Benan Watchtower

[Lupus]

Yeah oddly enough your spot on as well its the look i was thinking of

Though even madder idea if you made some with higher style spire roof's you could call them Elven

Not that i advocate the colelcting and fighting with elves by the way, anything that ahs Dragon's in its army cannot be classed as the Good Guys no matter what the PR says.

[Brandlin]

Yeah oddly enough your spot on as well its the look i was thinking of

Though even madder idea if you made some with higher style spire roof's you could call them Elven

Not that i advocate the colelcting and fighting with elves by the way, anything that ahs Dragon's in its army cannot be classed as the Good Guys no matter what the PR says.

Elves? Pixie-fiddlers the lot of them!!!

So i guess you want steeper pitched roofs, with plenty of tracery and latticework, and high arched narrow doors and windows???

You're one of them that is never gonna be happy with what you're offered aren't you?

[Lupus]

LOL, no not really i guess i'm one of those that see's a simple idea and then goes what if

I don't play eleves at all, so the idea was simply one of those i wonder what if statement's

[Brandlin]

2D geometry complete!

teaser pics... bigger pics and more discussion on my blog.

hoping to have prototypes cut next week (along with the stockade walls) and pre-orders open by 2nd August.

[Dewbakuk]

Cool, they look good.

[Lupus]

Very nice, i've always wished i could create something in CAD for design purpose..

[Brandlin]

and an animated view

http://brandlin.blogspot.com/2010/07/benan-wattchtower-3d-view.html

[Brandlin]

I have decided to release the 3D CAD files of the kits I make. This will allow customers to download the model, and see how they go together. You will also be able to plan your own layouts and such like.

Each of these files is a Sketch-Up version 7 file. Sketch-Up is a completely free 3D CAD program from Google, It is by far the most intuitive 3D CAD program I've ever used, and I thoroughly recommend its use.

I'll do this as a trial, and I'll add the remaining files if there is positive feedback.

So, go to my blog and download the file, and you can play with it to your heart's content. I'd love to see what you come up with.

[Dewbakuk]

Heh, I was literally about to open Sketchup to plan out a board build so I'll have a play with this too


Edit: Can we have the wall too? Then I can look at doing a complex Any reason you didn't just put it into the Google warehouse?

[Brandlin]

Heh, I was literally about to open Sketchup to plan out a board build so I'll have a play with this too


Edit: Can we have the wall too? Then I can look at doing a complex Any reason you didn't just put it into the Google warehouse?

erm partly because I don't know how to do that??? 

i'd like your comments on the model though and if i should warehousing it elsewhere, some guidance would be appreciated

[Dewbakuk]

erm partly because I don't know how to do that??? 

i'd like your comments on the model though and if i should warehousing it elsewhere, some guidance would be appreciated

Google's 3D Warehouse is a useful way to share models and builds through Sketchup. On the far right of the toolbar are two buttons that look like opened packing boxes. One has an arrow pointing upwards and one has the arrow pointing down. If you click the arrow down button it opens the warehouse search engine and you can search/browse the items people have uploaded and download them into your 'work area'. As an example, if you search for my user name you'll get the egyptian board pieces I built for last years BLAM. The real advantage of doing it that way is that I can easily pop models into designs I'm currently working on (although you always have to pay attention to scale) rather than opening multiple single files and copying from them.

The 'arrow up' button uploads your model into the warehouse, you sign into Google and add description/tags to the model so people can find it. You can also create 'collections' so that all the relevant models can be found easily.

The model looks good to me (the 'read only' file is a bit of a niggle though ). Component sections are created sensibly and allow for easy manipulation. I like having access to the file as it lets me look at construction and distances in full 3D. It has raised a slight question though, the door piece is only 0.5mm thick due to the engraving in the 1mm plasticard and there is a 3mm (approx) gap between it and the B&J tub. Is there a risk of tearing through handling etc or is it not an issue due to flex in the plastic?

[Brandlin]

Thanks for the info Dewbakuk. I shall give it a try now.  I don't know why the file I previously uploaded was read only - it wasn't intentional.

As to your comments on the model itself. There is no 0.5mm sheet in this kit, its all 1mm stock. The door is in fact made from a 1mm sheet with the door recess cut in it and a 1mm thick engraved door piece cemented behind it so its plenty rigid enough.

There isn't a 3mm gap between the tub and the styrene. Remember that the styrene is square edged and its joining a curved surface so you'll find that the inside edge meets pretty well, but the outside edge of the styrene looks as though it doesn't meet the tub as it curves away. Thats also the reason the beams on the wall connecting pieces look too long, they are designed to help give more glue surface area to the tub.

One of the issues with using the household rubbish items as a base for the models is that they do vary. Not enormously, and certainly not enough to affect the physical model, but I've found variances of =/- 0.2mm in diameter - which becomes over 1mm in circumference, and this starts to be noticable. So its not worth worrying about tolerances tighter than this in the model.  Also styrene itself is pretty forgiving - a little sandpaper helps tight joins, and styrene cement will help bridge small gaps in joins (0.5mm) as the plastic melts and welds together.

[Brandlin]

Debakuk - all i get when trying to upload to the 3d warehouse is a 401 unauthorised error.

Trying to upload from the google sketch-up 3d warehouse website just gets me an error that says it'll only accept .kmz files but i want to share the original .skp file....

any ideas?

[Dewbakuk]

Are you trying to upload it as a file? I've just opened the file in Sketchup and hit the upload button in sketchup. It took it straight in. If you have a look it should be there. Obviously I'll pull it back down again as it's not mine but it's there at the moment.

The 0.5mm reference was to the engraved areas. I admit I just assumed that the engraving took out 50% of the material, it could be less? On the Sketchup file there is a 2.7mm gap between the door and the B&J tub, I'll happily accept that it's not there on a built model as tolerences on a computer are somewhat exacting.

[Brandlin]

yup i can see your copy of the watchtower - i even rated it !

however all i get is a timer that stops at about 30% complete and then a new window with 401 unauthorised in it.

google frustrates me like this at times - the clear uncluttered style is great when it works but as soon as something doesn't work straightforwardly you get no sodding help or guidance.



As to the gap in the model? It looks like you are talking about the distance immediately behind the door to the outer edge of the tub - that's not supposed to meet!

The only engraving on this model is to put in things like the plank edges and other straight shallow simple lines. It's not possible to engarve styrene to remove large volumes of material as heat dissipation issues simply give you a molten pool of styrene.  There are no 0.5mm thick sections on this model. If you have a look in the outliner at the "walljoinplain assembly #1" component (the name made sense at the time) and look at the parts that make up that component, you'll see its all made from laminated 1mm thick sheets, so the whole thing is very rigid.