Thank you all. The Tamiya spray paint is basically a lacquer and dries very fast.
The printer is now almost finished printing the second AC main body. This time I've included the hole for the fan and added interior X-bracing to see if I can control the slight warp.
I painted the hoist today and it looks pretty much like the SketchUp drawing. When I look at this image, there's a couple of slight spots that need addressing and I'm going to give it a light coat of aging liquid so it doesn't look so "shiny new". It just cries out for some electrical wiring, don't you think?
I masked and painted the fan area black so when I paint the fans chrome or aluminum it will look like it's open below. I could also have the print actually open up the areas below the fan on the fan housing and the main box (if I wanted to). Again, the printing gives you so many options it's overwhelming at times. I thought the bottle contained flat black, but after it dried it was semi-gloss black (picture was when it was just painted), so when it dried I shot it with some Dullcoat.
As I mentioned, I will strengthen the roof system and provide a good surface to mount the LED array using some bass wood strips glued solidly to the truss bottoms.
The basswood comes in 24" lengths and I have 40" engine house so I had to splice them. I made a pseudo scarf joint by mitering the ends and sanding to a true 45, and then putting on 1/32" ply splice plates to reinforce the joint. I did this on both sides, and then realized that the glue side had to fit between the trusses. I went back and marked them, cut through the ply and removed the excess piece. Of course the Aleen's glue (plus CA reinforcement) dried and I needed to pry it apart with that trusty plane iron blade. I make their ends and cut the strips to length and then took them outside to paint them the same turquoise I used on the trusses. I had exactly the amount to paint one side of the four pieces and actually ran completely out with one tiny space unpainted that's going to face the wall. Two strips go onto the truss ends and the remainder I spaced evenly between them. It measured at 860mm from each end. I glued them in place with Aleen's and clamped them with my faithful gravity clamps. After dinner I removed all the weight and the is dead straight at very strong. The idea worked perfectly. Tomorrow I'll start installing the lighting.
These strips are overkill. Real roof systems don't have that much mass, but I needed a broad flat surface for the LEDs. These are the kind that I got from eBay that are designed for lighting outdoor signage. They're in series and already wired up with proper drivers. All you do is provide 12 VDC. I'm not sure how many I'll need in each row. They're already equipped with mounting tape on their backs which accounts for the strip width.
All the handling of the massive building broke some glue joints loose on the floor so I regaled them. There's not much gluing surface area especially since some of my thick buttresses are just a bit high and aren't contributing to the glue joint.
Should be all better tomorrow. I also trimmed some more foam from the building site so the side pilasters site below the ground line. I want to be able to landscape up to the structure. Now I have to go into the shop and look at the next part that the machine just gave me.
So the second AC box came out good, but none of the X-bracing printed. Apparently, they weren't solids. The longitudinal brace was disconnected each place there should have been an X-brace. The box still works, but a little warp is still there. I'm going to fix the drawing and see if #3 solves the problem. At least the engine house requires four complete AC units. It's not often that you get the chance to do it over and still need all the parts. And of course I broke off the two delicate door handles.
An interesting thing happened today. You recall that I did that soldering clinic at our local modeling club. A new member in attendance is also a member of the Bowman Airfield Heritage Group. They're tasked with restoring this airfield that's going to celebrate its 100th anniversary. They have a metal model of a Sikorsky S-38 that was part of a commemorative sculpture that had fallen over some years ago wrecking the plane. They tried fixing it four years ago with hot glue and, of course, it was a fiasco. Then he saw what I do and realized I was the person, if anyone, who could salvage the model. It will be for a commission to be determined once I examine the wreckage and see what, if anything, I can do about it. I was very pleased to have his reaction from my clinic. I haven't lost my edge… As they said in "Dory", "Just keep swimming!" Life is definitely cool sometimes.
