Model Aircraft

[Darryl Jacobs]

Hi Folks,

I have been a lurker on the mill since 2007, but have not contibuted much to date. I have taken a lot of ideas and concepts and continue to be amazed at what you all accomplish with your skills and machines!!

I thought I would share a bit of what I have done lately with my laser and some CAD skills that I continue to learn!!

Maybe it will draw out some other model makers that are here as well.

Cheers!

Darryl

[David Fairfield]

Outstanding! Are these kits? I especially like your solution for the front end of the engine nacelles. One of the things I find most interesting about the design work for lasering, is making flat materials work in 3 dimensions. Compound curves like those are the ultimate in that sort of designing. Do you have photos of finished models?

Dave

[douglas rubio]

great work, I also cut my 3D parts on laser I sand them and make molds from fiberglass.

[Chris DeGerolamo]

Spruce Goose?

[Frank Corker]

Fab work on the plane there Darryl - very detailed

[Lee DeRaud]

Spruce Goose?Can't be: too many wheels and not enough engines. :p

DeHavilland Otter maybe?

[Darryl Jacobs]

Thanks Guys,

I do my designs in CAD and recently I started designing in 3D using Rhino 4.0 which is a great and esay to use 3D modelling program. This allows for very precise work and then layer in the slices for layering up the solid parts.

I am building up a back log of kits to design and build and plan to have my Model business up and running this winter/spring. I have done a few designs so far and do all my design work from scratch.

The sample here is actually a Bombardier/Dehavilland DHC-8-102 or "Dash 8" regional aircraft. The wingspan will be 72 inches and will fly wiht electric motors. This one will have over 700 lasercut parts to assemble along with strips and sheet Balsa and plywood.

I will post some sample pics of finished models when I get a chance.

Darryl

[Dave Russell Smith]

Nice work Darryl, I'am in the middle of drawing and cutting out a 100" W/S Ugly Stick with a 62cc gas engine thats been laying around the workshop. Not as nice or as detailed as yours but thats going to change on the next project which is a scaled 97" W/S Hawker Typhoon which what my father flew in WW2

[Sergio Arze]

Thanks Guys,

This one will have over 700 lasercut parts to assemble.



Darryl that is one gorgeous plane, I can't wait to see that bird take off.

[Bill Cunningham]

The talent that lurks in the woodwork around here never ceases to amaze me.. Very nice work Darryl

[John Edgar Park]

Darryl, very nice work! I was wondering if you could go into more detail on your Rhino slicing workflow?

Also, do you happen to have a preferred method of exporting curves from Rhino to CorelDraw? I haven't printed directly from Rhino yet, so I'm moving curves over to Corel to send to the laser cutter. Noticed that the beautiful, clean curves in Rhino get lots of added knots when using .ai export. It seems that .dxf is a much neater curve, but seems to weight some points oddly.

Thanks,
John

[Roy Nicholson]

I can't use Corel with my engraver I keep getting conflicts with the drivers and I am using Gravograph's software which is fine but I'd need a .plt file to be able to use it. does Rhono export .plt files.


Regards


Roy N.

[Dan Hintz]

There's a plug-in that allows Rhino v3.0+ to export PLT files.

[Mike Null]

Have you tried to export Corel files as PLT files. X3 will do that and, as I recall, my earlier Corel versions would as well.

If that doesn't work you might try saving the Corel file as a PLT and exporting as a PDF.

[Darryl Jacobs]

Darryl, very nice work! I was wondering if you could go into more detail on your Rhino slicing workflow?



Hi John, I mainly build a solid model in Rhino and then use the section command to create the cross section line(s) that I want and then extrude the lines into a solid using extrude planer curve or extrude surface commands.

I also usually export into either corel or Turbocad to get a good DXF and do some clean up in corel for cutting.

Darryl

[Darryl Jacobs]

John,

Here is a sample of what I mean. I first create a good solid model of the aircraft that I want to build. Then use the shell to create all the bits under it. You have to think of how you want it to be structured and use the shell as the limits of the parts that need to be made and cut. Actually building the solid model is the easy part. creating all the little bits that make up the model is the fun and time consuming part. This is really only worth it if you are planning to build more than one.

Cheers!

Darryl

[Doug Griffith]

Hi John, I mainly build a solid model in Rhino and then use the section command to create the cross section line(s) that I want and then extrude the lines into a solid using extrude planer curve or extrude surface commands.

I also usually export into either corel or Turbocad to get a good DXF and do some clean up in corel for cutting.

Darryl

I use Turbocad quite a bit (actually Shark). One approach is to split the solid where you desire and then convert it to surfaces. Delete the unwanted surfaces which will leave only the surface to be laser cut (the cross-section of the solid). Then convert that surface to curves and export to Illustrator. The resulting .ai file does not have the disconnected lines that a DXF has.

[Jack Burton]

Looks like a Dehavilland Dash 8 to me!

[John Edgar Park]

Thanks, that's very cool. I beta tested Rhino back before 1.0 for about a year and a half, then used it for another six months and haven't touched it since. Just bought 4.0 and I'm loving getting back to Rhino!

[joseph zalewski]

Darrly grat job! I think your kits will be a hit!