P4Patti

Hi James

I'm glad to hear you're looking at Zbrush. It's an amazing program but as yet I really don't understand all it can do - or even a poofteenth for that matter!! I just poke around with some of the tools trying to get something to happen! Now that I've had a bit of a play I will go back and watch more tutorials as it will mean more now.

That would be really interesting to see what the 3D printer can do. We looked into it at the beginning of the year and even sent off a head file to a rapid prototyper in Sydney but there was a problem with the file - holes or something?? We may have to work together to sort the file out. What size printing can you do or want to do as an experiment? Can you resize the file or would you want us to scale it first?

We looked at 3D printing as I mentioned before investing in the 4th axis. It may be a a few years before 3D printers are affordable for the home office and in the meantime the plaster seems to be working and is really cheap. The stuff we are using is dentist grade as our daughter works for a dentist and we bought a 20kg bag from him. It's ultra smooth and mixes as easily as milk powder, has almost no air bubbles and sets in less than 10 minutes. It's also cheaper than the stuff from the hardware. We recommend it! Actually, I believe there are some 3D printers that work with plaster?

Getting back to your questions about heads and Zbrush - I don't use their starting head. I start with a program called Poser 7 from Smith Micro. It starts with a basic head and body and you can alter all the features to make it look like someone in particular - eventually. You just keep adjusting ie nose width, height, bridge, slope, chin width etc, etc as you refer to a photo. It's kind of like sculpting but you end up with a mesh that you can export as an .obj file. You can then import that into Rhino and do further adjustments where Poser has limits. Also in Rhino we created the cap of Don Goode and fitted it to his head by slicing the head to get an exact fit. Then you can save that and take it into Zbrush where you can do more manipulating. Things like putting creases into the hat (which I haven't done yet) or adding hair, moustaches and detail on clothing. It would be really hard to start from scratch in Zbrush and create a look-a-like person but by combining all three we're getting somewhere! Also in Poser you can "pose" the character so you don't end up with a straight jacketed, stiff, staring straight ahead looking pilot like some tend to be. You can slouch them a bit, twist and turn the neck and head etc to make it more natural.

Let us know how you want the file sent and what size. That would be interesting.

cheers
Patti

jymster

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Patti,

We are using the [link=http://www.3dprinting.com.au/PdfFiles/Z310%20Plus%20consolidated%20v1.pdf]ZPrinter 310[/link]. The build box is 203mm x 254mm x 203mm. But it is possible to create larger objects from multiple parts, and glueing them together. Also, it is possible to scale the object in the ZPrint software, so this is no problem. But if you can send it at the scale you want it would save a step. I need an STL file, with fine teselation. You can email me - [email protected]

Regards,

James.

jymster

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Patti/Richard,

Here is the first test model from the ZPrinter 310. I am quite pleased with the level of detail it has achieved. The printer works by creating 0.1mm layers of a plaster-like powder and then printing onto each layer with a binder solution. Them model is built up, layer by layer, and then must be depowdered and baked for a few hours, before being infiltrated with resin. I guess it is a fairly lengthy process, but if you were going to use it for mass production you would only use it to create the plug and then mould it.

Cheers,

James.

jymster

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I can't wait to give it a coat of primer to really bring out the detail!

P4Patti

WOW James!!!!!!! That looks awesome. I've been meaning to ring you to see how it's coming along and if you were able to use the file. We had to thicken the mesh and it looks like it's worked!

So what is a ZPrinter 310 worth? And what are the costs of the materials to do a plug like the one you have printed?

Richard is getting his head around the 4 axis software. There was some trouble with MADcam but they have sent a fix and it is now up and working and we are cutting another block today. We've made a few changes to the pilot figure, added an emblem to his hat using an alpha in Zbrush. That has lots of potential but the detail depends on the fineness of the mesh it goes onto. We are working on dividing the hat mesh in Rhino. Just so much to learn but all very exciting and huge potential.

On another interesting note, we think we may be able to find the original Don Goode himself! Apparently he is still alive and as he is the one who did the U-Beaut 2 magician noseart on the BF-N Boomerang we'd love to have a yarn with him.

