Ornithopter - Dune

Jon Fincher
That looks amazing! Is the design yours? Looking forward to seeing more of it!

Robin (WhiteGlint)
First parts printed. And some cleaning done.
I wanted to get the the wings out of the way at first because I thought they would make the most problems printing. And they did.
This aircraft hast eight wings which are made up of two parts each. Which makes sixteen thin parts in total...

Some of them are a bit warped. Not sure what I will do. I'll take another look once they are glued together and primed. If it isn't too bad I'll just keep them. Printing them is a real pain. 😄

It will take a few more rounds of cleaning. The surface should be pretty flat, as long as it glossy there is still residue on it.

Dash Rendar
Ohhh, very interesting project. I am following with great interest. 😄

Torsten
This already looks very promising, I am curious how it goes on

Robert Podkoński
Wow! I am in, definitely! 😉

Thomas Espe
This looks very interesting, following.

Dietmar Bogatzki
taking a seat, very interesting

Pierre Pierre
following

Michał Karczewski
I bought same digital model. Hope so to make it in 1/72 scale.

Robin (WhiteGlint)
Hi, welcome everyone. 🙂

@Jon: No, it is not my design. As Michał already pointed out, I bought it too.
Source is here: gambody.com/3d-models/ornithopter-dune
You can get optimised .stl files for both fff/fdm and dlp/sla printers. The resin ones are often smaller and use less parts.

@ Michał: Keep in mind that the wingspan would be around one metre. I hope you have enough space. 😄

As I said, I am not so happy with the wings as they are warped. Maybe I should have placed more supports attached to the sides. That could have stabilized them, maybe...
I hope to straighten them out a bit without breaking them.

S M
following!

Robin (WhiteGlint)
Welcome mate. 🙂

Had to reprint the outer half of the wings as they were pretty warped and not usable.
New ones were placed with a lot more supports which worked much better.

Also did a test print with clear resin for the windows which worked pretty good. The clear resin is pretty soft and seems to deform easily when not handled carefully. So I will print some more of the clear parts to have spares ready.
Only the joints to move the wings are missing now. I will print them this weekend, but work on the interior can already begin.

Pictures will follow soon.

Brandon H
Following!

Thomas Bischoff
I am in too 👍

David R. Meizoso
Big fan of Ornithopters since I read the novel, and this rendition looks amazing. I'm also following!

Hanno Kleinecke
These copters looked real cool in the movie, great subject, checkin' in

JD
✋🤩🤚

Stephan H.
taking a seat! Good luck with the next steps 👍

Ben M
Watchig

Robin (WhiteGlint)
Take a seat mates, you're very welcome. 🙂
I painted to cockpit and assembled parts of the fuselage.
The tail is pretty warped. I already printed it twice but it is still not okay. A third attempt with different orientation of the part is necessary.

The windows are not so clear anymore. Maybe because of the not so clean soapy water I used for cleaning. Luckily I planned to reprint the parts anyways 😄
No joints printed yet, didn't feel like starting the printer this weekend but there is other work that can be done in the meantime.
The fuselage requires some filling and sanding as some parts are a bit deformed.
Reason for that may be the sun shining through the window on my printers. I learned my lesson and am closing the curtains when using the printer.
Hope to fix it with filling and sanding, otherwise reprinting is necessary.

Ben M
Really enjoying this build. I have faced many of the same problems (warped prints, sunlight affecting printer, and that decision - do I sand and fill this part of spend another 10 hours trying to print it again)

Nathan Dempsey
Nice work. Following 👀

Robin (WhiteGlint)
Welcome Nathan. Thank you 🙂

@Ben Yeah, there's a lot to learn and do wrong with 3d printing. But it offers just endless possibilites to this hobby. It's just plain fun.
The sun's also the reason why I probably need to reprint the body parts of my ED-209 as they are very deformed on two locations.
But they needed so much resin that I'll try to fill and sand it first.

Initially I planned to display the Ornithopter with wings folded or partially unfolded on the ground. Right now I am considering to display it flying low over a sand dune. But that depends on the amount of space this will really take.

MS K
I'm in too!! ❂‿❂

JD
Youtube Video

Robin (WhiteGlint)
Welcome Mr. Spiegel 😄
Yeah JD, the movie was just great. I'll need to watch it again and read the books, too.
There were some scenes I didn't really understand and the books should shine some light on these.

JD
It was an awesome movie worth watching several times, the ornithopters were Excellent, but they left a lot of the story to the imagination unless you've seen the original and the fan edits with lots of added narration explaining everything, or read any of the books.. What's up with those Harkonnans? That's one creepy death cult man! Looking forward to the sequel.

Rui
I experienced the books long ago and even got the encyclopedia. The whole story is really complex, interwoven, and spans many lifetimes; it beautiful in a way. It's too bad the 80's film was so terrible. This version however, was great and I am looking forward to more. The ornithopters were very creative and you can see how they must have really studied helicopters and other aviation to creat something plausible.

Rui
Forgot to mention that given the complexity of the Dune universe. there is simply no way to adequately poetry it in a move of only a few hours. Just to tell the story, without ambiguity, of the first book would probably be a 9-12 hour movie LOL.

In fact, this first movie is only the first half of the Dune. The next movie can't really be called a sequel because it's actually part two of the book. However, I will not be surprised if the stretch that out as well have the book span three movies... and then spin-offs of course for the other books.

Robin (WhiteGlint)
I guess that is true, Rui. Movies should not be too long, either. Every medium has its pros and cons.
In any case I am looking forward to Part 2.
I hope to be in printing mood this weekend to test out the wing joints.

Some more cleanup of the wing sockets is necessary, too. Until now I had no luck with working movable parts of resin printed model kits.
When building my Battlemechs everything broke when I tried to attach arms and legs.

Robin (WhiteGlint)
More parts printed and first test fits of wings can begin soon. Hopefully they can be moved easily bit still hold their position somehow.
Otherwise I fear breaking something when handling the 'thopter.

New tail was also printed today and this time it is finally straight.

Łukasz Gliński
Wow, that's an incredible project 😮 Hats off!

Robin (WhiteGlint)
Thanks Łukasz. 🙂
This one is not very easy for me but it is a lot of fun.

Tail attached, filled and sanded but I'll have to reprint the wing joints. I screwed them up cleaning and test fitting.
They break very easily. 🙁

I rewatched some scenes with Ornithopters in it and saw one Harkonnen 'Thopter with some kind of gun which I liked very much.
Maybe I'll scratchbuild somethin similar instead of using the standard one of the Atreides 'Thopter.

Wings still need their cleanup.

Robin (WhiteGlint)
Dryfitting the first wing. Parts don't seem to fit very good.
Maybe my cleanup is not good enough but these little parts break very easily...

Printed the wing socket parts twice, so I have 8 spares of each part. 😄 I hope no additional reprinting will be necessary.
I am going to fix the socket first and hope I can still make some adjustments to their positioning.
The wings can only be fixed as the last step if I want to display it flying (not diving) because the wingspan is too large for my spraying booth. Some more experiments are also necessary to get somewhat clear windows without any yellowing or visible print layers.

Tom ...
Amazing WhiteGlint! I spit in your honor. following!

Robin (WhiteGlint)
Thanks Tom, welcome aboard. Your offering of precious water is much appreciated. 🙂

Wing sockets are a bit troubling. I glued the first one to the body but it didn't exactly set the way I wanted it to be.

Finding the right position for these parts before fixing everything will not be easy. I need to find a way to fix the stuff temporarily in place to check if it looks the way I want but I do not have enough arms. 😄
Instead of super glue I'll try two-part epoxy putty for the next one. It takes longer to cure and might help with correct alignment of all wings.

Youtube Video

Studying some slow motion videos of dragonflies right now, in the hope to get a good position for the wings of the 'Thopters inflight presentation.
Fascinating little creatures. I think I'll need to build another Ornithopter after this one.
There are also STL files for the smaller Ornithopter seen in the Dune movie but I'll either wait for the Harkonnen one or kitbash myself a custom one.

Neil
Wow! Very impressed and super cool 😎👍

S M
Wow indeed! XO It is huge!

Glenn
Interesting project! Must watch the movie. Looks more like a new Star Wars movie than the boring old Dune movie.

Brandon H
That's coming together really nicely!

