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3D Printing

3/29/2020: After looking for a long time, I finally decided on a 3D printer. I wound up getting a resin vat type because it seemed to make the best quality prints in regards to smoothness and details. The printer is an Elegoo Mars purchased from Amazon for under $250 USD.

My first ever print on my first ever 3D printer were 9 carronades for Macedonian which is why all this is in Mac's worklog. Tim sent me the file the original 3D prints came from back in 2012. You can't see what's happening while things print, and when you can they're covered in resin and look kind-of melted, but after cleaning them in alcohol, you finally see what came out. My first print came out great, but the slides (also a file provided by Tim over on the left coast) came out with the underside looking kind of melted, which I haven't figured out as yet. They're usable with some repair.

3/20/2022: Everything has been shelved since I had to work for a living at a job that left me no time for myself, not to mention all the COVID issues which, somehow, I managed to avoid despite working in retail and face-to-face with some real trash of the human waste heap. Anyway, that's gone for the moment, so I've picked up working on Constellation again and a little bit on Macedonian.

Shortly after printing the carronades, I printed about a dozen of the 'great guns.' The trunnions were a bit deformed, but they were salvageable. Then I tried printing the carriage for them but that didn't go so well. During the print something pulled loose and basically ruined all the layers that came after leaving something akin to a Star Trek transporter accident.

Skipping ahead; the guns printed so far for Macedonian were put in a baggie and sat on a shelf. Something was sat on top of them and most of the 18 pounders warped or broke outright. I got new stronger resin and have been printing items for Constellation with great results, so I'm looking at printing Macedonian's guns again, but this time the gun and carriage all in one piece. The carriages and slides for Macedonian will be of slightly different styles than Tim sent me, so I started 3D modeling the new ones. Ever impatient, I did a 'test print' of the 18 pounder and carriage in one piece To see where any problems might occur, and got pretty good results.

The alleged figurehead of Macedonian exists at the US Naval Academy in Annapolis Maryland. I've looked at it many times and always thought it was off. Either the carver was no fan of Alexander the Great, or it looked like actor Michael J. Pollard because of some botched repair work on it over the years. It's said it's the figure head taken from the captured British frigate and place on the new Macedonian built to replace her. I think the original figurehead was too bad off to be used and a new one was made, and the carver took it upon himself to make it a caricature of the original. Whatever the story, my skilset in 3D modeling isn't up to making this and some people that digitally scanned the original wanted $250 to print a 1-1/2 inch figure - NOT provide me with a file to print myself.

At any rate, I found a 3D scan file of an actual bust of Alexander in the same style for free online. I think it's probably more what the 'original' figurehead looked like taking into consideration how other British figureheads appeared. Now, if I snap off his head trying to fit it to the bow of the model, I'm not out $250.

11/15/2023: I started to make a 3D model of the ship's galley stove. I learned that from the 1780's to 1810, the most common type of stove on British warships was the Brodie type, which surplanted what was known as the Firehearth. In 1810 stoves by Lamb & Nicholson were taking over in place of the Brodies. I have yet to find any information; drawing, photos, models, or even a description of a L&N stove. was launched in June of 1810 and I'm sure her stove was requisitioned well before then, so was most probably a Brodie type. Anyway, that's the course I'm steering.

What I'm basically making is the stove pictured here; a model of a Brodie type stove in the collection of the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich UK. But in looking for more information, I found many photos, drawings, and models which no two looking alike except in overall appearance. I found a scale drawing from Model Ship World and began building the stove in Anim8or based on that.

Once I had most of the model done, I printed it to see how things would come out. Many of the details like the rail, the rotisserie drive chain, and handles barely printed, or didn't print at all. I went in and beefed up the details, but before printing it again I went looking in my books for more information. I found it in The Arming and Fitting of English Ships of War by Brian Lavery where on page 198 was a chart showing stove dimentions for various ships based on gun rating.

My model, based on the MSW drawing was a little small, especially in height. I altered the model to fit Lavery's measurements for a 38 gun frigate, and printed it. The grills were pulled out of shape a bit, and are sagging, but otherwise it printed perfectly, even all the handles, and the rotisserie rig.