Craig, we bought the book you put us onto - "Beau's, Butchers and Boomerangs" by Damian Waters up in Mareeba. I was browsing through that the other day and in the acknowledgements Damian thanks, amongst others, Don Goode. I emailed Damian and he said he had the pleasure of meeting him and was fit and well when he last spoke to him 5 years ago. He gave me his last known address which ended up not being his but after getting in touch with the previous managers of the unit complex (on the Gold Coast) I found out that another of the pilots from that squadron mentioned in the book is still living there. He is actually away on tour in NSW with his wife but due back tomorrow so I will hopefully be able to speak to him and maybe find out where Don is living now.

I'll keep you informed on that and hopefully we can get to see him and finally get some answers to the mystery of his creation!

We have still been working on the Boomerang by the way We moulded the 3rd part and have layed up the 2 fuse sides. Estimated weight of the moulded fuse from the 2 parts done so far is around 1kg! First side out of the mould was around 380g - untrimmed!

It's our club's warbird weekend this weekend so we hope we'll get to catch up with some of the guys we've been talking to here.

James, can't wait to see a coat of primer on that too!

cheers
PAtti

P4Patti

Woops! Don't know what happened there. I did compress them!

Patti

at-6 texan

how all ways! James an very great job!....[sm=thumbs_up.gif]

jymster

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Patti,

Wow! It is fantastic that you may be able to talk to the man himself. What better research tool can there be?

I think the ZPrinter 310 sells for around US$20,000 new (not sure what is costs locally). I think my mate bought his for around AUD$20,000, second hand including a depowdering station, and a whole bunch of consumables and tools. I have not yet worked out the costings for parts, but will let you know when I crunch the numbers. We are really only interested in seeing what the capabilities of the machine are at the moment, and are not going to run a commercial operation until we sus it all out.

James.

Brad330l

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Patti, the site has been playing up. I had to delete my pictures and reload them in the Spitfire thread as mine were huge as well.

Brad

P4Patti

Hey James

How's the painting coming along? Have you primed it yet? I'm also keen to see the detail, did the teeth come through? They were there on the mesh.

That printer is amazing but too many zero's!! We'll stick with the rotary table, Richard is managing to get his head around the software and is getting it to cut by editing the G-code so progress is being made. When we went from Cut3D to MADcam it was 3 steps back to go 4 steps forward!! I imagine it'd be just the same with the printer - a big learning curve. I wonder if you have as as many half done pieces as we do in the learning process We have just ordered another 20kg bag of plaster, I want to get half a dozen blocks made and drying. We must have cut away 20kg of plaster dust and the shed floor is proof of that. Trouble is we walk half of that into the house [&:] Oh well, if you leave all the doors open hopefully it blows out the other side


cheers
Patti

jymster

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Patti,

Sorry, have not had time to paint it yet. Too busy with work and family stuff over the last few days. I hope to get some primer on to him over the weekend. Yes, his teeth did show through, however as the surface finish is quite grainy they may not show through the paint. We will see. He was actually only the second print I have done! Not bad for only the second print. The first print was one of the standard models included with the printer software.

James.

jymster

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Hi guys, have finally had a chance to get some primer onto Don. I have now sprayed 3 coats, with sanding and etching in between. I think he has come up not too bad. I mainly concentrated on the facial details, and did not worry too much about the torso area, as I presume this would be covered anyway. It would be interesting to see him in full colour.

James.

Oakey

that is just extraordinary!

P4Patti

Agreed! And James it will be incredible to see it painted up in colour too.

We do however have to change the pilot's name! I've discovered that it's not actually Don Goode after all, but instead the Squadron's CO who's name was Eric Cook. I've been having lots of chats and emails with another member of the squadron who flew the Boomers, a delightful 89 y.o. named Tom King from the Gold Coast who is as sharp as a tack. Tom has even asked for this site address so we may even be hearing from him soon. He also has a step son who is building a spitfire so he may even join us too! I did manage to track down Don Goode as well but unfortunately his mind isn't quite as sharp these days although he did remember flying the Boomers and the names of the other guys.

I'm going to start working on a model of Tom so he can fly again. He also flew Corsairs so he'd make a great pilot for that as well. I'm guessing he'd be happy in any of the warbirds tho - as long as it's not German or Jap!!

