Flat32

Exactly what I was looking for. Many thanks to all who responded. Beautiful job on the belts too. Very nicely detailed spark plugs and acorn nuts, but there are a few nuts missing. Should be 24 of them. Carbs are recognizable as Holley 94's and that's a mighty fine fuel pump.

There's the female influence to consider in the equation in that they are buying and there are men buying what their female likes or wants. How many female modelers are there on this forum BTW?

Just realized watching this guy's video was palpable to me because the Youtube subtitles were on so I was reading while listening. Better than watching his bearded face.

Was listening to a lecture on YouTube by a human behavior professor and found his approach to the subject quite entertaining as well as enlightening. Nothing about how to build a model and not related to models except for maybe why we build them even though this particular activity isn't remotely mentioned. Now I may be totally off base and trying to fit a square peg in a round hole listening to him while having model building saturating the dark corners of my pea sized brain. I'm not a college grad, spent five years getting through high school, and probably had a grand total of three teachers I ever paid attention to. I'm a bit wary of a possible underlying agenda, but he does have substantial prominence in his field. Turns out this model building might have a root in one or more of our primordial genes. Consider the possibility we are, in some small part, driven to it by genetic programming. The reason for my interest in all this is figuring out how to pass my interests on to my grandsons and find it heartening to discover he probably has the genes just by being a male human. I think I found a way to link our different worlds through models and overlapping my interests with his seemingly totally different ones. With the questions of how and why it works better if the why comes before the how. Guy's name is Robert Sapolsky and his wife is a neurosurgeon. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNnIGh9g6fA

My primary model subject interest is Flathead Ford V8 engines and scale accuracy which I find challenging at 1-25 scale for thin and small details. Thinning an exhaust pipe is easy, but a fan has front and back equally visible in an out of the car display. Actually my parts will be printed resin and designed to be thinned afterwards in some fashion that I imagine a styrene kit part would be thinned. In effect I have to thicken so as to be easily thinned afterward. In styrene would you sand the convex front siide or carve/sand the concave side?

Examples are shown for belts and pulleys. Any examples of the various ways for fans? Really most interested in seeing detailing what came in the kit box more than what you could replace it with like photoetch, resin cast or 3D printed.

What about the fans? How does one improve a kit fan? How do the scratch builders make them?

I'm not a modeler, but I wanted to make a model so got on this forum to see how the guys do their thing. I have no budget restrictions on tools. I do have some skills, but haven't developed the detailing ones at all primarily because I have no decent work space to dedicate to the effort. I've got 3D printers to make parts and no dedicated space for them. 3 in the garage,2 in the laundry room, one in a bedroom, another in another bedroom, one (Anycubic Photon) in the foyer where I unpacked it and have no place to set it up. Point is, for me anyway, a private space big enough to comfortably work in is paramount. Has to be off limits to the wife and her penchant for tidying up.

I watched the second video first, it was the longer of the two, and half way through was wondering when it would get to model stuff. Then at the end I thought the video trickery was kind of neat. Then I started watching the first one and was wondering why you posted such a crappy link. My brain eventually figured out what was going on, but it took a while.

Perfect combination of quality CAD work, 3D printing, scratch building and detailing.

"His website is worth a look as well http://paulbudzik.com/index.html " Just spent an hour on his site learning about photography and painting. Need a couple more hours to watch the videos, but I'm certain they will be good. Thanks for sharing the links.

Very clean diorama.

There's a bunch more if you include engines and garage equipment. Pat has made the Diorama section of this forum my favorite place to go.

Seems like a different form of scratch building. Impressive in a way, but no where near as impressive as traditional scratch building. Then there's the reality of 3D printing being just another way of making parts for the real model builders that assemble the parts and detail them to extraordinary levels of realism. In my mind the creation of computer models needs more rivet counters in the ranks. 3D printing is expensive and it bugs me no end to waste it on printing an inaccurate or limited detail model.

3D computer models can be an artist's rendition, an actual surface scan, a reverse engineered exact model or a combination of two or all three.

