Dehler 34 Model Boat (1:330)

thingiverse

This is a highly realistic replica of the Dehler 34 sailing yacht, designed by Van de Stadt in 1984. I owned and competed with it for five years, and it was truly exceptional. In order to fine-tune its performance rating, I created a three-dimensional model for running naval technical calculations (hydrostatics, stability, VPP), using lines plans and a laser scan that I conducted. The hull is remarkably accurate, while the deck is not as precise. Although it's more than sufficient for calculating very large angle stability and water ingress, it still falls short. I decided to attempt 3D printing the entire boat in three parts, so that it could be easily printed on most 3D printers with at least a 12x12x12 cm printing volume. I designed the hull and deck using jSDN Designer (a CAD software that I developed over the years), including most of the components. Then, I used Sketchup for some small parts. Finally, I used Meshmixers to divide the boat into three sections. I must acknowledge that the quality of the STL file for the deck is not very good due to the way I modeled it a long time ago. I tried to repair the mesh, but after some time, I realized it was much easier to solve the problem in post-processing (finishing putty, sanding paper, patience). Ba advised that because of this reason, your slicer might produce some gaps in the stern part of the hull (which I filled with putty). Most parts are scaled accurately, except those that cannot be printed with FDM (for example, the winches which are a bit oversized). I believe that the final appearance is quite acceptable. I printed my model on a Da Vinci Jr using white PLA for all the parts but the stand, which I printed in orange-translucent PLA. I have included STL files for all the pieces except the mast and stanchions. I used a 49 cm metal tube with a 6mm diameter as the mast (which passes through the deck and sits on the keel). I also used 15 mm metal nails with a 1mm diameter as stanchions. WARNING: This model is not suitable for RC use without some modifications. The first and most important one is that for appendages to be functional, they must not be to scale. You would need much larger ones.