Keep on keeping on James, it's fantastic!

cheers
Patti

Oakey

Hi Patti that is magnificent that you tracked them down like that!!!!

was Don or Tom able to shed any light on the colours of the U-Beaut 2 or if that is a pair of islands or a bra or ?

shat i cant believe is what clever, talented people like you and james can achieve with the right tools!

cheers

C

P4Patti

Hi Again Everyone

I've heard back from Tom and he's said it's OK for me to post his comments on his experiences with the Boomerang here in public. He was just concerned he would bore us! I'm sure you wont find it boring as Richard and I certainly didn't so here are some extracts from my conversations with Tom .....

the pilot by the Booma is Eric Cooke, the C.O. and NOT Don Goode. Eric Cooke came on to No.4 Sqdn. in New Guinea as C.O. there after his stint in No. 5 at Mareeba, where I and many others did operational training with the Army.


The decal on the fuselage is impressive and brings back
memories - my inclination is that there was no colour in the cartoon and it was just in balck and white - BUT it is a faint memory stirred by seeing your splendid reproduction.

Shall look forward to seeing the finished U-Beaut 2 as I flew it on several occasions along with many other Boomas - they were very reliable and tough on active service, but VERY touchy on the ground; with the short wheel base and wide track they swung very rapidly and badly unless you CONCENTRATED on keeping them straight. They were no good as fighters but splendid as Army
Coop work-horses, with their 2 cannon and 4 machine guns. I would not like to have been on the end of their guns - and we used them quite a lot in action on ground targets. When all fired your airspeed would fall right back from the recoil forces - and if one cannon got a stoppage the aircraft would swing violently into the active cannon, really demonstrating the effect of the recoil. I was one of two flight commanders - A and B were the Flights and I had control of B. Both flights were detatched from H/O so it was like have having one's own small squadron, and being isolated and always right at the front line was exciting. There were many prangs and we had no doctor with the flight, so we relied on the doctors of which ever units we were working with to patch up our pilots - several times it was
American doctors who looked after our people, for we were attached to the Americans for two of their landings - the first at Cape Gloucester on the Western end of New Britain and the 2nd at Tadjii close to Dutch New Guinea and jumping Wewak - both very
interesting and giving our Boomas plenty of work.. I mention all this to confirm you are building a plane that had a good record in action altho' not as a dog fighting plane.

Hope that did not bore you, but it is nice for we veterans to see the Boomas getting some recognition. Thanks for all the info' - I love it!.

I do not think you will have handling troubles with your models unless there is a crosswind, when they could swing very fast.
The main trouble was that pilots did not concentrate INTENTLY on keeping straight in the landing and the swing would start - that's
when poor brakes would not keep the swing under control. The reconstructions all have Mustang wheels and brakes and are much
lighter than the wartime plane, so have no trouble. The first Boomas has the tubes sitting right on the brake drums and so often overheated, sometimes blowing a tyre in the air after takeoff - no fun. That was remedied, but when in New Guinea we received the wrong cyclinder rubbers for the brakes, so one took off with good brakes and had NONE on return, for the rubbers disintergrated on
contact with the wrong synthetic hydraulic oil used. I personally had a few very hairy moments when this happened, but managed to keep it all under control. In fact I only had one prang in 35 years of flying (flying instructor - honourary- for the aero clubs) - that was
very early after graduating when coming back on a wet night in a Fairy Battle with full bomb load (4 250lbers) after hunting for a Jap
submarine out of Evans Head in early 1942. With all the extra weight I approached with a bit of extra speed and with inexperience it was too much and I ran past the end of the flarepath, which was fairly short anyway, and in the pitch blackness ran off the runway and
hit another dispersed Battle. One plane became much needed spares and mine flew again as the bombs did not go off!!!! I was
fined two pounds ten shillings for "poor technique". But it was a good investment for the RAAF for I became a much better pilot.

Great stuff isn't it? If anyone would like to ask specific questions maybe we could pass them on altho he is talking about joining here himself which would be great.

cheers
Patti

jymster

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This is great information Patti. Thanks for sharing it with us.

James.

Oakey

Patti

that is just fantastic stuff! please please pass on our admiration and gratitude to Tom. truely magnificent and someone for all of us to be proud to have had some interaction, if only though you and Richard.

thanks

Craig

Brad330l

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Great stuff!!!!!
Say "hi" to Tom from all of us.

Cheers Mate for all you had to go through.

Brad

P4Patti

I will pass on the comments to Tom, I'm sure he'd be happy to hear that. He's in tremendous health, 89 this December and still driving. In fact, any younger and he'd be dangerous He's just got back from Evans Heads "where there was some marvellous model flying of miniature war birds, despite very difficult conditions of strong wind. Saw jets as well as motor models and was very impressed. All part of a 3 day celebration of the 70th anniversary of the establishment of the big RAAF training base there, where
I spent some 15 months and 700 hours on Fairy Battles - !! That after the Japanese entry into the war stopped my posting to England in December 1941, which lead to my flying Boomerangs in ops against them".