Robin (WhiteGlint)
Thank you very much mates.
Some progress was made on this one.
I did some tests with the clear parts but I am not happy yet. While I got some nice parts it is not as clear as I want it to be.

So more experimenting is necessary. I will print some more clear canopy parts and try to figure that stuff out on the weekend, hopefully.
Either I did some mistake with the supports and removed them to early or the clear coat was too thick.

Marius
Very, very impressive! Following with great interest!

Łukasz Gliński
What if you'd seal the clear parts with UV-cut varnish? Perhaps that could help?
Not sure what you picked for the clear parts, but remember the polyurethane gets foggy/milky with time, regardless of UV (late Zvezda canopies are the infamous case)

Robin (WhiteGlint)
For sealing I used Vallejo's 26.650 polyurethane gloss varnish, Łukasz.
Would suck for it to get foggy, I used it on some models before I switched to Tamiya Acrylics.
What do you mean with UV-cut? Is there another type of varnish?

Łukasz Gliński
Yeah, I know of Gunze only, perhaps there are other too:
GX112 Super Clear III UV Cut, Mr. Color Gloss, Lacquer, 18ml
GX113 Super Clear III UV Cut Flat, Mr. Color Matt, Lacquer, 18ml

Robin (WhiteGlint)
Thank you.👍
I never used Lacquer paints but I heard that Lacquer based leveling thinners are great, even with Tamiya Acrylics. Might be worth to try out both.

Anything to look out for when working with Lacquer?

Can you dip the parts just in it or is some thinning required?
The Vallejo PU varnish was pretty thick, almost like honey.

Łukasz Gliński
Well, never thought of dipping anything in it, they become aggressive when you use too thick layers. However they don't melt styrene the Alclad way.
I use them for some time now and my recommendations are:
- use lots of thin layers
- use yellow levelling thinner if available, so even if you spray too much it will get smooth after all
- never ever interfere with enamels unless you want to end up with sth similar to my Cobra chopper 😉
- get good ventilation upfront.
They dry quickly, the gloss varnish is really glass-like and they are very durable/sandable.
PS. The UV-cut ones seem to be more aggressive than the others.

Robin (WhiteGlint)
Thank you for the tipps.
So it's best to keep the windows open in addition to my spraying booth, in order to get a draught.
I can not blow the air out of the window directly from the booth. Not possible for me.
I will add some Gunze Lacquer to my next order. Gotta support the local and global scale model industry anyways. 😉

Today I got a crazy new idea and I can still squeeze something in my stash, so it is not full yet. Time to go shopping.

Łukasz Gliński
Just a small correction - I meant polyethylene up there few posts ago.

Robin (WhiteGlint)
I think I am done with this one. Just waiting for better weather for some pictures outside.
Glueing it on top of that acrylic rod may not have been the best idea. I'll see if it breaks. A resin model is much heavier than I expected.

Simon Nagorsnik
Fantastic work with your 3d printer 👍
You have created a very fascinating object!
And yes, I think everyone would be happy about some better pictures;)

Robin (WhiteGlint)
Hmm... I just realised it is missing its landing gear.... 😭
Sorry guys.
Crap. And now it is on that rod. Maybe I can still add it. The final photo session still needs to be done. Back to in progress. xD

I was so happy about finally attaching its wings that I totally forgot.
Edit: thank you, Simon. 🙂

Ben M
Looks cool!!!!

Greg Baker
Oh, this is neat!

Torsten
Impressive work with an exciting template, turned out very, very nice 😎

S M
That's so huge! Great work!👍

Nathan Dempsey
Came out great! It is much larger than I thought.

Ben M
When you build the next one you should make the wings flap

Tom ...
Epic build! Great work!

Robin (WhiteGlint)
Thank you very much, mates.
Your positive feedback makes me very happy. 🙂
It bugs me that I am a bit of a scatterbrain, though. Need to work on that.

Weather forecast does not sound too sunny this weekend but I hope to take some photos in natural light soon. This thing needs to be handled carefully and needs quite some space.

MS K
Beautiful wings. Very nice~ 👍

Robin (WhiteGlint)
Thanks 🙂
Got some more pictures, though it was overcast again.
The wings are really beginning to droop under their own weight, let's hope they won't break.