I've been printing for a few years now with a variety of printers and learned enough to understand their differences, limitations and what it takes to make good prints. I started out by learning how to make files using a CAD program and uploading them to Shapeways for printing. Was impressed by the results, but not so much the cost, the lack of control I had and their generic limitations on the model's design. I wanted the detail and accuracy only resin printing could do and bought a polyjet machine just like what Shapeways was using. Sophisticated machine requiring specialized care and maintenance, uses expensive proprietary resin and has about a 15% resin waste factor. Then bought an Ultimaker 2 filament printer and fell in love with it because I could see what it was doing and found it fascinating to watch, however, I got to watch it make failed prints as well as good ones. Whole different ballgame, had to learn about supports, model orientation and build plate calibration and adhesion to name the most basic stuff. Melting, feeding, depositing and cooling plastic gets involved. Then I bought a Formlabs2 SLA printer, yet another ballgame, but very good results once you get very familiar with how important supports are and how absolutely critical build plate adhesion is. Resin printing can be messy even when you're careful. Then bought a Solus DLP printer that jewelry makers favor for the very fine detail it can do. My acid test is printing Stromberg 97 carbs with linkage at 1/25 scale. Hoping someday to be able to see screw slots and sharp corners on hex nuts, but just not possible yet. The DLP process is quite simple and may be the simplest ever. The Solus uses a somewhat expensive digital projector. Now the Photon and Phrozen DLP printers show up using an LCD screen as a mask and simple UV LEDs for light instead of a projector at half the cost. So I bought a Photon to see what it can do and what it's failings might be. I fully expect it to do as well as the expensive Solus. I have the benefit of experience and I will suggest any newcomer to 3D printing first research the build plate problems and cures. I would suggest DLP printing as best suited for fine detail model work and further suggest that you download a slicer program and become at least a little familiar with preparing a model file for the printer before even buying a printer. Having a leg up in these two areas can increase your chances of success tenfold and hopefully avoid the frustration of failed prints with no understanding of why and what to do. Google anything and everything. Just my humble opinion.

I just bought one based on the review in Bill's post. The review in the railroad forum post is worth watching and the whole thread is very informative. Ray

When I made a wire spoked wheel with actual wire I 3D printed the rim and hub connected together with kid of a sprue that gets removed after the spokes are in. I printed a drill jig to do a set of four spoke holes and indexed the jig around the wheel. Printed another jig for guiding in the spokes. Got tired of the drill jig and managed to print the rim and hub with spoke holes good enough to eliminate drilling step. Wheel is 16" Kelsey Hayes type with 40 spokes but without bent spokes. Sprue connector had five arms that fit into the jigs which had ten mating slots. Sounds complicated, but all designed on computer and then printed so simple for me to make. Wouldn't want to do it for a living though.

I pick up and save every discarded disposable cigarette lighter I find. Was taking them apart for the springs, but the other parts are interesting as well. I hang onto disposable razors, take them apart and study their construction. Likewise ballpoint pens. My Dad used to say "Never trow nuttin away" and never throw anything away without saving all the screws, washers, bolts, nuts and springs. He'd bring home shipping crates that we kids had to take apart for the lumber and had to save the nails. Spent many hours as a kid straightening nails. He never threw away a baby food jar.

When hot glue is used for paint-less dent repair the pull pucks are easily removed with isopropyl alcohol. It doesn't dissolve the glue, but seems to release the bond.

Been pondering how to make 1/25 scale spark plugs and needed to find a material for the white insulator part. Obviously not functional. Found this and it looks like I can make it work. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eYVT9l969NE While I was at it I ordered some of these: https://www.ebay.com/itm/362397243829 My dentist lets me into his lab and if you ever get a chance to tour a dental lab jump on it.

That dash is so incredibly detailed for that scale I have to ask how you did it. Even if it is PE with decal gage faces it is hard to imagine those fingers of your's getting it done so perfectly.

Middle top one is the real wire, bottom middle is the SLA print, top right is polyjet straight spoke, bottom right is bent spoke polyjet. These wheels are not compatible with kit tires. I don't know if Shapeways can print them, but I'll upload a file and see what happens. If they can do them I'll open a shop and sell them at cost with no guarantee of result being good. 50% of my spoked wheel prints have defects with a missing spoke or two.

Got a little sidetracked with wheels. Tried my hand at real wire spokes, but they didn't look like the bent spoke Kelsey Hayes wheels in the original Bug photo. So I changed my computer model to bent spokes and printed them again. First used the polyjet and, while sort of OK and good enough, they didn't have the thinness of the real wire. So I tried printing them with the Formlabs SLA and got thinner spokes that I think, being bent, look better than the real wire. I must say the real wire is downright tedious.