Richard and I have been working on the pilot figure and have now cut a complete "Eric Cooke"! I'm not used to the new name yet. Richard then set to work on Rhino and produced an emblem for the hat which he cut in the negative today using a 0.5mm bit. The plaster was sealed with PVA glue and then used as a press mould for polymer clay. The clay was trimmed and attached to the plaster plug then baked. A silicon mould was made over the plug and then slush cast with Easy Cast. The casting is so quick we are able to turn out a finished piece with fine detail in less than 10 minutes!! The last picture is the sequence - plaster plug, silicon mould and finished casting.

Painting will be the next chapter and no doubt a few learning curves there!

The Boomerang itself has been undergoing lots of engineering of the undercarriage so not a lot of physical work happening. But, Richard has now worked out how to drill holes with MADcam with 4 axis. He has to machine blocks of Delrin using the 4 axis to make mounting blocks for the undercarriage so that it sits at the right angles so that when the wheels are up they fit right up into the wheel arches so the doors can close, and when in the down position, the legs are at the right angle and the plane is the right height off the ground. Been a bit tricky but he hopes to have an MDF mock up of it by the weekend to prove the toolpaths.

We are going to lay up a complete new fuse having learnt a few lessons from the first one. Hopefully we'll get on to that next week.

cheers
Patti

at-6 texan

absolute great Patti... but is an very long work....i don't be sure which i can a do, i things it is an very long hard work...but is all ways fun to see someone to make that.

P4Patti

We've just had a remarkable weekend with a very unexpected visit from Tom King and his wife Beryl. They are two of the most delightful people you'd want to meet. They wanted to escape the Gold Coast for a week while the (ex) Indy race was on as their place is in the middle of it and they barricade the streets off and it's very difficult to get in and out - security passes etc. So, they jumped in the car and drove 5+ hours up to Bargara and rang us on Thursday afternoon to say hi. They took us out for dinner on Thursday and Tom was just busting to get into Richard's shed and see all the building and the Boomerang! They came round Saturday morning and poured over the moulded fuse and the cnc machine, taking photos for Beryl's son - a retired airline pilot - who is building a spitfire.

They were both delighted with the pilot figure of Eric Cooke and Tom was able to shed some light on the U-Beaut 2 nose art for us at last. The thing below the broomstick is indeed a bra. Eric was a bit of a larrikin so the guy who painted the caricature of him had him on the broomstick with the spurs and a bra trailing behind. He's still working, (flying) but obviously liked a drink and the ladies! He said the moustache was just a bit wider and he always had a big grin. Eric unfortunately died in a car accident about 20 years ago.

I've painted the moulded Eric up and made a shirt as the start of a uniform. It's a bit rough as I was just trying out the pattern for size but he's starting to look the part!

Anyway, we then took Tom and Beryl out to our local flying field and Richard fired up the corsair. He even put the Boomerang trainer up on the buddy and gave Tom a go. I think he's hooked as he's now talking about getting a simulator to practice on. Our field is about 20 mins drive and they followed us out as we only have a 2 seater ute. Tom was on our tail at 100 kph all the way! At 89 he still drives like a fighter pilot

He will no doubt be attending some SCAF "do's" once we get the Boomerang flying so hopefully some of you in the south east Qld area will get to meet him too.

What a magic weekend!

cheers
Patti

NCIS

Thats wonderful that at 89 he wants to learn to fly. I'm impressed.

Barry

P4Patti

There's been some progress on the Boomer. We've finally done the lay up in the bottom section and re did the 2 fuse sections but this time left them in the moulds. We bolted the pieces together and joined them in the moulds and hoped like hell we could get it out! I can tell you it was a big relief when it popped out. We now have a fully moulded fuse and the undercarriage fits beautifully. We even got it up on one leg.

Richard has cut the wing bits and built it up so things are progressing.

ticketec

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Hey Patti,

That's looking great!! I would have a look at the engineering on the landing gear, i then the R/H leg might give you some problems on takeoff

The wing ribs look like MDF, so does that mean molded wing too? and was that a speaker i saw in the fuse?

Great progress so far! I would have loved to have seen it up close at the Bundy SCAF event, but maybe the might be another opportunity down the line.

Thanks

dave