I was converting Heller’s old DH.89 kit to a Spanish Civil War Republican bomber for the and there were two parts that I couldn’t find. The top and bottom mounted machine guns and the bombs and rack.
From reference photos I could find, it looks like the guns were Vickers Type F (WW1 era) and British Cooper bombs and rack from a Sopwith Camel (also WW1 era). Looking around for free or even paid models I couldn’t find what I needed, so it looked like I would have to model them myself.
The machine gun:
Given this was going to be 1/72 and the guns would be pretty small I figured I could just get it close. Using free model downloads and Blender I kitbashed the body of an air-cooled Vickers, a barrel from a 1919 heavy MG and a magazine from a Lewis gun along with some basic geometric primitives to create this:
For the bombs and rack, Brassin made a 1/48 scale version and I used this a guide.
The bomb is a modification of a standard British bomb and the rack is just made from geometric primitives.
It took a few tries to get the scale correct and make sure supports worked but here is the final result:
And painted and ready to install:
Has anyone else had to create these models?
I’m always open to suggestions to improve my process, so I look forward to hearing any thoughts.
I’m not sure if this should be a separate topic, but one of the Biplanes and Rigged Airplanes campaign build members also asked me about the 3D printing process I used, so I wanted to include some details about what I’m using and suggestions for someone interested in starting out.
This is pretty much my printing process:
For equipment about 2 years ago I spent a little less than $300 to get a Mars 3 Pro and the Mercury Washing/Curing station and some resin. For about the same price today you can get the newer Mars 4.
Also, since I usually am looking for obscure things that generally aren’t available for free or even paid, I’ve been using Blender to create (really just modify) exisiting free models.
Here are some links to basic modelling tutorials for Blender: