NASA scale models

[tron1988]

Hello All,

Just wanted to introduce myself, I have recently revisited my childhood hobby of making models and have been actively working on real nasa projects (and some concepts) in 1/72 and 1/24 scale. Having been away for so long it's been an expensive hobby as there are so many new brands and styles available for painting and finishing models. If anyone is interested in learning from my experimentations with paints and hobby supplies. I am happy to share. And most certainly look forward to seeing your works. My first post on Apollo 17 follows. https://www.scalemodeladdict.com/threads/apollo-17-splashdown.16644/

 

[Belugawrx]

Welcome

 

[kevin]

Welcome aboard, I liked you Apollo 17 diorama.
Looking forward to seeing more of your work.

 

[blakeh1]

if you have access to a 3D printer, NASA hosts a bunch of 3D print models

https://nasa3d.arc.nasa.gov/models/printable

Things like Cassini

https://nasa3d.arc.nasa.gov/detail/jpl-cassini

Viking Lander
https://nasa3d.arc.nasa.gov/detail/viking-lander

and even stuff like the Opportunity landing site

https://nasa3d.arc.nasa.gov/detail/OpportunityQR

and Apollo 17 landing site
https://nasa3d.arc.nasa.gov/detail/Apollo17-Landing

 

[Eagle-1]

How y'all are!

Rob.

 

[BarleyBop]

Welcome!
Nice splashdown in the forum!

 

[tron1988]

if you have access to a 3D printer, NASA hosts a bunch of 3D print models

https://nasa3d.arc.nasa.gov/models/printable

Things like Cassini

https://nasa3d.arc.nasa.gov/detail/jpl-cassini

Viking Lander
https://nasa3d.arc.nasa.gov/detail/viking-lander

and even stuff like the Opportunity landing site

https://nasa3d.arc.nasa.gov/detail/OpportunityQR

and Apollo 17 landing site
https://nasa3d.arc.nasa.gov/detail/Apollo17-Landing

Thanks for the link and suggestions as a matter of fact I was able to purchase some printed mats and lunar sites. I would love to buy a resin 3D printer but I don't know if I can successfully print things via software. Do you use one?

 

[blakeh1]

I have one, but have not used it in a year or so

 

[tron1988]

The temptation is to be able to print from so many free and fee based models. But I'm curious if you found it challenging to scale a model and print successfully and if you got a resin or filament printer.

 

[blakeh1]

The temptation is to be able to print from so many free and fee based models. But I'm curious if you found it challenging to scale a model and print successfully and if you got a resin or filament printer.

I have a resin printer

rescaling an stl to print at a specified scale is fairly easy with most slicing software

for example, if I get an stl for a 1/48 scale figure and want to scale it down to 1/72 scale, you can just go into the setting and reduce from 100% to 67% (rounding up)

Basically it would be 48/72 = .666667 or some silly decimal number, but just round to either .66 or .67 or 67% or 66% depending on preference
Therefore slicing (creating the print file) for a 1/48 scale figure at 67% instead of 100% would give you a 1/72 scale figure.
Pretty easy even though it sounds more complicated than it is if your not familiar with creating stls

If the intended scale of the stl is unknown, you will have to first figure out the scale of the model based on the length or height of a part or similar. Just have to be careful to get a measurement of the part, not the stl work area or similar

I find this site very useful for figuring out scaling or converting between scales

https://www.scalemodelersworld.com/online-scale-converter-tool.html