Hi Folks, I've had yet another batty idea banging around the brain this morning, and I had to get this out on to paper. I'm curious to see what people think.

See, I would love a way to simultaneously display and carry a couple select ships. And what I've been toying with is the idea of a cube, built to support a ships base and the ship itself, with two sides covered in clear acrylic. Then, on either side, rare earth magnets so you can daisy chain a few together, and presto, you've got a hangar.

Basically it needs to look awesome, be really sturdy, and be nice and cosy for a ship.

I doodled this out poorly and quickly to give a better idea of what I mean. Think it's doable? Any ideas for things that might be neat to include?

Love the idea!

You just have to check the shape of the ships: probably you will need a higher/wider box to store b-wing or arc-170, but the concept is great!

2 minutes ago, Shinren said:

Love the idea!

You just have to check the shape of the ships: probably you will need a higher/wider box to store b-wing or arc-170, but the concept is great!

yea I'm kinda thinking for optimum fit you'd need to be able to use different backs for different ships. Right now my goal is to get it to work for phantoms and bombers, and think further ahead if I can get something I'm happy with.

I like the idea a lot! In other miniatures games I've dreamed of having a storage/travel/display case to carry an army in with some terrain and such.

I've also been thinking how nice it would be to have ships already on their bases while stored. It would take up lots of space but save on set up time.

You could make a larger hanger that would fit 3~5 ships and not have to worry about magnets but being modular is cool.

Hmmm... Now I'm picturing a battle of Yavin style rebel hangar version of this with a few T-65's and a Y-Wing. Maybe a couple R2 units driving around or one of those pilot tram things....

Nice and all. But from experience anything printed is going to have a really hard time making the railings and beam towers in that scale with any sort of strength.

It would probably be possible to do display pieces, but not transport.

This is great!

"This will make a fine addition to my collection."

Will you make even international shipping?

I'm from Italy and will absolutely get a pair of those.

I don't think you'd get the fidelity for the detail you want in the image from an FDM printer, honestly. Certainly not for that trussing unless you had an immaculately calibrated machine running an incredibly fine profile. Even then, the striations would be very evident.

What I would suggest is to approach it somewhat differently. If you can imagine a suitable design that has most of it's detail in vertical/diagonal relief, rather than horizontal or with gaps (like the trussing or bridges), then you can print one copy at as high a resolution as you can manage (this will take time. A lot of time...), then finish it to a nice smooth exterior with some filing, trimming, and sanding (some Smooth On XTC also helps with those striations), you can essentially use this as your master buck. Cast it in silicon with the base facing up and you can get a simple one-piece mold of the unit. Use that to knock out further copies at a much faster pace than printing them. Make 4 or 5 variations in detail of the same modular concept and you can have all your hangers looking nicely varied. It also means you can use materials that will give you a much more durable result, both in terms of heat tolerance (I've seen some printed items warp after being left in a hot car several times) and in terms of physical impacts on both the hangers and what they contain (PLA plastic from an FDM printer isn't stellar on the lateral shock strength. ABS is better, but comes with it's own issues in terms of printing, and the same downsides in finish due to FDM).

Of course, you could go with SLS printing and get all of that detail in position first time, but there's two major issues there too. Firstly, SLS printing can be **** pricey, not to mention harder to find somewhere that will actually have an SLS printer. Secondly, SLS prints, by their nature, aren't particularly strong. They're great for getting detail, but the finer the detail the weaker the point. An SLS printer could print exactly what you've drawn (and drawn beautifully, may I add), but those trusses would snap off in a stiff breeze.

I love how you describe that drawing as a 'poor doodle'. I'd give vital body organs to be able to sketch like that.

Take my $$$

9 hours ago, Ralgon said:

Nice and all. But from experience anything printed is going to have a really hard time making the railings and beam towers in that scale with any sort of strength.

It would probably be possible to do display pieces, but not transport.

