The hull is finished as a complete object and ready for printing.
After several weeks of work, the hull was ready to be printed. But first I had to worry about the connection between the fuselage sections and also about the stability of the fuselage as a whole later.
I added frames to the fuselage that would later support these fuselage walls. I also made the frames thicker so that the fuselage could be joined later at the frames. Since the hull measured 250mm at its widest point, I had to cut the hull in half lengthways. I also added corresponding longitudinal frames for this.
I made holes in the frames so that the individual sections could later be screwed together. But I kept this as an option for now. Printing began and I let the printer print the first part, the nose tip. To do this, I positioned the used frame or flange on the pressure plate and let the pressure print towards the tip of the bow.
The first print took three days and was also very nice to look at. The motivation for the next parts was great and it went on quickly. After the next parts were finished, the big question was how I could best and most importantly put the parts together stably. I had doubts about gluing the parts and considered thermal merging. I did the same and started to heat up the second sections with a hot air gun until the material was soft in those places. Then I pressed the parts together and maintained the pressure until they finally cooled down. I did this over several sections.
Slight deformations arose and new doubts about the quality of the work arose. The hull was divided into 11 sections. Four of them were already printed. Parts 1-3 had already been put together more or less unattractively in the thermal process - it didn't look as nice as imagined. Part 4 was to follow, but by now I had serious doubts about the correctness of the action. After both halves of the fourth section were finished and I had put them together - this time very handsomely - I looked again at the overall result. I had to realize that the struts that support the outer walls on the upper edge of the hull and the midship strut that runs centrally over the longitudinal axis are both annoying and somehow pointless. There were also the most problems here in terms of deformations when assembling. I started rethinking everything and sat down at the computer and reworked the inside of the hull.
Here are a few pictures of the unsuccessful first attempt at construction. The fourth section became my testing section in choosing the right colors for the ship.
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