3D test print.......1964 Pontiac Banshee (Pic Heavy)

[MrObsessive]

I was surfing the 'net, and on Cults3D I came across a file for a 1964 Pontiac Banshee Coupe show car which has never been done as a kit. It looked interesting, but I could tell by the file that it was originally created to be used for an FDM printer as opposed to the SLA one that I have. It was also to be printed as a slot car.......not something I wanted as that would be a very thick body, and I wanted something I could eventually detail out with full interior, chassis and engine detail.

I ran the file through Blender and originally I edited the file which got rid of all the underside mesh which made the insides so thick. While I was at it, I opened up the windows on the body and tried to thicken up the walls as they would be way too thin left alone.

Well, the first time it printed, it was coming out rough with about 20% into the run, so I figured there was some sort of issue with the windows being opened up, as the software couldn't "see" where to put the supports and would not print that section. I stopped the printing at that point and went back to the drawing board. I redid the file with the windows remaining closed, put the body on a 45 degree angle, and the print took about 16 hours to finish. Here are some pics of how it turned out, including how the file looked when I originally had it in Blender.

The original file as it came from Cults3D............

After the mesh was gotten rid of in the undersides of the body.....

Then I had to go back and redo the file with the windows remaining closed...........

The body in the slicer with the dimensions scaled out...............

And now the results............

I'm going to beef up the A pillars with some square rod superglued in to reinforce them before I try to open up the windshield, as they are they are very thin and subject to break while I open things up. If I print this body again, I'll add more mesh to the A pillars to add more thickness so this won't be an issue. I'd also need to raise the body a bit higher in the slicer as I lost part of the back end panel as it was too low. That would have put the body out of bounds and not printed well, so a larger printer is in the works hopefully before long.

As far as building this, I'd like to use a modified C2 Corvette chassis as that might have been what GM planned had they decided to put this into production, but with a solid axle. Somewhere in my stash I have an OHC Pontiac straight six I could repop to use as that's what the 1:1 had.

I may get brave and do another body, hack the roof off and do the convertible version of this car. That's the original file I was looking for, but only saw this one.

Edited May 2, 2022 by MrObsessive

[Smoke Wagon]

Great idea. Are you planning on painting it silver with redline tires like the 1:1? 

[MrObsessive]

1 hour ago, Smoke Wagon said:

Great idea. Are you planning on painting it silver with redline tires like the 1:1? 

Redline tires yes, but probably another color besides silver. This may be a "what if" more of a car as the original had the entire roof and rear section tilt upwards. I don't care for that as that would be woefully impractical for every day use if that was ever mass produced. More on the order of filling the shut lines in solid, and go with a "trunkless coupe" like the 'Vettes of the day.

Edited May 2, 2022 by MrObsessive

[Ace-Garageguy]

Very impressive. Just a few years back people were saying how great it would be when this tech became widely available for "reasonable" money, and here you are proving that the future is here for those who want to go for it.

As with Messrs. Elgin and Cunningham in my neck of the woods, your proven old-school skills and meticulous craftsmanship, combined with what's now possible, should inspire anyone who sees this.  

 

[Chariots of Fire]

Hi, Bill.  What is your opinion of the quality of printing on the finished body?  How close to some of the better plastic kits is it?  Just curious with more and more 3D printing coming into the modeling world.

 

[goldfinger]

This is awesome. When do we get to the point where we can take our scanner out to the carshow, scan our favorite car, and print it off? I see this is really the future of model building, or at least a viable part of it!

[peteski]

4 hours ago, goldfinger said:

This is awesome. When do we get to the point where we can take our scanner out to the carshow, scan our favorite car, and print it off? I see this is really the future of model building, or at least a viable part of it!

Not quite that simple.  You still need to be very good with CAD in order to clean up and modify the scan (including hollowing out the body).  Some details and features of 1:1 car also don't scale well.  There is quite a bit of skilled-human-performed CAD work involved to make usable 1:24 version of a scanned 1:1 car body.  And this does not even cover many other parts needed for a model kit.  Things like interior, wheels, drive train would all have to be dealt with.

Here is a bit of a trivia.  Early 3D printers were nicknamed "Santa Claus Machines", since they created things someone wanted.

Edited May 18, 2022 by peteski

[CabDriver]

That said…the current iPhones have 3D scanning capability, so whilst it would be a challenge to scan a real vehicle and quickly make something usable, a simple part is (in principle) something you can do right now.

Getting set to upgrade my cellphone here shortly so I can experiment - I have some rare kit parts that I want to try and scan and duplicate, see how the process works.

I can see small 3D scanners being the next avenue that the makers of the printers start to perfect, and then things get REALLY interesting

[peteski]

13 minutes ago, CabDriver said:

That said…the current iPhones have 3D scanning capability, so whilst it would be a challenge to scan a real vehicle and quickly make something usable, a simple part is (in principle) something you can do right now.

