I have been looking for good models of the Thunderbird rescue craft that I did not want to bother to model. Thunderbird 1 and 3 were ones I wanted to model, and thought I could do a good job. However, the curves and nuances of TB2 and TB4 made me not want to go through the trouble. TB5 I could do easily, but I’m not sure I want to.
So recently I found a model of Thunderbird 4 on Thingiverse. But it had some issues.
First, it was solid. I wanted it to be printed in colors. Also, various bits were just thin polygons placed in the mesh, not combined and not closed.
I remodeled those bits, then split the body in half, adding detail, and 3 screw holes to fasten the two body halves together.
All parts
Yellow: Front, rear, engine hoods, fin, nose, lightbar arm.
Red: Stripes and engine housings
Silver: Grill engine inserts
Blue: Windshield and dome
Clear: Lights – raw filament
Adding red engine housing stripes and grills:
Attaching front and rear with 3 screws:
The screws:
Nose stripe:
Nose:
Engines:
Attaching engines:
Adding fin:
Adding light bar:
Windshield and dome:
Clipped filament strands to fit the light fixtures: (Fuzzy picture, sorry.)
Result is rather nice, even though I had to work hard to get the flat bases (where the body halves meet) to print flat. My printer has been warping up things with large flat surface areas. But it’s not a bad model.
Please release your split model files and other improvements; I’d very much like to try.printing this one with a detailed transparent cockpit. BTW, Len Hickman’s TB3 and TB2 models on Thingiverse are really good, if you haven’t tried printing those, I highly recommend them.
I have not yet tried Len’s TB2. I’m thinking it would be a dog to print properly. I made my own TB3 out of 83 separate pieces that displays rather nicely.
http://www.huxter.org/words/?p=1610
Sean.
hi Sean,
would you ever release your files (for a cost)?
Mark
Sorry, I make these for my own fun and while I often release files of original stuff, I don’t release files from other people’s Intellectual Property. Not on purpose anyway (covering my ass in case I have done so in the past by accident or neglect.)
Do you have any tips for making models like these?
Well, modeling tips abound on the internet. I have no special tips or tricks. Since this particular model was found on Thingiverse, and not modeled by me, I simply broke it up into pieces to print it in multiple colors, which looks quite sharp.
Sean.