So last year I was asked if I could make something, the answer of course was yes, but I had just no idea how difficult it was going to be. Starting with scaling issues, to “How much detail is enough”, to failed prints of epic proportions, to power outages, surgery, recovery from surgery, various printing problems, various paint problems like the weather not letting things setup nor giving me enough sun light to cure this almost 3 foot long monster print… it has been a challenge but it’s over and packaged up and ready to head to its new home.
Back about the middle of last year I started on this as a retirement for a friend of a friends husband. He told me he needed a Nimitz class carrier with the persons name on the flight deck and some aircraft. So I set about making the model and finally got a shape I was happy with with just enough detail that you could tell what it was and not so much as to take away from the name. I then found some suitable low poly aircraft that fit my needs and scaled them to fit on the deck where needed.
In the gallery below, you can see some of the failed first prints, the assembly, painting, etc.. It has not been easy by any sense of the word and there’s a million things I would do differently if I had to do it over again.
Originally the lettering for the name was supposed to be white, after getting the deck painted and some white on the letters it quickly became apparent that the name would not stand out much from the black and white deck even after some impromptu weather affects were added to the deck. That led me to go with the color of the jersey and/or vest worn by this gentleman on deck but then it became way to bright so I had to tone it down with some dry-brushing and blurring/blending of the edges to make the name stand out but not be so loud. Again, so many things that I had to learn on the fly.
To my knowledge this is the first and only 3D printed carrier of this size and the only tribute completely 3D printed like this. I used the Peopoly Phenom with Siraya Tech Simple ( 70% ) and Siraya Tech Tenacious ( 30% ) for the print. The print itself took just over 6 days to complete. As I said, this started in the middle of last year and and has been ongoing almost daily except when I was out for my surgery and recovery.
While I would love to do more things like this, I would first have to do some more experimenting with techniques and tricks to get things just right. The printer and resin were perfect for this project, it’s just everything that impacted those two that created problems to start with. Did you know that a space heater can cause failed prints by the power draw causing the lights in the printer to not shine as bright thus not curing that layer(s) properly ??? I didn’t until this project.
Quick rundown of numbers:
- Time to Print ( including failures ): 34 days
- Resin Cost ( including failures ): $178.40
- Glue and Glazing Putty: $45.00
- Paints: $76.00
- Time to Complete: Approximately 7 months
- Shipping and Handling: +/- $125.00
- Conclusion: All said and done she weighed in at just about 9 pounds !!!
Anyhow, here’s the gallery, hope you enjoy, and to the people who commissioned this, thanks for the chance to help a fellow serviceman retire.
Since this is a personalized gift I opted to blur out his name to protect the innocent and because I’m not sure he would want his name blasted across the interwebs like that.
And yes, my work area is a disaster presently. I have to organize things now that this project is finished and done. Little bits of sandpaper, used up brushes, empty paint bottles, couple of snack bags, etc.. I have a whole new shelf I need to bring in the house that I wish I had before I started this because it would have made protecting this a LOT easier not to mention having a bigger area to work on it. That little cart it’s sitting on in the pics with the pink towel, it hung over by 4 inches on both sides. So yeah, no dissing the room at the moment.
About the U.S.S. Carl Vinson –
USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) is the United States Navy’s third Nimitz-class supercarrier. She is named for Carl Vinson (1883-1981), a congressman from Georgia, in recognition of his contributions to the U.S. Navy. The ship was launched during Vinson’s lifetime in 1980, undertook her maiden voyage in 1983, and underwent refueling and overhaul between 2005 and 2009.
Besides deployments in Operation Desert Strike, Operation Iraqi Freedom, Operation Southern Watch, and Operation Enduring Freedom, Carl Vinson has been involved in a number of notable events. The body of Osama bin Laden ( there is a red tie down on the deck marking the spot where his bloody body was set on the deck at first ) was buried at sea in 2011 from the deck of Carl Vinson, and that same year, on Veterans Day, she played host to the first NCAA basketball game on an aircraft carrier, between North Carolina and Michigan State.
| General characteristics | |
|---|---|
| Class and type | Nimitz-class aircraft carrier |
| Displacement | 101,300 long tons (113,500 short tons) |
| Length | Overall: 1,092 feet (332.8 m) Waterline: 1,040 feet (317.0 m) |
| Beam | Overall: 252 ft (76.8 m) Waterline: 134 ft (40.8 m) |
| Draft | Maximum navigational: 37 feet (11.3 m) Limit: 41 feet (12.5 m) |
| Propulsion | 2 × Westinghouse A4W nuclear reactors (HEU 93.5%) 4 × steam turbines 4 × shafts 260,000 shp (194 MW) |
| Speed | 30+ knots (56+ km/h; 35+ mph) |
| Range | Unlimited distance; 20–25 years |
| Complement | Ship’s company: 3,532 Air wing: 2,480 |
| Crew | 6,012 |
| Sensors and processing systems | AN/SPS-48E 3-D air search radar AN/SPS-49(V)5 2-D air search radar AN/SPQ-9B target acquisition radar AN/SPN-46 air traffic control radars AN/SPN-43C air traffic control radar AN/SPN-41 landing aid radars 4 × Mk 91 NSSM guidance systems 4 × Mk 95 radars |
| Electronic warfare & decoys | AN/SLQ-32A(V)4 Countermeasures suite SLQ-25A Nixie Torpedo Countermeasures |
| Armament | 2 × Mk 57 Mod3 Sea Sparrow 2 × RIM-116 Rolling Airframe Missile 3 × Phalanx CIWS |
| Armor | Unknown |
| Aircraft carried | 90 fixed wing and helicopters |
