OA-61 Counter Widow

[kerick]

Combine the resin cockpit pod and engines with the vac wings and booms? Probably would not need nose weight.

I like that idea. 

But it'd probably need forged titanium landing gear` legs to support the weight.

Even better, use BOTH sets of wings to give it a decent span!   

Three on one side and one on the other!

[Wardukw]

Combine the resin cockpit pod and engines with the vac wings and booms? Probably would not need nose weight.

I like that idea. 

But it'd probably need forged titanium landing gear` legs to support the weight.

Even better, use BOTH sets of wings to give it a decent span!   

Three on one side and one on the other!

Pure Tophe   

[HarryPhishnuts]

Made some progress this week. So far not a bad kit. Couple of minor fit issues. The cockpit was pretty plain so tried to dress it up a bit and add a gunsight for the pilot. Was kinda weird sanding down the rear cockpit canopy to get rid of the raised rails. Since the radar operator isn't there figured the conversion would replace the glass with an aluminum shell. I'll scribe some kind of access hatch on it later.  Also need to scratch build the additional wing pylons but just going to do that out of plastic card.

Question now is trying to decide which wing-tip fuel tank to use. Going through the parts box these seemed the best options. Any thoughts?

[kerick]

Anything in between those two? The big one looks way too big to my eye.

[Wardukw]

Thinking the same thing..left looks to big ..right is to small ..if the right one was longer that would look better .
But yeah ..slightly bigger on the right would balance out nicely then .

[NARSES2]

Anything in between those two? The big one looks way too big to my eye.

Tend to agree.

Could you cut the smaller one in two and lengthen it a little with an insert ?

[HarryPhishnuts]

So making good progress. Kit's come together pretty well, just some minor fit issues here and there. It's kinda heavy with all the weight I had to put in nose to keep it from being a tail-sitter. I'm really impressed with the Mig Ammo Atom paints, I can see buying more of those.

Given the feedback on the tip tanks I tried to fab something up from the spares box and other pieces and parts but nothing really looked right. So I had no other option then to break down and get a 3D printer    .  BTW if the missus asks I'm blaming you guys (even though I have been researching them for the bast 6 months  ). Obviously a bit of a learning curve so probably going to take me a bit longer to wrap this up but at least I'll have lots of interesting options for future Whiffs.

[NARSES2]

Be interesting to see the progress you make with the printer 

[HarryPhishnuts]

So the 3D printer is a game changer. Was much easier to use than I anticipated. Did up the model files in TinkerCad and was easy to then use the BambuStudio software to setup and run the print. Took a couple of tries to figure things out, but pretty satisfied with the results. Just a little bit of Miliput to cleanup the seam on the tanks. I was worried about being able to sand the pieces smooth but that was actually pretty straight forward. Just some 280 grit followed by 800 did the trick.  I've had to put in a lot more work on some F-4 intakes. 

I did a print of the drop tanks, wing tip shims and also the underwing pylons. Glued everything together with some CA. Obviously need to complete the finish work and assembly of gear, weapons, etc... but may actually wrap this up by the weekend.

[NARSES2]

Fascinating to watch the technology come together   

[kitbasher]

Fascinating to watch the technology come together   

Indeed.  I for one would appreciate further insights into your adventures in 3-D Printingworld.

[Old Wombat]

She's starting to look very good! Very good, indeed!  

[HarryPhishnuts]

For those asking about the process, here the video that first got me going down this road. Saw this about a year ago and been noodling on the idea ever since

Now he's using a resin printer which lets you get much more detail but is a bit of a chemistry set that I wanted to avoid as all of this is setup in my basement.

For this build I used a simple web-based CAD program called TinkerCAD. It's actually one my son used last year in a class in middle school. I've done some 2D/3D CAD in a previous life so I was generally familiar with the concepts. Since what I was doing was so simple TinkerCAD worked fine. It's shaped based modeling where you simple select the shape you want and then modify the parameters and them mix and match it with other shapes to get what you want. For more complicated builds I'll probably use another free web based package called OnShape. It's more of a true parametric CAD package.

The printer I got is a filament printer so it doesn't require all the chemicals of a resin based printer. After a bunch of research I chose the BambuLabs A1 Mini. It had a bunch of good reviews as being the best entry-level printer out there and was at a good price at $199. All I had to do was export the model files from TinkerCAD and import them into the BambuLab Studio which is where you setup all the parameters for the printing. There are  A LOT of dials and knobs you can play with here that affect how the print process works but I just kept to the defaults . The printed objects are made up of layers of filament which means that you have to sand them to get a smooth finish. But we're scale modelers so we're used to a lot of sanding and actually it wasn't that bad. The hardest were the wing pylons just because they are so small. Had to do a little bit of shaping on the pylons and drop-tank shims to get them to fit the contours of the wing but again that wasn't a big problem.


My two previous Whiffs that I've posted here, the FV-9A and the F-105(K) both featured structural changes that would have been so much easier if I had this printer at the time. I may actually go back to the FV-9A. I wanted to add a ventral spine (ala A-4 Skyhawk) but I never could fab anything that looked or fit right. That might be a good exercise for taking this to the next level.

[kerick]

This sounds good! The counter Widow is something I've wanted to try for a long time.
The 3D printing is on my list too!

[HarryPhishnuts]

Sorry meant to post screenshots of the TinkerCAD models to give you an idea how the app works.