Getting set to upgrade my cellphone here shortly so I can experiment - I have some rare kit parts that I want to try and scan and duplicate, see how the process works.

I can see small 3D scanners being the next avenue that the makers of the printers start to perfect, and then things get REALLY interesting

Give it a try and report your results.  I suspect you will be surprised how inaccurate the scans are.  Scanners are fairly good for organic shapes, but most mechanical shapes with flat surfaces and sharp edges will not scan well.  A lot of manual cleanup will still have to take place.  I suppose this is also dependent on what  quality and fidelity you are looking for in the scanned part.  Is "close enough" (rough shape) good enough, or are you looking for a fairly exact reproduction.

[CabDriver]

5 minutes ago, peteski said:

Give it a try and report your results.  I suspect you will be surprised how inaccurate the scans are.  Scanners are fairly good for organic shapes, but most mechanical shapes with flat surfaces and sharp edges will not scan well.  A lot of manual cleanup will still have to take place.  I suppose this is also dependent on what  quality and fidelity you are looking for in the scanned part.  Is "close enough" (rough shape) good enough, or are you looking for a fairly exact reproduction.

I think you’re probably right - but I saw some good results achieved when I was researching too, so I’m interested to try it and see!  

Even actual stand-alone 3D scanners are nowhere close to being ‘scan-it-and-print’ quite yet, but even something USABLE would be exciting at this stage.  It’s VERY early days though in the life of this technology (at least, for us do-it-home-cheaply users)

[peteski]

3 minutes ago, CabDriver said:

I think you’re probably right - but I saw some good results achieved when I was researching too, so I’m interested to try it and see!  

Even actual stand-alone 3D scanners are nowhere close to being ‘scan-it-and-print’ quite yet, but even something USABLE would be exciting at this stage.  It’s VERY early days though in the life of this technology (at least, for us do-it-home-cheaply users)

It depends on the specific item you are scanning, but in many cases the time required to clean up the scan to make it print-ready would be more than what it would take to draw the part from scratch (using 2D photos or drawings for reference).  Again, it is all about what fidelity is acceptable to you.

[MeatMan]

Nice print!

[W Humble]

When PMD didn't produce this car, they lost my business to Datsun, as I bought a new '70 240Z in 7-'70. 

I was still in The Green Machine (US ARMY) at Ft. Sam Houston TX, and paid $3,661 for a cash sale.  Later restored it, and later yet sold it back to NISSAN USA.  I wrote an article for Z-Car Magazine, when I was restoration editor (since out of print) comparing the two cars.  I would love to build a kit of one.  Looked a bit too 'Stingray' but still very nice!  Wick

[Kenmojr]

Cool thread. I've used my Nikon D7000 and a piece of photogrammetry software "3DF Zephyr" to scan in a few of my diecast car models. Because of their shinny surfaces, cars are very difficult to convert to a 3D mesh. And the resulting 3D mesh is very rough and requires a lot of clean up or even may need to be retopologyzed.

[Monty]

On 8/11/2022 at 6:42 PM, W Humble said:

When PMD didn't produce this car, they lost my business to Datsun, as I bought a new '70 240Z in 7-'70. 

I was still in The Green Machine (US ARMY) at Ft. Sam Houston TX, and paid $3,661 for a cash sale.  Later restored it, and later yet sold it back to NISSAN USA.  I wrote an article for Z-Car Magazine, when I was restoration editor (since out of print) comparing the two cars.  I would love to build a kit of one.  Looked a bit too 'Stingray' but still very nice!  Wick

Interesting that Pontiac had this design as early as '64.  Is it just me or did Chevrolet "borrow" a lot of these styling cues for the C3s?  

[1930fordpickup]

1 hour ago, Monty said:

Interesting that Pontiac had this design as early as '64.  Is it just me or did Chevrolet "borrow" a lot of these styling cues for the C3s?  

Up until GM ran the others out of town Borrowing from other in GM was Chevrolets schtick.  

[W Humble]

Names: Pontiac borrowed the LeMans name from Caddie (Briggs Cunningham did run a 'stocker' Cad at LeMans, along with a special-bodied Cad the French called "Le Monstre"), and Chevy adopted the Monte Carlo name from PMD's '61-62 show car roadster -- which I have modeled -- but Pontiac had a '62 Tempest homologated with the FIA that had a full-sized iron 389-cu.in. V-8 aboard.  This was pre-SD 421 '63 racer, or the vaunted '64 389 A-body GTO. 

Any big Poncho V-8 will drop right into a Y-body Tempest, since the 4-banger was just half of a 389, even to the horsepower ratings.  Not that you'd want to, unless you were the factory or Mickey Thompson, who won stock eliminator at the '62 NHRA Nationals with one of two he built, if I recall correctly; Hayden Profitt driving I think.  Big Pontiac drive train, also, of course.  I have a '62 LeMans ragtop with the four-bbl. four, but our local old school wrecking yard had a derelict with the iron 326 swapped in; think it just got crushed this spring.