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Spitfire cannons


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  • 2 years later...
Posted by Graham R on 18/06/2020 23:01:00:

I know that this is an old thread. Did anything come it as the wr spitfire is on my building board.

You're another one. My WR Spitfire came about 10 days ago and is also on the building board

As for 3D printing in most cases it's more of a faff than it's worth. It's just a case of "I've bought the latest technical gimmick, now what on earth can I do with it?"

EG: I also built the slightly larger TopFlite Spitfire Mk9. I made an excellent pair of cannons from hardwood dowel, which I hand tapered to the correct shape, drilled a hole in the rear end to take 16 gauge piano wire covered with empty ball pen refill tube to give flexibility, fit the brass tubes I put in the wing, and also be removable, in less than an hour excluding painting (grey, silver, and black).

With a 3D printer you could only do the actual 'barrel' part and it would take you hours to just set it up, let alone do it.

It's the same with 'computer aided design' (which, incidentally, was invented many years ago by the US computer corporation I work for in co-operation with Dassault Aviation of France and in which I had a part). It's excellent for massive projects like aircraft and ok for smaller ones like cars.

But for model aircraft it's a total waste of time. I can produce complete and accurate working drawing of any model plane I want at any size I want in about a day, maybe two days for something complicated like a Lancaster, using only a ruler, a set square, french curves compasses, dividers and a pencil.

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Posted by Graham R on 18/06/2020 23:00:02:

I know that this is an old thread. Did anything come it as the wr spitfire is on my building board.

There are a couple of sets of Spitfire cannons on Thingiverse - including one for the Durafly Mk24, which could be scaled easily for the correct scale. They might also need slicing to remove the wing section part and just use the barrels. Not sure how accurate these are, but will give them a dose of looking at when the time comes.

Durafly Spitfire Mk 24 cannons

There is also a much more accurate, complete Hispano cannon assembly on Grabcad, which would probably be overkill in a flying model, but the cannon shrouds would be useful.. I've downloaded them too..

Hispano Cannon

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Posted by Simon Chaddock on 19/06/2020 13:20:00:

Richard Clark 2

You may be able to draw a scale Browning gun barrel but could you then make 8 of them as Tony B did in a reasonable length of time?

3D printing does have its strengths, particularly where multiple copies are required.

That's an excellent point.

At long last I have finally found a file for the RP3 rocket projectile, having been searching for years. My wee Beaufighter needs 8 of these and my 3D printer will be printing them, once I can figure out how to convert the file format into something that I can work with, to get the scaling right.

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Posted by Simon Chaddock on 19/06/2020 13:20:00:

Richard Clark 2

You may be able to draw a scale Browning gun barrel but could you then make 8 of them as Tony B did in a reasonable length of time?

3D printing does have its strengths, particularly where multiple copies are required.

Of course 3D printing has its strengths. But only if you use it enough to (1) justify the purchase price of the printer (2) need enough of whatever it is to justify the setup time if you can't near instantly download a free or very low cost file.

As regarding 'hobby' computer aided design and manufacture in general, over the years on a US RC forum I've seen literally dozens of people starting to design some fancy model using a compurer system. 90% of them get so hung up on the computer stuff that the design never gets finished and the plane never gets built.

I'm not 'anti-tech'. I've spent my whole career at the leading edge of it, fairly successfully. But for some things it is simply not needed.

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Since when does 'need' come into any aspect of a hobby? I'm sure it takes as much skill and is just as involving to produce a 3D printed item as it would be to make one by hand. It's just a different skillset, that's all.

Surprising how many of us were involved in high tech of one sort or another during our working lives. Not so surprising that we should maintain an interest in tech in our leisure activities.

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People are now getting decent results with fully 3D printed aeroplanes, but that isn't my interest in using the 3D printer. For me it's all about the scale parts and it's a replacement for making wooden plugs and vac-forming those detail parts, or making them directly from a variety of materials.

This job of making cannon shrouds for a scale Spitfire looks like the perfect application. I printed a gunsight for my P-51 this morning an am printing a 3D instrument panel for it right now.

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Not sure what size your Spitfire is, but it appears these are in stock in the uk:

https://hobbyking.com/en_us/avios-spitfire-plastic-scale-detailed-parts-mto.html

This one is 1450mm span. I've got one, and have attached the cannon and radio aerials using rare earth magnets glued to the part and its location on the airframe. They hold on firmly, but "unclip" easily for transport and storage, and also in an "incident", without damaging the airframe.

They are cheap enough, and the other parts could be used if the size is right.

On my Typhoon of the same size, sealant nozzles were used, but they are a slightly different shape on that aircraft.

dscn1038.jpg

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Need to justify the cost of a 3D printer - what tosh, as Bob says above since when do we do that for a hobby. If I did that then most, if not all of my camera gear would not have been bought, likewise most of my machining equipment!

Need to justify the setup time, what setup time, unless of course you mean the design time? I’m not CAD / 3D print expert but even I was able to produce a pretty good (if I say so myself) gun sight for my LA-7 in about an hour and the best bit was that the first one was slightly too big, 10 secs later it was rescaled and sent off to the printer.

la-7 gunsight.jpg
fullsizeoutput_1504.jpeg

Oh yes, I also printed the dash, design time 30 mins!

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