2018 Red Bull RB14 Race Car F1 in 1:20 Scale

[Anglia105E]

This build is my first Formula One race car, and also my first 1:20 scale model car. I have 3D printed the 16 parts of the model over an 8 day period, from Saturday 24th July to Saturday 31st July, using my Anet A8 printer and grey PLA filament by AMZ3D...... All parts sliced using Ultimaker Cura software. This is the number 33 race car, as driven by Max Verstappen during the 2018 season, so this is the Renault engined car, as opposed to the Honda engined car that was raced from 2019 to 2021.

As can be seen from the following photos, the layer lines are very obvious on most of the PLA printed surfaces. During this coming week, I shall be attempting to carry out Acetone Vapour Smoothing to remove these unsightly layer lines, and hopefully to produce a much smoother, glossy surface. The Red Bull blue paint is a matte finish, which will be airbrushed over grey primer later. The only decal sheet that I could find on the Internet was for a 2010 Red Bull RB6, and this was not the set of decals that I wanted. Fortunately, I was able to find a website for RC Decals in UK, and they very kindly scaled down a 1:10 decal sheet to 1:20 scale for me.

So far, I have used super glue to assemble the main parts of the RB14, and I shall be detailing some extra parts that were not included in the set of 16 parts. I would really like to place a seated racing driver figure inside the cockpit, but as yet I have not been able to find a suitable figure in 1:20 scale.

As always, thanks for looking guys, and I am hoping this one turns out reasonably well !

David

[Gramps46]

I am impressed.

[Anglia105E]

11 hours ago, Gramps46 said:

I am impressed.

Thank you, Gary...... Just a lttle something different, and we shall see how it goes !

David

[David G.]

A very interesting project.

12 hours ago, Anglia105E said:

 

It would seem that Sir Winston approves!

David G.

[Anglia105E]

6 minutes ago, David G. said:

A very interesting project.

It would seem that Sir Winston approves!

David G.

Ha, Ha,..... Good guess, David, but he is actually Alfred Hitchcock and not Sir Winston Churchill.... Very similiar posture, I will grant you that !

David

[Dave Van]

Very interesting!! Look forward to seeing how it comes out. 

[Anglia105E]

40 minutes ago, Dave Van said:

Very interesting!! Look forward to seeing how it comes out. 

Thanks, Dave..... Will keep you posted. Waiting for delivery of the Pure Acetone at the moment, so no further progress just yet.

David

[Dave Van]

2 hours ago, Anglia105E said:

Thanks, Dave..... Will keep you posted. Waiting for delivery of the Pure Acetone at the moment, so no further progress just yet.

David

I take it that will aid in smoothing the surface??? I am pretty much a rookie at 3D print. I wanted to try it, I have a laser cutter that  have master very well, but the 3D software beat me and I gave up. Thanks

A laser cut structure I made.

 

[Anglia105E]

3 minutes ago, Dave Van said:

I take it that will aid in smoothing the surface??? I am pretty much a rookie at 3D print. I wanted to try it, I have a laser cutter that  have master very well, but the 3D software beat me and I gave up. Thanks

A laser cut structure I made.

 

I like your laser cut structure of the Orbit Diner, and both the material and the cutter seem to be well suited to the Art Deco style of architecture.

I think it worth persevering with the 3D printing software, because during my early days of learning how to use it, I nearly gave up several times. The layer lines issue is the one aspect of the technology that continues to frustrate me. No amount of tinkering with the software settings seems to get rid of the layer lines, so I have decided to give this Acetone Vapour Smoothing a chance. Apparently, it is more effective with the ABS material filament, than it is with the PLA material filament. This will be an experiment with the technique, using PLA....... Not sure how successful it might be yet !

David

[Anglia105E]

Thanks to the moderators for moving this topic of mine to the correct section...... I had a feeling it was in the wrong section !

David

[Anglia105E]

Preparing one of the rear wheels and the tyre for this RB14, and I shall have to remove the tread pattern because a Pirelli P Zero tyre with yellow lettering is a slick tyre. The 3D printed tread pattern was accidental, due to the layer lines. I did consider making these a set of ' wet ' tyres, rather than mediums, which would have blue lettering, but the tread pattern has horizontal lines as well as radial lines. Also, the wet tyre has ' Cinturato ' instead of ' Zero ' lettering.

The rear end part of the car, including the rear wing, has been placed inside the Acetone Vapour Smoothing box and after one hour there is no visible change to the layer lines. This will be left overnight, and checked again tomorrow.

