Author Topic: 1/350 Spaceship designs  (Read 2989 times)

Offline Frank3k

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1/350 Spaceship designs
« on: December 11, 2020, 01:47:49 PM »
These are a couple of renders for small (115mm/ 3.5" tall) 1/350 spaceships that I just finished drawing and will print soon. Actually, 4.5" isn't that small, print-wise.

The first is a late 21st or early 22nd century Mars or Titan lander, inspired by the artwork in this Hackaday article:





View of the aerospike-like engine:



The landing gear struts are not part of the finished model and are just representative; I'll have to find something that works.

The second one is of a 21st century Pluto/Kuiper belt explorer. I actually dreamt of something like this... The round blobs on the side are observation domes for the crew:



This is a view of the docking/sensor/cargo bay area at the top. The smaller airlocks are about the height of a human:



The engine section. The main, central engine uses advanced Handwavium Physics for propulsion, and it can get to 500AU in about a month. The engine should be familiar to anyone with a Leif Ericson kit. I just used it as an inspiration for this design (and "borrowed" some of the details from the 3D files I used to make the kit engines for Round2):



I should have these printing by next week.

Offline Buzzbomb

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Re: 1/350 Spaceship designs
« Reply #1 on: December 11, 2020, 02:11:39 PM »
Becoming quite the dab hand at this 3D stuff.. well done Frank

Offline andonio64

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Re: 1/350 Spaceship designs
« Reply #2 on: December 11, 2020, 05:10:54 PM »
Fantastic Frank, I look forward to seeing some plastic printed!  8)

Offline LemonJello

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Re: 1/350 Spaceship designs
« Reply #3 on: December 11, 2020, 10:05:09 PM »
Very cool. 

Offline Jeffry Fontaine

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Re: 1/350 Spaceship designs
« Reply #4 on: December 12, 2020, 03:05:16 AM »
"Handwavium!:" The Only Way To Fly!
"Every day we hear about new studies 'revealing' what should have been obvious to sentient beings for generations; 'Research shows wolverines don't like to be teased" -- Jonah Goldberg

Offline Frank3k

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Re: 1/350 Spaceship designs
« Reply #5 on: December 12, 2020, 07:25:25 AM »
Thanks guys. The Pluto explorer alone will take about 14-15 hours to print (in three sessions). They are big.

Offline Dr. YoKai

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Re: 1/350 Spaceship designs
« Reply #6 on: December 12, 2020, 11:18:31 PM »
 Really nice combinations of the classical "Space Age" imagery and the genuine hardware. I really like the faired landing leg pods, and yeah, the Leif 'Advanced Ion Engine' is the stuff.  Can't wait to see what you do with the finish.
 

Offline Robomog

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Re: 1/350 Spaceship designs
« Reply #7 on: December 14, 2020, 02:49:36 AM »
Cool designs Frank, how many man hours did it take to produce them ?

Mog
>^-.-^<
Mostly Harmless...............

Offline Frank3k

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Re: 1/350 Spaceship designs
« Reply #8 on: December 14, 2020, 04:18:14 AM »
Cool designs Frank, how many man hours did it take to produce them ?

For both, about 4 hrs each in Rhino3D, which includes going back and redoing parts.

@Dr Yo - I knew you'd recognize the engine!

Offline Robomog

  • ...had a very bad experience with [an] orange...
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Re: 1/350 Spaceship designs
« Reply #9 on: December 14, 2020, 06:04:38 AM »
Hey, pretty good it would take me weeks to achieve something like that !

Mog
>^-.-^<

Mostly Harmless...............

Offline Frank3k

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Re: 1/350 Spaceship designs
« Reply #10 on: January 04, 2021, 09:33:04 AM »
I have the Pluto/Kuiper belt explorer printed (mostly).

The first print is missing the middle ring:


I ran out of ABS-like resin, so I continued printing in Siraya Build, which is a strong, tappable resin. It's also smokey clear:



The middle ring is re-printing right now. This copy has issues, so I taped it in place. The dust is sanding dust. The legs are round styrene tubes - the landing pads and other bits are printed, but they're small and delicate.

I designed both ships in sections, for easier painting and also to get better with 3D printing tolerances. Since the parts are designed to friction fit into each other, I added the gray upper section for a stretched or cargo explorer:




To get a sense of scale, here's a closeup of the two 1/350 scale astronauts at the top, from a long stalled build:



Here are Leif-like engines:



The metallic sheen is pretty cool. I may just leave the engine mostly clear and light it internally.

Back to the original design goal - getting to 500AU in a month would be too close to fantasy... let's make it 10A AU/month. Don't want to make the trip a vacation.

The Mars lander also had one section print poorly, so I'm reprinting it as well.