Small Sleek Spaceship

thingiverse

**Background** The design for this spaceship was actually inspired by a foil gum wrapper that I'd squished between my index fingers and thumbs of each hand, thus forming the "+" shape from the front. I'd then drawn this spaceship, but was getting a little limited due to not having an actual model. That's what inspired me to design and print this spaceship in 3D. I'd envisioned this ship existing within the Star Wars universe on some planet that produces sleek ships (like Naboo). I also had in mind various engine and weapon configurations with parts cannibalized from other ships, but I haven't modeled those out yet. I may do that someday and update this model. This model can be displayed either on the display stand (the forks hold on to the edge of the engine housing), OR can be displayed standing on its landing gear. The canopy can also be displayed either closed or open. The display stand can be adjusted to display the ship level or angled upward. **Fun fact:** AFTER I'd already gotten about half way through designing this spaceship, I'd stumbled across a real-life German aircraft from the 1940's, the [Lippisch DM-1](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lippisch_DM-1). There are a lot of similarities between the two craft. To the best of my knowledge, I've never seen a picture of the DM-1 until recently and the similarities are purely coincidental. **Extra materials needed** * 1 tube of super glue * 24 3x1mm magnets * 20mm piece of 1.75mm filament * this is used as the pin on the display stand * some steady hands **Printing options** These instructions will assume that you're using an FDM printer. If anybody would like to be a guinea pig and print in resin, please do and post your make. There are a few options when printing some of these pieces. I've cut up the fuselage a few different ways so you can print it in whatever orientation works best for you. The rectangular joint pegs are optional, but can be helpful for getting the pieces aligned when gluing. ***Fuselage*** This can be either printed in right/left halves, front/back halves, top/bottom halves, complete without wings, or complete with wings. If you print it with integrated wings, you obviously won't need to print separate wings. The top fin then attaches with a peg to the top. ***Canopy*** You can either print separate canopy frame and glass, OR print the complete canopy with those 2 pieces integrated together. Print 1 of every part except the following: * canopy halves (outlined above) * I recommend printing it in right-left halves for ease of assembly and to keep the layer lines going the same direction for sheen/texture (assuming FDM printing) * 2x wing (mirror one left-right) * 2x wing_accent (optional, but makes the model look good) * 2x landing_gear_fin_side (mirror one left-right) * 3x cockpit_seat * 2x wing_thruster * 2x torpedo_tip * 5x joint_peg (optional, but helpful) * 2x display stand large fork **Assembly** There's an image for each of the major steps. **Dry fit every piece before gluing!!!** **Fuselage:** Start with the fuselage. Assuming you printed it in halves, it may be handy to use the **engine_intake** and/or **cockpit_floor** pieces to keep the halves aligned when gluing. If the fuselage halves don't match up, you're going to have a bad time. The torpedo tips then go in the small holes on the front of the fuselage underneath the nose. **Magnets on fuselage and cockpit:** In my opinion, gluing the magnets is the hardest part of this whole build. Assemble those at this point just in case any magnets aren't glued in square and so you don't ruin the whole model and have to re-print as much. I learned that the hard way. Ensure you glue in the magnets with the right polarity so the pieces stick to each other properly. ***Pieces that have magnets*** * fuselage along bottom fin * cockpit dashboard * canopy joint * canopy frame OR complete canopy * landing gear base * bottom fin If you would rather have a completely static display model and NOT use magnets, you can always print **magnet_placeholder** instead, which is just a 3mm diameter, 2mm tall cylinder. **Cockpit:** The floor obviously goes in first with the pegs upward. Then glue in the back wall, 3 seats, and dashboard. **Canopy:** Not much to do here. Just put the canopy glass inside the frame (unless you printed out the complete model, in which case this step is eliminated). To display the canopy open, canopy joint attaches onto the dashboard and the frame then attaches to the joint. **Wings:** The wings have a realistic-ish profile, so ensure that matches up with the wing roots when assembling. The small wingtip guns should be on top. Joint pegs go in the rectangular holes, and the wing accents go on next. Lastly the wings themselves. The wing thrusters go underneath the wings. **Engines:** The engine intake goes in the back of the fuselage with the plain flat surface facing backwards. The engine backing goes in next with the open side facing backwards and holes for the engine nozzles at the 12, 4, and 8 o'clock positions. The engine decoration will index onto the small pegs and then the nozzles can go in. **Landing gear:** The leg pieces of the landing gear will fit between the tabs on the base. The pegs on the landing gear will fit into the fin pieces. The landing gear assembly can be swapped out with the bottom fin when the complete model is displayed on the stand. **Display stand:** The bottom of the arm will fit in the holes in the base. The 2 large fork pieces will fit in the outer holes on the fork holder, and then the small fork will fit in the middle hole. Using a plain 20mm piece of 1.75mm filament and the 2 knobs, attach the fork holder to the top of the arm. If you want it to be non-permanent so you can change the angle, don't glue both knobs onto the filament. **Changes** ***3/9/2022:*** Updated files **fuselage_complete** and **fuselage_complete_no_bottom_fin** since the original files had the top/bottom fins in a slightly wrong place.