David

[Anglia105E]

After leaving the PLA part in the acetone vapour smoothing tank overnight, for 17 hours in total, there were no visible signs of any change to the layer lines. Leaving the part to dry for a few hours inside the house did not bring about any change either. I do have the option to try 3D printing the six main body parts once more using ABS material instead of PLA material, and then the AVS procedure would probably remove the layer lines.

In the meantime, I have decided to move forward with the PLA model, so the two halves of the body have been super glued together as one assembly. The halo has sanded down nicely, and this part has responded well to the orange primer filler. The body assembly and the halo have been given two coats of grey primer, with 15 minutes between each coat.

Next step is to prepare the wheels and tyres, along with the suspension struts. The airbrush is ready to apply the Red Bull yellow and the Red Bull dark blue, following masking off the relevant areas.

David

[bbowser]

Layer lines seem to be a stumbling block for 3d printing.  I'm interested in seeing how the acetone process plays out with ABS should you decide to go that route.  I'm very much following your progress with this Redbull.

[Anglia105E]

4 minutes ago, bbowser said:

Layer lines seem to be a stumbling block for 3d printing.  I'm interested in seeing how the acetone process plays out with ABS should you decide to go that route.  I'm very much following your progress with this Redbull.

Thank you, Bruce........ Not sure yet if I will try the ABS alternative. For the moment, I am going to try a product called Mr White Putty ' R ' and see if this smooths out the layer lines sufficiently to apply airbrush paint. The wheels and tyres have turned out quite nicely, and I have managed to source a 1:20 scale seated driver figure for this car. Also, found a good reference photo for the Max Verstappen helmet detail. Thanks for following my progress with the RB14 build, and here are a few further photos.

David

[Anglia105E]

Wheels and tyres, along with the four suspension units are set aside ready for assembly later. Meanwhile, the Mr White Putty ' R ' has been applied to the upper front surfaces of the body, and also around the cockpit and rear sides. This product spreads on nicely, with a consistency like double cream, and after 4 hours I was able to sand the putty areas with 600 grit wet & dry. Once the areas of the body where the layer lines are most prominent have been filled and sanded, I shall apply a single coat of grey primer. Only when I am happy that the surface is smooth enough, will I airbrush the yellow areas, and the mostly dark blue matt area.

David

[MeatMan]

I've got a Karmann Ghia that I need to print on my FDM printer and from what I've printed so far know I will need to do some putty work.

The parts on the end were printed with the standard nozzle, but the middle piece was printed with a smaller 0.2 mm nozzle I bought later.

The .2 nozzle takes a bit longer but as you can see, the detail is much better.

[Anglia105E]

Hi Dennis..... The 0.2 mm nozzle clearly makes a significant difference, and the detail is excellent on that middle piece in your photo. Maybe I need to invest in such a nozzle ?  Always trying to avoid having to do lots of sanding, so thanks for this tip !

David

[MarkJ]

Very nice.

[Anglia105E]

15 minutes ago, MarkJ said:

Very nice.

Thanks, Mark........

David

[Anglia105E]

The final coat of grey primer has been applied, and most of the car body has been masked off, leaving the two small areas that need to be Red Bull Yellow.

This will be my first use of airbrushing for about one year, so I need to refresh my skills to some degree !

Positioning the decals to merge in with the yellow painted areas is the tricky part of this, and these decals are not precut, so I shall have to cut each decal precisely to size and shape.

David

[David G.]

It's quite a fascinating process. The main factor in the appearance of the printed product appears to be a matter of "resolution" rather like computer graphics- 1920x1080 is better than 1024x768 and both are lightyears ahead of 640x480. Is that accurate?

I find your thread on this subject very informative and enlightening. Thank you for taking the time to share it.

David G.

 

[Anglia105E]

2 hours ago, David G. said:

It's quite a fascinating process. The main factor in the appearance of the printed product appears to be a matter of "resolution" rather like computer graphics- 1920x1080 is better than 1024x768 and both are lightyears ahead of 640x480. Is that accurate?

I find your thread on this subject very informative and enlightening. Thank you for taking the time to share it.

David G.

