Official FlightLine F4U-1A Corsair 1600mm (63") Wingspan

[Elbee]

davegee

Those prints look good, Dave.

Nicely done, Sir.

Best, LB

[davegee]

Dave,

When I print a part that needs to be as 'perfect' as I can print it, I print it separately and at the shortest layer height.

This might not be new news to you, but using a smaller nozzle size along with the lowest layer height can also improve detail.

Additionally, I print the pilot faces facing up, so I 'cut' the head length wise in Prusa Slicer and lay the parts face up and back of head up as in my photo.

If you're getting 'goobers' on the nozzle during a print the problem is usually a cooling issue.

Your printer should be in a warm 75^o+F draft free area with the presumption your filament is dry and fairly fresh.

Just my $00.02USD, Dave.

Looking forward to seeing your results.

Best as always, Steve

Thanks, Steve. I remember you telling me months ago to "preheat" the bed before printing. My printer is in the basement, and it hadn't been a problem until now, with cold temps outside and dogs going in and out of the door bringing lower temps into the room. I am now using the preheat mode before going into the actual printing, and so far, so good.

I'll attach a photo I just took of an OEM Pete pilot, and two heads, one that I enlarged a bit which is the same size as the Pete head. The body is too small and I am currently printing a larger one that I will see if it is more in the realm of what I need for a final copy. That too small body could still be used on a different smaller scale project someday.

Since Dan's and my planes don't have the cockpit depth detail that you added to yours, we will probably have to "amputate" the legs below the knee to fit them in ok, which should still work out fine. I'm thinking the detail of the parts is really good, certainly better than the Pete models, for now. Once I get the size of pilot I want, Dan and I can refine the details to get the best results we can have. Certainly it will be better than the OEM Pete model!

Appreciate your comments and constructive criticism, always!

Cheers

Davegee

[Elbee]

I've had a little success on the pilots from Grueter. Any problems are due to the print head on my printer goobering up and ruining the print. I'm printing up the head of a pilot right now, and so far it looks to be coming out ok. I'll post any positive parts I get as I proceed and hopefully get a whole body of a pilot that will work. We'll see.

Cheers, gents!

Davegee

Dave,

When I print a part that needs to be as 'perfect' as I can print it, I print it separately and at the shortest layer height.

This might not be new news to you, but using a smaller nozzle size along with the lowest layer height can also improve detail.

Additionally, I print the pilot faces facing up, so I 'cut' the head length wise in Prusa Slicer and lay the parts face up and back of head up as in my photo.

If you're getting 'goobers' on the nozzle during a print the problem is usually a cooling issue.

Your printer should be in a warm 75^o+F draft free area with the presumption your filament is dry and fairly fresh.

Just my $00.02USD, Dave.

Looking forward to seeing your results.

Best as always, Steve

[davegee]

Davegee,

Practice makes perfect. If all else fails, contact the Wizard from Kansas.

I have produced a few parts, some of which are too small. It's a real WAG trying to figure out the scale of these things! I used the OEM head and upper body as a guide, trying to match up the size and then we can go from there. The Grueter models have great detail and should work well, once they are the appropriate size for the model. We can then do some critical sizing and make corrections to things like the arms and come out with something that should be Much better that the Pete OEM pilots.

Here is a photo I just took of where I am in this process. I "think" I might have solved the "goobering effect" by preheating the bed of the printing before attempting to the print. I hope so, anyway. So, I have successfully printed two Grueter heads of different sizes and a body which is too small for this project, but could well work for another smaller scale project. The detail of the Gurueter figures is in a different league that the OEM pilots that come with these kits that we buy. I'm hopeful that once the proper final size of the pilot is derived, we can easily print more for other projects.



Will stay tuned.

Cheers

Davegee

[jetfool]

Davegee,

Practice makes perfect. If all else fails, contact the Wizard from Kansas.

[davegee]

Cool Dave, hold the goobering

It's not an exact science sometimes, unfortunately. You do the exact same thing the same way, and get different, sometimes poor resutls. Right now I'm printing up the head, I'll make several of those, and the body. and attach the arms. There is a lot we can do to cut the pilot down to where he will fit and look realistic and good. I think we can learn a lot from this exercise, especially me!

Will be in touch.

BTW, I printed up a test piece of a scale triangular head rest for the back wall. You're welcome to have it if you like. Just paint it up brown or balck and glue it on!

Cheers

davegee

[Grossman56]

Cool Dave, hold the goobering

[davegee]

Files bought and sent to Dave. Should be interesting!

Grossman56
(Dangerous Dan)

I've had a little success on the pilots from Grueter. Any problems are due to the print head on my printer goobering up and ruining the print. I'm printing up the head of a pilot right now, and so far it looks to be coming out ok. I'll post any positive parts I get as I proceed and hopefully get a whole body of a pilot that will work. We'll see.

