My Future 3D WIP's (LOTS of pics)

[MrObsessive]

I've been buying a number of 3D files these days as you just never know when they'll up and disappear without a trace. Since these are to eventually be 3D printed, there's going to be quite a bit of work in getting them printable as most of them are in their native .obj format.

Here are a number of pics of what I've run across. Some of them I got at a reasonable price, others were rather expensive, but from what I've seen in my Blender software, they are 'bout perfect. 👍🏽

1957 Cadillac Eldorado Brougham

1960 Studebaker Lark

1958 Cadillac Coupe Deville.......one of the more pricier ones, but worth every penny.

1964 Studebaker Champ Pickup

One I'm working on at the moment for printing in the not too distant future..........1973 Olds Delta 88.

Thanks to @my66s55 for the very helpful tips on adding wall thickness, that's what I'm in the middle of now.

As you can see, all of these (with the exception of the Eldorado Brougham) are vehicles that we'd NEVER see from the major kit manufacturers as modern kits. Now that I have the files and can tweak them to be printable, I can make the cars I've wanted for years and not have to worry or wonder if they'll make this or that. Lots of work for sure in getting files ready, but then it's more than likely you'll have one of the very few cars that will be seen either at a show, or even in a magazine.

[64SS350]

Nice, I will follow your progress. The Studes are of interest.

[keyser]

R3 Lark, less doors 😃 There is a diecast of the 58 DeVille iirc, Geno tweaked one down in diecast. 57 Brougham great car. Don H did 59-60 Brougham that is killer. 
Bill, you always do great work, and nice taste in cars. Can’t wait. 

[Pierre Rivard]

Pretty amazing stuff Bill. Lots of work ahead but you'll create your own scale models. Super cool.

Can a 3D printer handle a complete body or will you break it down to body panels?

[MrObsessive]

2 hours ago, Pierre Rivard said:

Pretty amazing stuff Bill. Lots of work ahead but you'll create your own scale models. Super cool.

Can a 3D printer handle a complete body or will you break it down to body panels?

As of tomorrow, I have a second bigger printer to be delivered. The one I have now, either I have to tilt the body at a steep angle, or I split the body and do it in halves. This newest one should be able to do a whole body (one of my first will be a '73 Olds Delta 88 four door), so it shouldn't take quite as long as I don't have to angle it so steeply.

The smaller printer I'll keep as I can use that for printing interiors, engine stuff, hoods, trunks, etc, while the larger one is going. It'll mean more cleanup at the end though which is not one of my favorite things when it comes to 3D printing. 🤯

[MrObsessive]

On 6/17/2022 at 8:46 PM, keyser said:

R3 Lark, less doors 😃 There is a diecast of the 58 DeVille iirc, Geno tweaked one down in diecast. 57 Brougham great car. Don H did 59-60 Brougham that is killer. 
Bill, you always do great work, and nice taste in cars. Can’t wait. 

I was just searching for a 3D file of the '59-'60 Eldorado Brougham the other day. No luck so far...........yet. 👌🏽

[MrObsessive]

I came across this one last night. I found it (FREE!) on a gaming site of all places. It's not bad at all, and while it will need some editing to be printable, the body lines to my eyes are spot on, and I have pics of the 1:1 which show what most of the tubular frame should look like.

1959 Corvette Stingray racer. A car I've been wanting to see as a kit for YEARS, but I doubt it'll ever happen.

The model as it came in the original .obj format..........

I was able to separate the body out, and for the moment I wanted to see how it would look smoothed out to get rid of the "faceted" appearance.

I converted that file into a .stl file and then wanted to see how it would appear on the slicer print bed. Of course, this is not to scale as my current smaller printer would not let this fit in 1/25 scale at all. Those black insides tell me that I'll need to do some further editing as it would not print as is. A technique I use to cure this.............too involved to explain here.

 

[1st 700 Quad]

Can't wait for the Studebakers!

