Hello everyone, I am Thomas Spinelli, Certified Veterinary Technician of Pennsylvania (animal nurse). I am a person diagnosed with Asperger’s syndrome which is on the Autism spectrum. I have been 3D printing WW2 tanks, armored vehicles, and navy ships for the last 4 years. I currently own two 3D printers, ANYCUBIC Kobra Max and ANYCUBIC Mega Pro. I found Blender with an idea of separating the navy turrets from the main STL model so that they can be printed separate from the model and therefore make them rotatable. I got the navy STL models from a seller named Ghukek. I tried to ask for his guidance on how to pull off this project, but he is currently too busy to do one on one training with me. I was referred from Jonathan Lampel to post on the Blender Artists forum to get help from a variety of people. I also tried CG Fast Track for tutorials, but it does not pertain to what I am trying to do. Mr. Lampel did suggest that the main commands I should focus on are Separate by Selection and Extrude, Scale, and Fill tools. Can anyone please help me with guidance on how to do this:
With the model selected ( as you have shown) ( L mouse button Selects)
enter edit mode ( hit Tab on the Keyboard and select edit)
It should all turn into a wireframe…
De-select everything ( double tap A ) you should have black lines now…
Hover the mouse cursor over the turrets section and hit L on the keyboard…
It may select everything or just a small section if ( as I hope) it selects a part of the turrets, then that is great…continue to hover over parts of the turrets, hitting L till all of it is selected ( YELLOW)
Now Press P, and you should get a pop-up > Separate ( pick By Selection ) and the turrets should turn a blue color…exit edit mode, back to Object Mode…
Now you should have a separate part ( turrets) you can select and export to your slicer…
Get back to me if things work in any different way…
Happy Blending!
I have successfully separated the turrets on the Littorio STL model battleship. Do you have any suggestions on the pegs that can hold the turrets in the empty holes? How can I make o hollow model filled? How can I make the pegs for the turrets fit perfectly in the main ship model?
To remove a hole…select your object…
Enter Edit mode…
Using edge select… hold down Alt+Shift and select an edge of the hole…( it might only select half or a quarter, but that’s OK. just keep holding down Alt + Shift and select the rest…if it does select the Loop ( all the edges, that’s even better ) … Select all the edges of the hole
Once selected, hit X, and select delete Faces…You should now just have the hole on the top surface of your mesh…
Again select all the edges of the hole, and either type Alt+ F, for Fill, or go to Face > Grid Fill
and you have filled the hole…
You don’t want a “perfect fit” but just close, so that shrinkage doesn’t make it difficult or impossible to stick on your parts…ABS has a small shrinkage factor …something like .02%…don’t remember exactly… but is you scale the peg down slightly inside the hole you should be good…
Use Wireframe display and scale the peg to fit inside the hole with a bit of wiggle room…
…
You Might want to work on Just One of the turret types and once done just duplicate it for as many as you need… Personally, I would delete that BAR they are on ( way too thick and just set the print to add an island for them to sit on…)