Cheers, gents!

Davegee

[Elbee]

Files bought and sent to Dave. Should be interesting!

Grossman56
(Dangerous Dan)

Hey Danger,

If the STL file package won't send to davegee , you could allow him to access your CGTrader account and download those directly.

That would involve allowing passwords, though you can change the password before and after DG gets the download.

If you bought anything, your downloads are limitless unless otherwise stated at purchase.

I have had this difficultly when downloading the STLs to different computers in my home.

Just a suggestion, let me now if I can assist.

Best, LB

[davegee]

Files bought and sent to Dave. Should be interesting!

Grossman56
(Dangerous Dan)

Hi Dan: Haven't been able to find your files yet for the pilot print. Can you resend to my davegianakos510@gmail.com address?

Thanks,

Dave

[Grossman56]

Files bought and sent to Dave. Should be interesting!

Grossman56
(Dangerous Dan)

[jetfool]

Thanks

[Grossman56]

Hey Rex and Steve, I'll PM you my e mail addy as well.

[Grossman56]

We had some e mail problems so I had to change my addy. In the process, I lost Daves addy so I just PM'ed him the new one. As soon as he sends me a message, I'll fire the files over to him.
Should be cool. BTW, they look better at the original size!

Grossman56
(Dangerous Dan)

[jetfool]

Dan,

Your skills are quite good. They don't look bad at all. If you do the Max Grueter pilot, you will probably enjoy it more in your Corsair. Elbee's pilot is outstanding. I need one for mine.

Happy Holiday, Rex

[davegee]

Sounds like a plane Dave.
Meanwhile, I've been doing some painting on my collection of "Porcelain Pete's


Still some more work to do as you can see, but useful tools to get some experience.

Grossman56
(Dangerous Dan)

If you buy the STLs from Max Grueter, once you send them over to me electronically by email or whatever, I think we are ready to try it out. Should be a lot of ability to position the arms, legs, head, etc., to whatever works best for any of these size airplanes. Elbee had a beautiful job making the pilot for his Corsair. I don't know if we can approach that or not, but it's Got to be better than the Porcelain Pete's or whatever else is available!

Cheers

Davegee

[Grossman56]

Sounds like a plane Dave.
Meanwhile, I've been doing some painting on my collection of "Porcelain Pete's


Still some more work to do as you can see, but useful tools to get some experience.

Grossman56
(Dangerous Dan)

[davegee]

Grossman56

Hello Danger,

You had commented some time back about how I had printed Max Grueter's WWII Navy/Marine Pilot.

I ran across a picture of the pilot before final mods.

I think I 'cut' the legs into more parts in Prusa Slicer than the original STLs.

I sized the upper body to look wide enough in the cockpit and sized the lower body to best fit the seat.

There is no real formula for this, I used seat width and then an overall height I needed to fit beneath the sliding canopy.

The Seat Height in the cockpit was my variable as the foam floor was fixed.

Leaning the pilot forward helped with a better fit and actual seating according to most reference pix I have.

I printed the pilot parts with 5% infill to save weight,

I had to carve and fit each piece a little to get arms/hands where I wanted those and used thick CA and epoxy putty to assemble/fill the parts.

Painted the all up weight was around 4 ounces for a full sized pilot, as I recall.

I hope this helps, but let me know if you have any other questions/comments.

Best, Steve

Hey Dan: If you want to purchase the files from Max Grueter, I'd be willing to try to print up a couple of pilots on my printer. Let me know if you want to give it a try. I think it would probably work.

Cheers, and Happy New Year!

Davegee

[jetfool]

Dan

I put that envelope in the hands of the postal worker in our main office, she weighed it, stamped and put it in there out bin. Go figure!
I will make some more and send to you later this week. Just need a little time to come down from the clouds after receiving my New Years present. LOL

Best Regards, Rex

[Grossman56]

Looking great, Dan!

Although I haven’t done it on my Marine Corsair yet, I think the best answer, as far as realism goes, is to remove it. It was 70 pounds of dead weight, and period photos show them removed for their island- based operations in the Pacific.

I was thinking that too. It wasn't until later in the war (post birdcage) that the Marines started serving on A/C carriers so it would make sense. They probably didn't even ship the planes with them, just hoisted them onto the carriers I would think.
Broke down and ordered the salt for the salt trick off Amazon, I'm still thinking of using it on the gear bays, paint them salmon and then Zinc Chromate over top of that using the salt. Will experiment on some cardboard first though.
As for the bushings, I checked the mail a few minutes ago and still nothing. How many Bordellos can there be between here and Indiana??

Grossman56
(Dangerous Dan)