Architecture

[yellowshark 153]

Hi, well you wanted to see some pics. I am not sure exactly what you wanted to see but here are some. If they generate questions then feel free to ask! This was printed some considerable time ago when I was very much a beginner. The first pic shows the difference! On the left is the original patio area and on the right is the same part that I printed a couple of days ago for comparison. I am sure if I reprinted the apartment block again I would achieve a much better overall quality.

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The next two pics show the completed apartment block; along with a normal sized mouse to give a feeling of size/scale.

The final pic shows the pieces ready for final gluing; there are four parts, plus the roof and patio parts, not shown.

The base (A) was printed separately as part of the effort to avoid really long print times.

On the left (B) is the single story part of the building and as this is easy to glue to the rest of the model I printed it separately.

Then as you can see, the rest of the apartment block was printed as two parts – again to avoid a lengthy print time.

The front wall alone was originally printed as seven or eight separate parts and was probably the main area I was having problems with gluing it together satisfactorily.

Another point to mention is the roof line. I do not know what the architectural term is but you can see (I hope) that there is a stepped lip running all the way around. Originally I printed this as one piece, intending to stick it to the roof line on final assembly. But again this was a part that I found difficult to glue satisfactorily. If I remember rightly I was not sure, with the overhang, how it would print vertically, so printing it separately meant I could print it upside down. In the final print I printed it integrated with the walls, i.e. right way up with the overhang.

I should say that all the walls in the final version were printed vertically. When I originally printed them as a variety of pieces I had considered printing horizontally – it would have reduced the print time considerably. But I did not like the idea of the walls have diagonal lines (from the infill) rather than horizontal lines from the layers, so printing vertically was an early decision I made and which I stuck to.

If I were to print it again I think I would print parts C & D as one piece (in the region of 15-20 hours) to avoid the join lines; I would also probably either print it upside down to get a better roof line, or try printing the stepped roof line on its own again and glue it to the roof which should be a lot easier.

[JohnFox 25]

That's rather impressive.

Were the windows glued into place? What glue did you use?

[yellowshark 153]

Yes, they were glued. The “glass” was made to the same dims. as the window frame and simply glued to the back of the frames. For the square windows, the white walls around the window apertures have a small recess built in on both sides and top & bottom, so the window frame was inserted from the interior side and glued to the recess; this stopped any gaps appearing between the window frame and the wall. I use Revell’s Contacta professional glue, chosen on the basis that Revell has been making plastic kits for decades! It needs the parts to be held in place for 5 minutes or so and seems to cure within a couple of hours or so.