IAR-81C, 1/48 scale kit

It's my last achievement. More photos here:
IAR-81C

Hope you enjoy it!

Very nice!

Gorgeous! Congratulations, you're a true artist!

awesome

Mark my words: the future in scale models belongs to 3D printers.
These printers were at least 13000 dollars about 4...5 years ago. Back then there were few companies producing this, most notable one from Germany.

Now the 3D printers manufacturers are more than 10, and the prices dropped as low as below 500 dollars (of course, for those with lowest volume and quality). But even some better 3D printers are now available for about 1500 dollars.
The materials got more and more diversified - most often ABS or nylon, but also plastics as transparent as glass are available.
There is various software available: Autodesk 123D, FreeCAD, "blender", Tinkercad, 3DTin, Autodesk Maya etc. etc. etc.
The best known to you is AutoCAD. At the end of design, the file in each of these programs have to be transferred / exported into "stl" format.

Personally I am still willing to wait for a while - let say a couple of years. Not only because the prices will keep dropping, but also because the technology is still not mature: the designers of these 3D printers ares still in the test and trial era.

Printers are indeed getting cheaper and better, and that is indeed a good thing. But that is just like saying that Gibsons and Marshalls are getting cheaper and we will all be like Jimmy Hendrix. Having the tool is not enough. The "material" to print is the most important thing. Models need to be designed first. I have been doing "solid modelling" design using Rhino (also for models) for the last two years and trust me it is not easy. It is not cheap either, software is expensive, computers that can run it are expensive, learning takes a long (precious) time.

My fear is that 3D printing will have the same effect on models as youtube had on music or film. There is some genius stuff out there but the overwhelming majority of the other stuff is mediocre at best, consisting mostly of pirated/stolen stuff, poor imitations and various "cocalari" and "manele".. So, similarly, 3D printers will only allow the creation of a tiny minority of fantastic stuff in a sea of rubbish.

Many people have computers, but few use it to create and most use it to "consume" other people's creations. So, in a similat way, many believe that in the future you will go to some kind of iTunes, buy and download a model and then print it. But we are wery far from that. The "consumer" models (that are proliferating these days) are not good enough and the truly fine printers are still too expensive.

Radu

I was thinking too of all you have mentioned.
Including what I am quoting here.
As a proof that I thought about it, I spotted two big problems, which will make non-profitable the selling of this software:

1. Once a 3D model is bought as software, how many models is the user allowed to create, how can he / she be checked ?
2. How can you stop the buyer to also give the software to the friend next door, that may produce his (her) own flotilla ?
I guess the printers will have to be fitted with software to "feel" how many times a model is created, and from what source.

Like on YouTube: one minute after you had uploaded your video, they already recognize what music you had used as background, and somebody already claims copyright for that music (even if it is from Vivaldi that died about 300 years ago and was recorded about 1000 times in about 30 countries).

This post has been edited by Florin on August 15, 2014 01:30 pm

Those are "moral issues" but thankfully they are limited. Music still sells despite piracy, shops still function despite shoplifters.
But the problems with 3D printing are of a technical nature. The "consumer printers" that melt a plastic filament and deposit it in layers are not fine enough for scale models and the "price per model" is still high. The professional grade printers can produce very fine work but the "price per print" is very very high, we are talking thousands of euro per model. The printers may become cheaper in the future, but the actual printing material will still be expensive - think of inkjet printers: they can give them to you for free because they make their money with the ink. Trust me, these guys will make sure that the consumables will be as expensive as gold. And there is one further issue: the 3D printed material is significatly weaker than plastic, it has more or less the consistency and strength of eggshell.
At any rate injected-plastic models, pound-for-pound, will always be cheaper and 3D printing will never replace them.
Radu

Fantastic work Scorpio!

Radu,

I am very well aware that 3D printing has no chance to match the cost and speed of the classic plastic injection molding technologies.
As a coincidence, as a very young engineer I had designed few dozen pieces to be made of ABS, polyethylene and poly-amide, and the benefit for me was to understand the basics and the economics of injection molding.

Returning to 3D printing, they will be an excellent tool for prototypes. Their real value will not be in copying the good old Me-109 or IAR-80. That is only an optional collateral. Their value will be in making real our ideas and imagination.
They will transform the dream confined in our mind into a real object that others can see.

This post has been edited by Florin on August 19, 2014 07:11 pm

Ah well, multi-axis milling machines could do this kind of "solid prototyping" based on CAD data for the last few decades, and they still do it today cheaper than 3D printing.
Radu