 

Thanks, David....... I see what you are getting at, with the resolution principle, but whereas you would think of figures such as 1920 x 1080, 1024 x 768 and 640 x 480 as being relevant to computer screen graphics and photo images, the way things work with 3D printing is totally different. Unless I am misunderstanding you here, and I hope not, the issue with 3D printed models is all about layer height...... The layer lines are the visible layers as these stack up during the printing process. For example, you might want print at 0.20 mm layer height, or alternatively I might use a setting of 0.16 mm, or 0.08 mm. The nozzle jet of the 3D printer is capable of printing at a minimum of 0.04 mm for layer height, as my nozzle is 0.04 mm, and the settings then go up in multiples of 0.04 mm.

There are many other factors that affect layer lines visibility, but basically my problem is that even with a setting of 0.08 mm, the layer lines are very prominent. The PLA material is so hard, that sanding the lines away becomes difficult and time consuming. This MR WHITE Putty R seems to work quite nicely, but there is still a lot of sanding involved ( I don't like sanding ). The stepper motors of the printer raise the Z - axis, or vertical axis, by 0.04 mm steps as travel up the threaded rods either side of the build platform.

I do enjoy 3D printing, and I am fascinated by the technology which is extremely clever, but this one aspect of the quality of the printed models continues to bug me !

David

[David G.]

45 minutes ago, Anglia105E said:

Thanks, David....... I see what you are getting at, with the resolution principle, but whereas you would think of figures such as 1920 x 1080, 1024 x 768 and 640 x 480 as being relevant to computer screen graphics and photo images, the way things work with 3D printing is totally different. Unless I am misunderstanding you here, and I hope not, the issue with 3D printed models is all about layer height...... The layer lines are the visible layers as these stack up during the printing process. For example, you might want print at 0.20 mm layer height, or alternatively I might use a setting of 0.16 mm, or 0.08 mm. The nozzle jet of the 3D printer is capable of printing at a minimum of 0.04 mm for layer height, as my nozzle is 0.04 mm, and the settings then go up in multiples of 0.04 mm.

There are many other factors that affect layer lines visibility, but basically my problem is that even with a setting of 0.08 mm, the layer lines are very prominent. The PLA material is so hard, that sanding the lines away becomes difficult and time consuming. This MR WHITE Putty R seems to work quite nicely, but there is still a lot of sanding involved ( I don't like sanding ). The stepper motors of the printer raise the Z - axis, or vertical axis, by 0.04 mm steps as travel up the threaded rods either side of the build platform.

I do enjoy 3D printing, and I am fascinated by the technology which is extremely clever, but this one aspect of the quality of the printed models continues to bug me !

David

Thank you for that explanation David. It helps to firm up the concept for me. It seems more closely related to the Dots Per Inch that a printer head produces than display resolution but there are similarities to both.

Again, fascinating stuff.

David G.

[Anglia105E]

As you can see from the photo, I have cut out the semi circular piece of orange tape at the front of the nose cone, using a scalpel knife. Then set up the airbrush and checked everything was ready to go..... To begin with, the yellow paint was flowing as it should and I used a test card to see the result. However, once I had given the two areas of the model a very light coat of yellow, the airbrush stopped applying paint properly. Nothing is coming out of the nozzle.

Set about dismantling the airbrush and cleaning each part. Put it all back together..... and still nothing. Not sure what might be wrong, as all looks normal.

I do have a ' Vintage ' Humbrol Modeller's Air Brush, which I would like to try, but the threaded connection on the air hose does not fit the KK Moon compressor, and none of the 9 different adapters in a pack bought off Ebay fit either. So far, I haven't been able to check if the the thread on a propellant can will fit the Humbrol airbrush..... probably not ?

The build of the Red Bull RB14 is now held up, while I try to figure out what is wrong with the KK Moon airbrush. Nothing seems to be out of place.

David

[Anglia105E]

Okay, so now we are making better progress today...... After watching two YouTube videos by the same guy, who clearly explains how to clean an airbrush PROPERLY, the airbrushing part of the process seems to be back on track. Lots of paint clogs were hidden away in various areas of the KK Moon airbrush, and I spent two and a half hours fully dismantling the airbrush. Each and every part is now thoroughly cleaned like new.

The Red Bull yellow paint has applied quite well, and is now drying for 24 hours. I discovered that I can use my thumb for operating the trigger, but not my forefinger as instructed..... I am just unorthodox !  Now I can see a horrible hole in the paintwork, immediately under the induction cowl and behind where the driver's helmet will be...... This should hve been filled and primered at the primer stage, not at the top coat stage. I could kick myself for missing this, and I shall deal with it.

This yellow reminds me of custard........ Also, the RB14 car looks like it has it's pyjamas on !

David