Posted on 07/23/2023 1:28:48 PM PDT by Macho MAGA Man
Some plastic pieces for vintage jeep simply don’t exist and I am not a sheet metal guy to make equivalents.
The saga of the military dash as of Friday convinced me.
When I turned it for powder coating, I asked for some kind of glovebox insert to be made. The aftermarket military dash doesn’t have one I can find. I went with the military dash for a few reasons.
After months of them being backed up with so many big jobs and the order getting screwed up a couple of times , I got the invoices for the latest pieces recently.
The math seemed a little low knowing what they charge for making things but maybe they cut me a break. It’s happened before since I do a fair amount of business with them.
No insert made. Somehow it just didn’t register with them. I am very used to this in getting things for vintage jeep sometimes. I also said when I turned it in if making something was too much trouble then don’t bother. I talked to the head metal guy a few times and it seemed no big deal to him.
Oh well.
If that’s my worst experience with them, it is trivial. I could live without it.
3d printing popped in my head on the way home.
At least I would have a reason to starting how on learning.
I’d need a fair amount of training on how to run that thing.
The machinist at work makes all kinds of stuff with the unit he has.
Sometimes setting up a part is more time consuming than the machining process.
“Nobody would pay $15,000 for a toy.....”
Have you ever heard of Ferraris, Corvettes, Lamborghinis, or Bugattis?
$15k is what rims cost on some of those cars. And they can’t even tow a boat.
Which is crazy. You can get a fairly newish Ducati for that, and have twice the fun.
If you are lucky, maybe someone out there already has the blueprint you need. If not, I am sure there is someone on here that has a good CAD program that could make it for you (you would need to supply the measurements)..
More than likely someone has done it.
The chief engineer at work is really big on 3d printing and he is always learning more about it.
Classic cars often lose money.
Not true it’s a billion dollar business because so many never go down in prices.
Go ahead and price them world wide.
The demand is strong
They ain’t three foot long toys...
I’ve had 2 Corvettes...A 78 Silver Anniversary Vette and a 79 convertible Vette...
Huge difference between a 3 foot long toy you set in your living room to talk about and a car you drive where ever you want to go....
I see them as turbochargers, scooping up hydrogen to help fuel the matter/antimatter reaction.
CC
bkmk
Well according to the guy who wrote the Star Trek technical manuals, they’re Bussard ramscoops for fueling the impulse engines, but of course he was just coming up with whatever fake science he thought would make a plausible explanation for them. I don’t think Gene Roddenberry himself had any idea what they did, other than looking neat. What I would have done, however, is call them “warp field projectors”, because warp drive requires space-time to be manipulated in very specific ways, and there needs to be something to do that. And also part of the warp engines. And it seems sufficiently sciency-sounding.
I looked up free CAD software and saw several candidates.
Guess get some installed and see if I can figure something out.
I can always get great chief engineer pal at work for advice and such. I like to learn and do things for myself.
Some assembly required?
Can I take it home in my AMC Pacer
If there was a steady market for models, I imagine a few of the best could develop processes for working on several models at once, meeting demand and setting prices based on what features in a model the customers want.
I think there are some folks that make a living or good side-hustle doing props and costuming. Especially for Star Wars. Star Trek I don’t is quite there, but that is personal opinion from limited observation. I youtube has superlative Star Wars costuming. Star Trek overall is, IMHO, not quite as good.
There’s a garage in Indiana that got the license to build TV-show-era Batmobiles. I think those are six-digit cars. If they can do it and the market will bear it, someone will meet the demand to build ‘Trek models for fans.
I have them. Pay attention. I’m not talking about 1930s millionaires cars. I’m talking about 50s 60s and 70s muscle cars. You know the cool ones
I saw that guy in Indiana that built the Adam West batmobile. The thing has actual automatic firing guns that are recessed/retractable in the doors. And a working parachute that’s retractable.
Have a look at what this guy is doing. Ironic is that the article came out today by the Washington Post.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/07/23/scale-model-uss-enterprise/
Mike Nevitt’s five-year mission is to go where no man has gone before and build a detailed 1:25-scale model of the USS Enterprise from the original “Star Trek” TV series.
“The model will be 40 feet long and 11 feet high,” Mike said the other day on a Zoom call from Denmark, where the 59-year-old lives. “So it’s actually the biggest in the world.”
I could be wrong about this but those triangle shapes on the underside of the saucer section were supposed to be where the landing feet were housed. When Star Trek was in the planning stages the idea was that the saucer section would detach and land on each planet visited. They soon realized this would cost huge to film and then came up with the energizer idea instead which obviously was way cheaper to do. So those triangle patches are a remnant of the original idea for how Star Trek was gonna work.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.