I started this bytes to battleship project well over a year ago after stumbling onto some online photos of Charles Martel. I instantly knew I wanted one!
I’ve been working up the courage to commit to this project post here for quite a while. (On my website I can just delete the whole thing if it doesn’t work out [:)])
When I started this, I was just getting dangerous at Blender and wanted a challenging “from scratch” project to sink my new 3d design fangs into. After spending many, many, “spare” hours on it over the past year, I was definitely getting better. I started reworking earlier sections with new modeling methods and finding new online pictures causing me to redo previous guess work. This could easily have gone on for another year but felt the need to call the design done and start carving Charles Martel up into printable sections.
Below are a couple screen shots of the Blender render:
The cutting of the design into printable sections for my Elegoo Saturn took another month or so but then the printing began! Below are a few of the printed parts:
These prints easily took 12 - 15 hours, fortunately I had zero print failures and was done initial printing in just over a week. I may need to reprint some parts if I mess them up too badly trying to put her together.
I’ve now separated all the supports from the printed parts, mostly without too much damage and that’s where I am right now. I’ll add one more picture of a mockup I put together of some of the larger parts.
Progress will likely be pretty slow but I hope to update this thread with new work periodically.
Wish me luck and thanks for looking!
PS: Forgot to mention at 1/200 she is almost exactly 2 feet long.
Good luck with this ambitious project. If you aren’t familiar with YouTuber Drachinifel, you should check out his video about the French pre-dreadnoughts - https://youtu.be/9ygXLnRAm-A
Although French pre-dreadnoughts are not really my thing (though cool for sure), I’m impressed with the amount of skill and technology that went into this one so far… I wish I could use Blender this well. At the moment I just got a new computer at last where I can run Blender, now I have to learn it…
In Poland we have a modeller that took a paper model of a warship (ORP Piorun), built the hull out of paper, then filled and sanded it and then outfittet it with Blender-designed, 3D printed details - turned out very nice and he saved some resin
I highly recommend youTube videos - they will get you going. Then try to recreate what you’ve seen and try to figure some new stuff out on your own for a few days, run into some snags, back to youTube when you’re stuck and repeat. This worked for me. Also, if something your doing is unreasonably hard or time consuming - you may want to go to youTube to see if there is any easier way.
Your friend’s method of using paper is very clever. It could also help get around the need to cut up the large hull sections into many pieces in order to print then with a smaller printer.
Don, That’s exactly what I thought. When I saw none existed I figured it was a great opportunity to start that monster project I’d been looking for to test out my new Elegoo Saturn printer.
Currently at the 1 year mark - but haven’t had too much free time to spend on this.
Mark & Steve thanks for the comments, I’m eager to see how it shapes up too. Hope she’s not my great white whale. Definetly have some warping issues to overcome, not to mention a ton of filling and sanding…
Can’t believe a month has gone by already! i haven’t had a lot of time to work on this project but the main hull sections were finally glued together and an initial attempt at filling and sanding joints made.
Then the repair work started on bits that didn’t print well, broke while removing from their printed supports or that I broke while filling and sanding…
The above was taken just before a slightly rushed prime job.
Below are the initial results
And a close up showing off Saturn’s ability to render finer details.
My fill work needs more work… Nothing like an even primer coat to highlight what was missed. Some defects will be hidden by the upper works and utility boats and I’ll leave.
So far I’m pretty happy with it.
I think I’ll concentrate on the hull this winter as I’ve found new pictures that are making me want to redesign and reprint her flying deck and that has to be a springtime task.
At this rate I should have plenty to keep me busy till then.
PS: One question I’ve wanted to ask you all: If you were building her, what paint schema would you go with? The gold top or light grey?
I’m ruling the battleship grey scheme out as her bridge was in a different configuration when she had those colors
I’ve been using it for years, on all my 3D printed models both filament and resin and when I combo the two. Not so much because it’s the best darn glue ever (though I am happy with it) but because I was tired of grabbing a partially used or even new tube of CA only to discover it had solidified in its container So I bought 3 large 2 oz bottles from Amazon that happened to be at a good price and had good reviews. I’ve had them for about 2.5 years now and with all my 3D models only gone through 1.5 bottles and not a one was wasted due to curing in its container.
Thank you Eugene. The ability to build whatever captivates my imagination is almost worth the curse of all the technology and knowledge needed to do so!
(Kind’a) just kidding [8-|] It really is a fun and gratifying hobby, to be able to design and then print and build these things.
She shouldn’t have got it yet but I’m too darn impulsive. Had a weather window and I took it without first making the filler/smoothing corrections I wanted to make. Oh well, ready or not, she got her first color today.
I’d been worried that the waterline pinstripe would be the death of this project (Don’t laugh! it has been before! I hate them!) The bulging edge of the armored belt is right on the lower edge of the strip making the masking trickier than normal and normal with these stripes is plenty tricky for me. I think I just wanted to get past it, if I had totally messed this up I could care less that I didn’t make the hull perfect first. Much to my relief, I pulled it off ok (bullet dodged). Some touch up is required but it’s the type that I usually can pull off.
So yeah, now I wish I’d done some filler repairs first…
PS: the unpainted turrets are just there for looks [:)]