Yes, strength is an issue. I'm thinking to maximise strength I will need a 4-part enclosure. The trusses I may need to be casting, but I'd like to avoid that if possible. As long as the more intricate bits are secured on either end, I may be able to get things secure enough it remains useful for storage.

10 hours ago, BenBot said:

I like the idea a lot! In other miniatures games I've dreamed of having a storage/travel/display case to carry an army in with some terrain and such.

I've also been thinking how nice it would be to have ships already on their bases while stored. It would take up lots of space but save on set up time.

You could make a larger hanger that would fit 3~5 ships and not have to worry about magnets but being modular is cool.

Hmmm... Now I'm picturing a battle of Yavin style rebel hangar version of this with a few T-65's and a Y-Wing. Maybe a couple R2 units driving around or one of those pilot tram things....

yea, I think remaining modular will best ensure I can have flexibility. But strength is extremely important. Basically of the whole "Strength, detail, cost" thing where you can only have two, I'm picking strength and detail.

8 hours ago, Arma Quattro said:

Will you make even international shipping?

I'm from Italy and will absolutely get a pair of those.

I'm going to prototype it, and go from there. If the prototype works, I'll have a good look at what's possible.

8 hours ago, NakedDex said:

I don't think you'd get the fidelity for the detail you want in the image from an FDM printer, honestly. Certainly not for that trussing unless you had an immaculately calibrated machine running an incredibly fine profile. Even then, the striations would be very evident.

What I would suggest is to approach it somewhat differently. If you can imagine a suitable design that has most of it's detail in vertical/diagonal relief, rather than horizontal or with gaps (like the trussing or bridges), then you can print one copy at as high a resolution as you can manage (this will take time. A lot of time...), then finish it to a nice smooth exterior with some filing, trimming, and sanding (some Smooth On XTC also helps with those striations), you can essentially use this as your master buck. Cast it in silicon with the base facing up and you can get a simple one-piece mold of the unit. Use that to knock out further copies at a much faster pace than printing them. Make 4 or 5 variations in detail of the same modular concept and you can have all your hangers looking nicely varied. It also means you can use materials that will give you a much more durable result, both in terms of heat tolerance (I've seen some printed items warp after being left in a hot car several times) and in terms of physical impacts on both the hangers and what they contain (PLA plastic from an FDM printer isn't stellar on the lateral shock strength. ABS is better, but comes with it's own issues in terms of printing, and the same downsides in finish due to FDM).

Of course, you could go with SLS printing and get all of that detail in position first time, but there's two major issues there too. Firstly, SLS printing can be **** pricey, not to mention harder to find somewhere that will actually have an SLS printer. Secondly, SLS prints, by their nature, aren't particularly strong. They're great for getting detail, but the finer the detail the weaker the point. An SLS printer could print exactly what you've drawn (and drawn beautifully, may I add), but those trusses would snap off in a stiff breeze.

Yea I was thinking that I would go for SLS printing then casting, or possibly Acrylate. See the tricky thing is having a design that maximises strength, but the nice thing is it's a hangar. Everything in there should look like its built for strength anyways. Thanks for the good writeup, I'll keep all of these things in mind. Casting would be good but has it's own host of issues, namely labour involved. The thing I like about the 3d printing is I can iterate the design until it's pretty rock steady, and I've done casting before so was wanting to try something completely new.

8 hours ago, Dr Zoidberg said:

I love how you describe that drawing as a 'poor doodle'. I'd give vital body organs to be able to sketch like that.

haha, well, I cheated by using an isometric view to keep angles easy, then scribbled things out. It wouldn't pass any design class, put it that way.

Usually, I don't like these newfangled things and Cassie's. But THAT? Yeah okay I'm down.

13 hours ago, citruscannon said:

Any ideas for things that might be neat to include?

I would make the base and the walls separate. That way you could have 3 ships alongside each other (in any order) and then magnetize the walls on to whatever you are carrying around.