[br67]

Bill Ive been watching your 3D adventures on Facebook and you seem to be having a lot of fun

[gui_tarzan]

Bill, just remember that not all the files you see are accurate. I've bought a few that had serious flaws even though the files looked good on the websites. I'm not experienced enough to be able to fix them yet but it's one of my goals. 

[MrObsessive]

1 hour ago, gui_tarzan said:

Bill, just remember that not all the files you see are accurate. I've bought a few that had serious flaws even though the files looked good on the websites. I'm not experienced enough to be able to fix them yet but it's one of my goals. 

Oh yeah..........I've gotten some that are not as accurate as they should be. I try to look them over, and if it's a small flaw, I can edit the file to make it more like the 1:1. Some are just so way off, and if I see it in the previews, I don't even bother to buy/download it. I've had one particular vendor send me a file to preview it, and I pointed out where the model should be changed as not only the roofline was inaccurate, but the car itself was too short for that particular model/wheelbase.

Same goes for scale. I've cautioned those that are buying files and it says "1/24-25th scale", they should seriously consider looking up the specs of the 1:1, and scale the model in their slicer. I've heard more than a few complaints about files not being scaled correctly, and I'm a big believer in doing that on my own, no matter what the creator says.

[MrObsessive]

It's been a bit since I added to this, and I almost forgot that I made this thread! 😁

In the future since a lot of you don't do FB, I'll try to put my latest prints and designs here. Just a little update about what's happened to me over the past couple weeks for those that hadn't heard...........I just got out of the hospital after an eight day stay this past Friday.

I went in on the 13th with severe shortness of breath, to the point that a next door neighbor of mine called the ambulance. I was rushed to the hospital in the pouring rain in critical condition, and it turned out to be multiple blood clots on my lungs that were on the verge of bursting.

I spent two days in ICU, and then the rest of the time in a regular room. I'm doing fine now, if not a bit tired at times, but MUCH, much better than I did just two weeks ago when I thought I was coming down with a bad cold.

Ok, I'm now trying to get back into the swing of things, and my latest print was one I was going to print the morning of the 13th, but bad weather (possible power outage) and my simply not feeling well made me decide not to bother with it. It's just as well as just hours later I found myself in the ER at our local hospital.

This '64 Mustang "shorty" I designed is very much based on an actual car, which was made just before the production Mustangs hit the road. I used two different 3D files for the model.........a '66 Shelby GT350 was used for the front and roof section, and a video game file of a '65 Mustang hardtop was used for the rear quarters as I wanted the straighter fender tops as opposed to the fastback. LOTS of slicing and dicing was done to get the contours the way I wanted 'em, and the print in total was somewhere around 12-13 hours from start to finish.

Here are pics of the results...............

Still some sanding and cleanup to do, but that's one of the things about 3D printing that can't be beat..........you can create just about anything you want, as I can guarantee there would NEVER be a file of this car out there.

I wanted to make this car as if Ford had put it in production for the '65-'66 model year as some sort of Shelby, thus the Shelby taillight panel.  A shortened '67 Mustang chassis would eventually go underneath with a bunch of other tweaks.

[Dave Van]

A NEW ERA.....wish I had the talent to design 3D

Edited October 27, 2022 by Dave Van

[Curt]

Bill, what is your larger printer?  I'm looking at a Phrozen Sonic Mighty 4K.

Thanks!

[MrObsessive]

A file I'm currently working on, and one that was a topic on the forum here with @Ace-Garageguy mentioning it-------the 1968 AMX GT is another one that will probably never see the light of day as a 3D file, let alone as a glue kit.

This one was tricky because you'd think as popular as the production AMX's are, there are hardly any good files of the car out there. I was able to zero in on one off the gamemodels.ru site, but it's wee bit on the crude side, which was no issue as I just wanted the front end off it it.

