I think a guy in the GIJOe 3D printing group is selling vamp models. I've seen quite a few prints including some for 6 inch

This is the guy I think:

https://www.etsy.com/ca/shop/Jetfire...c616h-GE-yV4Yw

Yeah, I've seen that (on eBay, I think). I don't mean this to be rude or anything but the best way I can describe what I'm seeing there with his Vamp/Stinger stuff is to say it's a "rough sketch" basically and it's not compatible with the original vehicle as far as I have seen. The angles and proportions aren't right, but it's still recognizably a Vamp/Stinger. It's fine for what it is and for 1:12 guys it's a fair option to get a passable Vamp or Stinger on the shelf but it's not what I'm after with my models. I'm modeling for full compatibility with the vintage parts and for true reproduction/replacement appearance (or as close as I can manage). This guy's stuff is designed more with ease of printing in mind which is probably what his customers value more anyway. It makes sense. I'm not trashing him, it's just not the same as what I prioritize.

If I reach my goal with this I'll be able to swap any of my parts in for the original (and vice versa) and have the build still work. Up-scaling or down-scaling from there will be possible as well but my first purpose is to catalog the vehicle parts (completely, on this vehicle, since it's small enough to fit on a print bed). By the time I'm finished - if I have done my job correctly - I should be able to print an entire vintage-accurate and vintage-compatible Vamp/Stinger from scratch.

[CaliViper]

ah I see, just wanted to make sure you weren't spending a lot of time on something that may have been already done