1/35 Corrugator, 3D printed

[frank2056]

I needed to make some 1/35 scale corrugated roof panels (8 feet/2.4m long) so I looked up the cross section of a standard panel, traced and scaled it so that the period of the "waves" were correct for 1/35 then made it 2.74"/69.67mm long. I printed the results today in PLA and it worked well enough for my purposes.

The two corrugator parts. The top half aligns the bottom half. It's in bright orange PLA, because that was the free filament that came with the printer and I still haven't used it up:



Two halves together. I had to mark the correct edge, otherwise the corrugations could be 90 degrees out of phase and the aluminum wouldn't get corrugated :



The end view. The curves do line up - the two parts are slightly separated here.

And the results:



The top one was made with with thicker aluminum crafting foil. I don't have a vise, so I had to step on it to get the two halves to meet. The lower example is with kitchen aluminum foil, which was easy to corrugate. I also experimented with running a mechanical pencil over the craft aluminum foil to push it into the corrugations, then squeezed the top half. That worked as well.

I used PLA instead of ABS because I felt PLA would stand up to pressure without deforming.

The panels can be trimmed to size and painted. Not bad for 90 minutes worth of work (about 20 minutes looking up corrugated panels and designing it and an hour to print, plus a few minutes to test.) The kitchen aluminum foil version looks a little deformed because my cat Felix decided to play with it.

[Old Wombat]

Cool!

Any idea how it would go with coffee tin foil? 

[buzzbomb]

Good thinking there Frank. It appears to do exactly what you want it to do.

[NARSES2]

Interesting work. I love the fact that you have used a combination of state of the art technology, 3D printing, and good old fashioned brute force, stepping on the "mould", to get what you want. Human ingenuity at its best 

The kitchen aluminum foil version looks a little deformed because my cat Felix decided to play with it.

Typical moggie, has to get in on the act 

[frank2056]

Thanks, guys.
I've read that cats don't like metal foil, but apparently Felix (and his sisters) haven't read that memo yet.

The various corrugators (or pre-corrugated material) were either more than I wanted to pay or didn't produce the right type of corrugations. I'll get a vise and try it with that. It also works with paper, although not quite as nicely. There are meshed gear type of corrugators that can produce an endless strip of material. You could change the gears and produce corrugations in different scales.

Guy, the regular kitchen aluminum foil I used is 0.02mm - 0.03mm thick and the craft aluminum foil is about 0.12mm thick. I think coffee tin foil is between those two.

[scooter]

 

Thanks, guys.
I've read that cats don't like metal foil, but apparently Felix (and his sisters) haven't read that memo yet.

Our two males run whenever I pull out either parchment paper or tinfoil.  The four girls, on the other hand, could care less.

[Old Wombat]

Guy, the regular kitchen aluminum foil I used is 0.02mm - 0.03mm thick and the craft aluminum foil is about 0.12mm thick. I think coffee tin foil is between those two.

[zenrat]

And that is exactly how Bluescope do it.  Just on a bigger scale.

[frank2056]

I made a new batch of corrugators in 1/35 and 1/72. They have denser infill, so they're heavier and tougher:



The 1/72 is just OK. Using a pencil (and fingernail) on the craft aluminum and on only the lower L shaped corrugator section, I got a pretty good approximation. I used the top corrugator to refine the shape and got this:



Next is a 1/48 version.