-throws current storage system into a fire-

Yeah, so... there's been an accident and I need a new storage solution for my ships.

When will these be ready? XD

Just now, John Rainbow said:

I would make the base and the walls separate. That way you could have 3 ships alongside each other (in any order) and then magnetize the walls on to whatever you are carrying around.

Yea, good plan. Easy to add in, I was thinking the following, based on some of the early 3D modelling:

The actual hangar would be a 2-part assembly: of a floor/baseholder printed separately from a backing wall. These would be epoxy glued after printing. This would be given lots of diagonal support between the two pieces (hangar trusses, etc.) so it would be a strong unit.

Then magnets on *both* sides, so that you can stick a wall on either end of your hangar. Would let you mix and match floors, backing walls before glueing, but still allow some major reallocation based on how it physically looks in person.

Might I suggest an interference fit joint for the walls, rather than glue? It's a smidgen harder to manage in terms of tolerance, but it has a few advantages; primarily in impact/shock strength, repairability, and - what seems like a goal here - easy customisation for mix-and-match. You can even add glue to the joint if you want.

In regards to casting, I think it's the best way to make multiples of these by far. However, it is unquestionably the worst imaginable way to iterate, so I totally agree with doing as much as possible in SLS until you get your final points ready. Once there, you could make up say 3 of each unique iteration and start casting in batches really easily and quickly. Once the mold is made, it's actually a lot cheaper per unit than the printing would be when you factored in power and time (most people just see the material cost).

I like the idea of having the floor and walls separate, too. Not only does it make it easier to customise, it also makes it massively easier to produce.

I just found Harry Barker's posts. He makes some amazing modified X-Wing ships and also these cool display/terrain pieces that seem relevant.

i like this idea. I think it could work very well for the small ships. Maybe large ships later on down the line. One thing, maybe some magnets on the top back of the box as well so you could stack them would make it a little more appealing in case of carrying big lists for epic or something.

Kinda makes you wish those Micro-Machines packs with all the figurines were still being produced doesn't it?

Love this idea. I have a sprawling storage solution but I'd LOVE diorama pieces for storage.

11 hours ago, BenBot said:

I just found Harry Barker's posts. He makes some amazing modified X-Wing ships and also these cool display/terrain pieces that seem relevant.

That's SLS printed, judging by the granularity and curves on those buttresses. Looks **** nice too. One of the best things about SLS printing is that it doesn't require support when printing overhangs and gaps like that. Very pretty.

Superb concept, and if happily buy a couple for my favourites to put on display properly !

So here's some early models of the internal frame to support the lateral magnets. I've gone with effectively half a base width on either size, so the whole thing is about the size of a large base, which should have me covered for width for the vast majority of the ships, if not all. I'm not sure if this is too large, if it looks a little too big once the walls go in (which will eat up about a quarter base width) I'll shrink it. I want these to be nice compact interesting cubes,

Not the platform will look thinner than it would in real life, vertically, as the detail plate with the hanger accessories hasn't been added, and I'm going to put a strength frame and a set of nubs on the bottom, which will raise the height a little.

Although it can be changed, I'm currently planning for three 1/4" round magnets to hold the frame to the next one. I'm contemplating some kind of additional support, not sure yet.
Phantom model I borrowed and modified a smidge for size from Sketchfab.

See-through to the frame:

and closed up:

and here's the front, relative to the overall height of the cube. I've kept the tolerances for the fit of the base very low (0.4mm) which will likely be bumped up a bit before I print this, but apparently 0.2mm error is the required tolerance for the printer I'm using. I'd like the ships to be *almost* snug.

I expect tiny articulated ground crew soon.

On 9/9/2017 at 6:19 AM, NakedDex said:

What I would suggest is to approach it somewhat differently. If you can imagine a suitable design that has most of it's detail in vertical/diagonal relief, rather than horizontal or with gaps (like the trussing or bridges),

Couldn'tyou also make most of the detail horizontal, and print it rotated 90 degrees?