5th May 2025
The final day of the Bank Holiday weekend sees us celebrate the 80th Anniversary of VE Day, travel up to the local B&Q for paint and other accessories to redecorate our hall and bedroom (the former completely gutted with new plaster and doors) and then in front of the computer, to start to seriously get to grips with Fusion 360.
Though it makes little sense to me at the moment, learning Fusion and then using those skills to print my own parts is an important step in the development of my hobby and more importantly, my job. With so many uses across a whole spectrum of modelling applications, I see the need to learn 3D design and then printing as a very important stepping stone going forward. From the utilisation of downloadable files that I can print at home though to the creation of my own designs for details and whole knows complete models, I can’t see a future without this technology in place within my workshop.
So today, with the help of my good friend Drewe Manton who is holding my hand though the learning of Fusion and on to the saving of those designs as files that can be used for printing, I’m starting to make progress albeit very slowly. Though I’m a seasoned scratchbuilder over many years, I’m finding it hard to wrap my head around the design of pieces in space on a computer screen, working on X, Y & Z axis that at first made little to no sense at all. I can see the parts in my head, but it’s proving tricky to translate those ideas into images I still see as 2D, rather than the 3D that the program is allowing. I know I’ll get there (after all, modelmaking techniques that I now take for granted were at one time utterly alien to me…) I just have to give it time.
In the morning I’ll return to the screen and see how much further I can get. I now have a live project to work on so that helps, random sketches that I’ve been creating over the last few months being replaced by actual designs that I need to complete, helping to focus my mind and push my skills forward. I’ve also been looking at some future ideas as well, the need to create some small wheels for a trailer that I have in mind, being another interesting and no doubt engaging part of the process. It’s all very much baby steps, but we all have to start somewhere, right?
See you tomorrow.
SPENCER POLLARD'S KIT BOX 
Godspeed, my son….. At 84, with rock-steady hands but wonky eyes, I decided that 3D printing is not a hill I care to die on. I have two 3D printers that will never see resin in my hands, so someone will get a real bargain. The details I need for the rest of my personal modeling career are things I can make using the ancient technique of praying to the gods of Evergreen and making periodic sacrifices of replaceable knife blades to satisfy the dark arts….. Press on, lad…..
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