The Gremlin for the roof and rear section was much easier to get as there are a number of files out there for those. In this case, the file being used here was from a Forza 7 Motorsports video game file, which I was able to convert and extract the parts I need to eventually make them printable. Like the Mustang "Shorty" file, a LOT of slicing and dicing/sectioning was done to get the car as close to the concept, while at the same time, I'd like to make it so that it appears somewhat production line ready had AMC gone through with this one instead of the production Gremlin we eventually got.

I have a number of pics here with descriptions of what I'm doing with this file as it progresses.

I really wish THIS was the car that AMC made, instead of the rather homely and to my eyes awkward Gremlin. Well, at least we can now do 3D prints of the car.

After I extracted the left side front fender of the AMX file, and the left door of the Gremlin file (they shared doors in 1:1), I had to set about making the contours match one for the other. I could have used the doors off the AMX, but that would have been a lot more work as the parts didn't separate the way most .obj files do. I'm using the rear section of the Gremlin anyway, so at least the door would suit it, especially at the trailing edge.

The concept to my sight appears to have a bit of lowered roof. In Blender, I highlighted the area I wanted to be lower, then scaled this accordingly.

Now with the lowered roof section............

I have a file for a '70 Javelin SST, so I extracted the hood out of that as it's nearly an exact match for the hood on the concept. Of course, since the hood is of a completely different origin from the other files, I had to shape and tweak it accordingly.

Some further tweaking of the side profile of the car. The fender was straightened up a little bit as it seemed too tilted to me. The car it came from had a bit of a rake to it (not production like) so that meant everything else had to tilt with it to be more level. The very top roof section is now getting worked on, with it eventually getting a raised windscreen header as the concept car had it slightly up into the roof. I also enlarged the rear wheel wells a bit as those just seemed too small to my eyes.

Revised the rocker panel a bit to be a bit more level------the show car had side pipes, and I'm not sure ultimately how to handle that after it's printed. They look an awful lot like mid year Corvette side pipes, so that may be what I go with. I tightened up the shut lines as well as the door gaps seemed too large.

The rear bumper and tailgate I tackled next. The concept had no taillights in the tailgate like the production car, so I edited those out and made this section smooth. I made recesses in the bumper for taillights as that's what looks to be what the concept had.

For those wondering why some parts are in half....it's MUCH easier to work with a 3D file car body in halves as what work is done, can be mirrored for the other side when all is finished. Oddball out of place parts such as badges, scripts and other items.........they can be extracted and saved as their own files, and then added back on after everything is done.

The cowl section is what I'm working on now. I need to expand the outer radius of the cowl to capture the A pillar, as that will need as much support as possible for printing. Underneath the A pillar, I'll add a bit more support-----a mini "dogleg" if you will as this is a critical area to get the model off the supports without that section tearing/breaking.

I'm going to further modify the headlight doors in the fenders, and in fact----I'll probably separate those altogether to make it easier for thickening, and to make the headlight bezels separate items for printing. After the file is completely done, the entire model will be scaled in Blender for length/width, so when it comes time to print, I don't have to worry about constantly checking to make sure each part is in scale in relation to each other in the slicer.

[MrObsessive]

23 minutes ago, Curt said:

Bill, what is your larger printer?  I'm looking at a Phrozen Sonic Mighty 4K.

Thanks!

Curt the same as the one you're looking at------a Phrozen Sonic Mighty 4K.

Edited October 27, 2022 by MrObsessive

[Curt]

7 minutes ago, MrObsessive said:

Curt the same as the one you're looking at------a Phrozen Sonic Mighty 4K.

Good to know, as your prints look very good.

[Ace-Garageguy]

Love what you're doing on the AMX GT. I've been collecting parts to cobble a model together from what's available, but having access to a printable file might be the kicker I need to get into printing myself.

Nice work, Mr. Geary.   

PS. I like that thing so much, I've done some investigation into what it would take to cobble together a real one. Somebody already makes fiberglass front "sheetmetal" panels for the AMX...   

