Oolite Bulletins

http://www.shapeways.com/model/286229/





A four piece kit to assemble a 1:1000 scale model of a Police Viper.

Time to go varnish, prime and paint...

1:1000 Oolite Scale or RL(tm) scale?

Fab looking model. Well done.

I think you should do a range of Christmas Crackers...

(Or Monopoly...)

(Moonopoly?)

DaddyHoggy wrote:

1:1000 Oolite Scale or RL(tm) scale?

Fab looking model. Well done.

I think you should do a range of Christmas Crackers...

(Or Monopoly...)

(Moonopoly?)

aegidian already has Oolite Ship Miniatures on Shapeways, 1:5000 scale for boardgame, but I'd bet they'd fit in christmas crakers too

Nice one aegidian, spotted the Viper on the Spapeways forums!

excellent.
how do you do the "kit" aspect - do you have to model it like that or does Shapeways cut it up itself?

Killer Wolf wrote:

excellent.
how do you do the "kit" aspect - do you have to model it like that or does Shapeways cut it up itself?

Thank you.

To keep the prices down, you have to keep the volume to a minimum, which means making these as thin shells rather than solid bodies. I could do that and then just leave a small hole (for the SLS support material to be removed from), but I like the idea of these as simple 'Airfix'-style kits, so it's me who slices them into sections to be glued together later.

One difference from an injection moulded kit though, is that you don't need sprues to hold all the parts together, so those can be eliminated. And you can make more complex, concave shapes than injection moulding would allow.

So the process is one of greebling, hollowing, slicing, and adding ridges to hold the joints when glued. Then aligning the parts to be printed so that any discrepancies in the printing process (for example where there might be small variations in scaling along the main axes) will be compensated for.

Now I come to think about it, it's more complex than it feels when I'm doing it.

You’re going to need to step up your game. ;-)

They're doing some good stuff at Soton, Cranfield (because of the overlap in Aeronautics) has always considered them "the enemy". (I did mention to work that we have as many cool toys at work as Soton and could just as easily appear on the Gadget Show as Soton, but, alas, fell pretty much on closed minds)

Coincidently, my home town is Southampton & my ex-wife went to Cranfield back in the days when I used to play Elite on the good ole BBC... its a small world.

btw the plane they made... 7 days from desing start to first flight, awesome stuff.
When are we going to see aegidian's creations fly? A bit of weight in the right place and a rubberband catapult launch might work

Giles, your shop is filled with visual delights. I love your dice designs.

Do you have any tips on how to design a model kit in such a way to output it as cheaply as possible?

Selezen wrote:

Giles, your shop is filled with visual delights. I love your dice designs.

Thank you very much!

Selezen wrote:

Do you have any tips on how to design a model kit in such a way to output it as cheaply as possible?

Sure. The key factor is the volume of the finished model: volume == price!

The first thing is to hollow out the model as much as possible, leaving a skin that is as thin as the material you're using will allow. I generally allow a 1mm thickness. The hollowed out area doesn't need any detail, so I usually do this before any extra details are added to the outside of the model. Then divide up the model and greeble away...

Cool, thanks for the advice.

One more thing - do you split the model into its component parts then arrange it as if it's on a sprue before submitting it to Shapeways?

Selezen wrote:

One more thing - do you split the model into its component parts then arrange it as if it's on a sprue before submitting it to Shapeways?

Personally, I try to stack the parts together into as small a bounding volume as possible, while also trying to keep them all oriented the same way (because there can be minor variations in scale along some axes and the printer operator gets to decide which way your final models oriented when it's printed.) Plus, if you can get the bounding volume small enough there's purportedly a density discount with some materials, so I try to make it a habit.