Bushnell's Turtle. Revolutionary war submersible. 1:35 3D print

Can you imagine their “slow” putty? :grin:

I love the barnacles - it makes an impossible propulsion job even harder. This is one crackin’ project!

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There. Gnarly.

another pass or two of washes to blend a bit, but otherwise chuffed.

There is, of course probably no reasonable way the actual turtle was in the water long enough to grow a beard, but I’m having fun. Screw reasonable.

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Are you going to finish this in a dio, or with some figures to establish scale, or to give some kind of perspective to size?
:smiley:

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Diorama? Probably not. Tempted to enlarge it to 1/16 and do an interior though.

I’m not sure if it’s immediately apparent in the pictures, but I went back and added some more texture to the barnacles with some Muddy ground diorama stuff. And repainted accordingly.

Also thinking about making the STL files available in some format or another.

Edit: Adding some ring-bolts to the auger/torpedo assembly so I can rig a line between them

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auger attached a given some colour.

propellers tomorrow…

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Wheee. Nearly done. Bunch of tiny, fussy touch-ups to do, and I need to make a stand for him.

Rope is from some twisted 0.3mm lead wire. I really need to serve the ends, but my eyes and fingers said no. For now.

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Been watching your build for a while, I’m totally blown away with the paint finish and those little details like the barnacles.
Looks fantastic!

How do you plan on displaying it? Little base that looks like the bottom of a river?

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When I first started reading this , had no idea it would become such a museum quality masterpiece.

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Just a pedastool/plinth for the time being. I fear that a diorama base would be more work than the model itself, and I have ideas, but I also have other things to do…

wait.

…what would an 18th century shopping trolley look like…?

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Wood. With iron bands and plenty of rivets!

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Okay. I think we are basically done here.

Found a resin plinth in my stash, printed a pedestal and gave the whole lot a quickie wood-grain finish.

The trolley will have to wait. Maybe the 1/16 version.

To Sumarise: Full 3D print (formlabs form3 printer, 0.025mm resolution). Only parts that are not printed are some brass shafts (for strength) and the lead wire line. oh. and some Tamiya quick type putty and some mud effects terrain stuff for the barnacles.

All paint is Acrylic. Not that I don’t ever use other things, like enamels and lacquers, they just weren’t needed this time around.

hmmmm…

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Are you going to be selling these, or do we have to wait for Shapeways?
:smiley:

uhhmmm… thinking selling the files.

Shapeways has its problems, mostly shipping cost related. Still, I’ll investigate that option.

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Okay, current thought: “limited” edition kit. I.e.: limited to selling the number of kits I can be bothered to make. I wouldn’t want to sell anything, or indeed take money for, anything I didn’t actually have on hand.

Other thought: Should I scale it up a bit? Given there are at least two other kits in a similar scale already available should I up it to say… 1:24? Hmmm. Why not both? 1:16? Upping the scale would up the end cost. Gah. Help me out people.

Cost estimate (in $aud) for 1/35 about $80 plus $30ish post.

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carries on regardless…

I think I I scale it up, I’ll ad an interior. Cool thing is there is very little reliable evidence or reference for just about any of this vessel, let alone the inside. What little evidence there is indicates a bench for a seat, two hand operated pumps, a crank for the propeller (possibly both foot pedal operated and hand cranked), a ballast release catch and a foot operated water inlet valve. that’s in the bottom half, anyway.

Started playing the crank and associated foot pedals as the geometry needed to be believable.

A flywheel is also evidenced. Which after the geometry test I figured it’s there to help overcome the pedals jamming when they are in a neural position.

Anyone know what an 18th century bevel gear would look like?

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Bravo Craig - brilliant, inventive, fun - imho the only improvement could be a figure. Bevel gears in the 1770’s rather than cage or worm? Maybe so, honestly I’ve no idea but thought the latter two more likely for that era. :trophy: :tumbler_glass:

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Going with simple cage gears for now. Until someone can tell me different.

Well, this is becoming crowded, complex and claustrophobic.

My inner steampunk approves.

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Which is probably correct. Add a seated figure and any leftover engineering problems are covered up.

Would a printed copy (any size) have the attachments points (not sure the technical term) cleaned up or would that be on the modeler clean up?

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Parts would require clean-up. Cant spend 3 hours per kit doing that for you… I may remove some of the larger supports from bigger parts to save package size and weight. Never the less, I try to keep them to a minimum.

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