[MrObsessive]

1 minute ago, Ace-Garageguy said:

Love what you're doing on the AMX GT. I've been collecting parts to cobble a model together from what's available, but having access to a printable file might be the kicker I need to get into printing myself.

Nice work, Mr. Geary.   

PS. I like that thing so much, I've done some investigation into what it would take to cobble together a real one. Somebody already makes fiberglass front "sheetmetal" panels for the AMX...   

One particularly tricky part of this file is getting the correct width of the car. I didn't want to make it Gremlin narrow like the production car, so I kept it AMX wide as I'm quite sure the concept was just as wide as the production AMX.

Still some work to do before I decide to print it. Gotta work on those front fenders, particularly the headlight area, as that's not quite right as I'm seeing it.

[Ace-Garageguy]

19 minutes ago, MrObsessive said:

One particularly tricky part of this file is getting the correct width of the car. I didn't want to make it Gremlin narrow like the production car, so I kept it AMX wide as I'm quite sure the concept was just as wide as the production AMX.

Yeah, the width issue is where I got stalled, looking at combining the AMT Gremlin and the Johan AMX.

Though both model body shells appear they could easily fit the width of the AMX chassis plate, the Gremlin unit is considerably narrower, and the width of the Gremlin is somewhat less overall, and particularly narrower at the front end.

I'd assume that AMC built the real showcars on shortened (but not narrowed) AMX pans, and figuring out how to go about building a real clone will require checking chassis stamping part number interchanges for the AMX vs the Gremlin to see what's what.

Again, I'd assume the production AMX and the Gremlin were built on the same basic platforms, as AMC wasn't exactly rolling in excess dough to invest in tooling at the time.

First thing I'm going to do is check the part numbers for windshields, as that will say a lot about the underlying structures.

[MrObsessive]

4 minutes ago, Ace-Garageguy said:

Yeah, the width issue is where I got stalled, looking at combining the AMT Gremlin and the Johan AMX.

Though both model body shells appear they could easily fit the width of the AMX chassis plate, the Gremlin unit is considerably narrower, and the width of the Gremlin is somewhat less overall, and particularly narrower at the front end.

I'd assume that AMC built the real showcars on shortened (but not narrowed) AMX pans, and figuring out how to go about building a real clone will require checking chassis stamping part number interchanges for the AMX vs the Gremlin to see what's what.

Again, I'd assume the production AMX and the Gremlin were built on the same basic platforms, as AMC wasn't exactly rolling in excess dough to invest in tooling at the time.

First thing I'm going to do is check the part numbers for windshields, as that will say a lot about the underlying structures.

I owned both a '76 Hornet and a '69 AMX at the same time years ago, but I can remember inside the interior was definitely narrower in the Hornet than the AMX. Checking the windshield part numbers would be interesting, but I suspect the Hornet/Gremlin will turn out a bit narrower. Even with the files I have, there's a definite difference in the width as I had to widen the roof section on the Gremlin file considerably to be at the same point on the Y Axis in the program to meet with the AMX parts.

I did scale both files (entire car) to be the same size in their respective lengths in 1/25 scale, but the Gremlin still turned up too narrow.

[Ace-Garageguy]

Hmmmm...definitely interesting, and a possible serious complication as far as building a 1:1 clone goes. Hmmmmm...

[Ace-Garageguy]

Yup...'68-'70 AMX and Javelin thru '74 take a different part number from the '70-'78 Gremlin, which is the same number as the '70-'77 Hornet.

[Dave Van]

AMC did do a Massive amount of parts sharing and swapping.........But not between the Hornet/Gremlin and AMX/Javelin line on major components. Front windshield on all AMX and Javelin are the same for all years, as are door skins!!  Minor parts like door handles were on all models at one time or another!!  I find a few parts shared between my Javelin and Matador even!!!

[my66s55]

2 hours ago, Curt said:

Bill, what is your larger printer?  I'm looking at a Phrozen Sonic Mighty 4K.

Thanks!

Right now on Amazon has the best printer you can get in this price range. Twice as good as the 4k.