Buoy Laying Vessel – Hydrograf – 3D Printed

[Daniel PrasalParticipant @danielprasal26454]

Hello everyone,

I'm new to this forum and RC ship building, however not new to model world. Always wanted to build a radio controlled boat or ship. Some time ago I become an owner of 3d printer and thought it might be helpful in building a hull. So took relatively simple boat plans and start CAD work. I decided for small vessel used for laying boys in harbour where underwater obstacles or shallow water may cause ships damage. Fairly simple hull lines allowed for quick and straightforward design process. I'm not an experienced ship builder at all, but following other builds I found that hull building from scratch is long and tedious process. Although the printing time of hull for my boat took around 60 hours, the assembly was very quick and got the floating hull in literally few hours. It require some filling and sanding work, but having hull floating on water is very satisfying.

The hull still in sections, before glueing.

Sanding joint faces for better glue adhesion

Locating spring dowels inserted

Hull glued

Hull sealed and smoothened with pvc pipe glue dissolved with acetone.

And first float trials

The calculated total displacement was around 2600g. The hull itself weight is 690g. With two 1 litre bottles confirms the figures from CAD design. In general I'm very happy with the result so far. Now time for adding all electrical equipment and some tests in near future.

[Daniel PrasalParticipant @danielprasal26454]

[neil hpParticipant @neilhp]

A Very interesting and amazing subject.

however, even a decent let alone experienced modeller could whip up a plank on frame hull for a boat of that size in less than 60 hours. also if carefull the filling and rubbing down time would be far less than rubbing down all the print lines on your sections.

don't get me wrong……….I love 3d printed fittings on a boat that comes as a kit…………I built one recently of a modern lifeboat with 3d printed fittings, and they are beautiful…..far better than a lot of resin and white metal fittings on the market.

but myself, I cannot understand why one wants to take away the joy of at least building the hull of a model boat……….to me that is wholly the best part of creating a "living" article to treasure……………sadly for one I could never look at one of my models with the same enthusiasm and say………a machine made that for me……..

but I shall watch this with enthusiasm to see what 3d printers can do….at least the younger people in our society are given a new chance to get into model boat building……………which must be a bonus to perpetuate the hobby.

[Ray Wood 3Participant @raywood3]

Hi All,

interesting comments from Neil, being able to create your own Airfix kit is great, maybe the hull is twice as thick as it needed to be ? I must admit I never feel I have built the model when I use a grp hull as a basis 😄

Horses for courses I suppose, I can knock up a whole boat in 60 hours

Regards Ray

[neil hpParticipant @neilhp]

I love 3d printing as a concept. a friend helped me out with tabernacles for my two lifeboats when both other sources dried up with covid closing businesses down and they are superb.

I am very interested in this build, and would love to see just how the hull was programmed into the computer to aid the printing, as I would love to see if my technical and building drawing skills over 25 years of teaching would help me to programme a computer to do this……………….but those who know tend to think every one does, and then don't explain it to people like me………..oh well………….i'll just have to watch and see.

[Chris FellowsParticipant @chrisfellows72943]

Neil

It's very hard to quantify. I've got over 40 years experience of drawing, both on the drawing board and PC and have recently bought a CAD package with the ultimate aim of 3D printing.

My previous experience, apart from being able to envisage the finished object and how to go about drawing something, has been of limited use really. CAD is not intuitive and you have to learn from basics how to do it and it isn't easy, especially if you're not using it frequently. I'm not sure yet if I can or want to put the required time and effort into being proficient at it at this time in life and when there's models to build and other things to do.

Maybe I'll feel differently in the winter, trouble is I've already forgotten what I've learnt so far and will have to start from the beginning again!

Chris

 

Edited By Chris Fellows on 09/06/2020 23:27:27

[neil hpParticipant @neilhp]

Posted by Chris Fellows on 09/06/2020 23:23:03:

Neil

It's very hard to quantify. I've got over 40 years experience of drawing, both on the drawing board and PC and have recently bought a CAD package with the ultimate aim of 3D printing.

My previous experience, apart from being able to envisage the finished object and how to go about drawing something, has been of limited use really. CAD is not intuitive and you have to learn from basics how to do it and it isn't easy, especially if you're not using it frequently. I'm not sure yet if I can or want to put the required time and effort into being proficient at it at this time in life and when there's models to build and other things to do.

Maybe I'll feel differently in the winter, trouble is I've already forgotten what I've learnt so far and will have to start from the beginning again!

Chris

Edited By Chris Fellows on 09/06/2020 23:27:27

you sound exactly how I feel Chris…..I had heard that my years of teaching it and experience are totally useless for CAD……and as such pointless at my age even trying……….probably made a fitting from scratch whilst I am even thinking of programming a pooter work sheet, lol.

[Daniel PrasalParticipant @danielprasal26454]

Hi All,

Many thanks for your interest and feedback. Apologise I have started my thread with no information of the design process, which I should mention.

Well, the design started with old plans from Polish publication back to 1967. I used scanned drawing to lay as a background in my software and draw over with frame profiles. Quite simple, yet tedious work.

Once the hull shape was completed, I hollowed it to give 6mm wall thickness and split into manageable by my printer sections.

Added decks and started to design wheelhouse and skylights which are by the way, the only structures on this small vessel.

Now I'm working on motor mount and rudder mechanism, then I will continue with other cosmetic details.

Regarding the comment from Neil about the joy of building the model in the traditional way I totally agree, and some day I really wish to make some ship using those techniques. The reason I decided to go modern way is just because I already spent tons of hours on my computer and thought it might be an interesting project. Also that 60hrs of print was the time that took printer to produce the hull section, involving myself very little. Only design time is something to consider, but as I mentioned before, this is my major part of life.

As an update of progress, filler arrived yesterday, so tomorrow hopefully I will start some finishing on hull. Also motor and some other hardware laned in my mailbox this week so I can start to scratching my head how to layout the propulsion

[neil hpParticipant @neilhp]

looks a nice shaped boat Daniel, and much more complicated than I thought, but of great interest to me….I shall follow this with much interest. neil.

[Daniel PrasalParticipant @danielprasal26454]

Posted by neil howard-pritchard on 13/06/2020 23:46:08:

looks a nice shaped boat Daniel, and much more complicated than I thought, but of great interest to me….I shall follow this with much interest. neil.

Actually I decided to choose this vessel as it has relatively simple shape, especially the stern with straight transom. But there is next project emerging in my mind with more complex hull.

[Daniel PrasalParticipant @danielprasal26454]

Hello everyone.

A bit of progress over last few days. I applied a car putty on the hull and started sanding. Quite nice filler to work with. Not to hard, so the work goes relatively fast.

Also printed wheelhouse walls and guled them together. A bit of gap on the front top came from partly failed print, but it is easy to fix.

 

 

Edited By Daniel Prasal on 18/06/2020 10:56:05

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