[REL] Kriegsmarine Wiz-Wheel templates released!

[Hitman]

Really looks beautiful You built it 100% correctly (At least, 100% correctly to what I made it to be).

I have not yet built mine, now looking forward to doing it after seeing your beautiful job

[Puster Bill]

Originally Posted by jmr

Man that looks awesome. Have you figured out how to use it fully yet?

I've figured out the back, it's basically just a circular slide rule.

As for the front, well, I'm still puzzling that out. I haven't had much time to play with it, as family comes first, especially on Mother's Day.

I have a few guesses as to how it MIGHT work, but at this point I am going to keep my own counsel, for fear of appearing as stupid as I actually am...:hmm:

[Heibges]

Originally Posted by Puster Bill

OK, here is my pitiful attempt at building Hitman's beautiful wheels:






Can't say it enough Hitman: Great job!

Wow! You should start a home based business manufacturing those!

[masterskop]

Hitman,

You're are correct there are 7 files. When I used winrar to unrar them, it only extracted 5 of the 7. I'll have to figure out why the other files did not get extracted.

thanks!

[Puster Bill]

Originally Posted by Heibges

Wow! You should start a home based business manufacturing those!

Meh. It looks better than it actually is. I've noticed that my printer tends to 'drag' a bit when I use cardstock, so that the wheels aren't perfectly round. It doesn't really affect the performance, but it is annoying.

I'd consider it if I could do it using thin sheets of lexan or acrylic.

I've been thinking of printing the wheels on 'sticker' sheets, to be put on plastic or metal wheels, and perhaps gluing the transparencies to appropriately shaped pieces of plastic. That would make a wheel that is durable (providing you laminate them to keep the print from wearing off), and more authentic.

The problem with that scheme is that I never have time to work on stuff like that

It's one thing to print a few sheets out and just cut them and pin them together, and quite another to fabricate the wheels when you don't have the tools (or the skills!) needed.

[XLjedi]

Originally Posted by Puster Bill

OK, here is my pitiful attempt at building Hitman's beautiful wheels:






Can't say it enough Hitman: Great job!

Pitiful you say?

Looks pretty darn good to me!

[ichso]

Nice thingy.
I prefer the version without the swastika. Good that there is one too, so I don't have to mess up what I downloaded

[klh]

Hitman,

Just wanted to say thanks, and to show you the final result. It's really no different than Puster Bill's except for the nut/bolt used for the axle, and I used a thermal laminator (laminated the clear pieces twice for rigidity).

Front:



Back:



Now to practice using it...

[jimmie]

Originally Posted by klh

Hitman,

Just wanted to say thanks, and to show you the final result. It's really no different than Puster Bill's except for the nut/bolt used for the axle, and I used a thermal laminator (laminated the clear pieces twice for rigidity).

Front:



Back:



Now to practice using it...

That's awesome -- and your ship rec book!!

[klh]

Just in case you didn't see this in the forum, I released a handbook on how to use the attack disc. Nothing original, but I tried to put all the information in one place for myself and thought I should share it.

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=126824

[Puster Bill]

Originally Posted by klh

Just in case you didn't see this in the forum, I released a handbook on how to use the attack disc. Nothing original, but I tried to put all the information in one place for myself and thought I should share it.

http://www.subsim.com/radioroom/showthread.php?t=126824

Nice work. Just took a look at it, and learned a trick or two.

[Puster Bill]

OK klh, you inspired me to make another wheel.

My first one (pictured earlier in this thread) used cardstock and transparencies, and I used the self-stick lamination. It works fine, but it did get bent up a bit in my desk drawer.

This time, I did things a little differently.

First, I made it smaller. The new one is 6" in diameter. Being smaller, for a given material thickness it will be more rigid. Also, the smaller size makes it easier to take along. I play on a laptop, so being able to take the wheel along is a big plus.

Secondly, I used an Elmers glue stick to glue an extra piece of cardstock on the back of each wheel. That makes it more rigid, especially now that the main center wheel is 4 sheets of cardstock thick. I laminated each wheel front and back.

Third, instead of just laminating the transparencies twice (once back, once front), I did it four times (twice front, twice back). They came out pretty rigid. Not as much as I would have liked, but acceptable.

I still used the push-pin technique, but I must admit I am pretty much at the limit for that technique: The wheel is now so thick that I couldn't use a pin with the tip cut off. I had to use a pin with the tip intact, and hammer it into a de-pinned head.

I plan on changing that at some point, however. I'm thinking of either doing what you did with a small bolt and a nut, or seeing if a rivet of some kind would work. I haven't made up my mind yet.

It took me roughly an hour and a half to do the whole thing.

When I get a chance, I will post a comparison picture of the old and new wheels.

[Abd_von_Mumit]

Hitman - could it be possible to get the source file containing the curves? It would let me scale it without fear of getting pixel-staircase on some lines (I keep getting them now; softening doesn't help a lot as it causes intolerable blur). I'd really appreciate that.

Also I have some size problems. The inside wheels seem to be a bit too little after printing - they don't fill the gaps in the bigger wheels, leaving like a 1-2 mm free space. I'm not a graphics magician, but I think I've did the scaling in a proper way (all the pics scaled down with the same factor, in both horizontal and vertical dimensions, proportionally).

Any tips?

[Puster Bill]

Originally Posted by Abd_von_Mumit

Hitman - could it be possible to get the source file containing the curves? It would let me scale it without fear of getting pixel-staircase on some lines (I keep getting them now; softening doesn't help a lot as it causes intolerable blur). I'd really appreciate that.

Are you scaling them up, or down? I scaled mine down with no problems.

My original wheel came out to 16 cm in diameter, the new smaller one is about 12.5 cm in diameter. I made a temporary 'pocket version' of the back side (the slide rule/"omnimeter" part, and it was usable (in good light!). I didn't seem to get any aliasing.

Originally Posted by Abd_von_Mumit

Also I have some size problems. The inside wheels seem to be a bit too little after printing - they don't fill the gaps in the bigger wheels, leaving like a 1-2 mm free space. I'm not a graphics magician, but I think I've did the scaling in a proper way (all the pics scaled down with the same factor, in both horizontal and vertical dimensions, proportionally).

Any tips?

That I can't really help you with. I've had the same sort of effect, except that my printer 'drags' ever so slightly with cardstock, so that the wheels are *VERY* slightly out of round. This is less of a problem the smaller I go, of course. It is very annoying and noticeable when I try and make a full size circular slide rule.

My best advice is to either be a little generous in cutting with the scissors, or go ahead and fiddle with the sizes of the inner wheels, scaling them *SLIGHTLY* larger (it won't affect the accuracy).

[Hitman]

Hitman - could it be possible to get the source file containing the curves? It would let me scale it without fear of getting pixel-staircase on some lines (I keep getting them now; softening doesn't help a lot as it causes intolerable blur). I'd really appreciate that.

Also I have some size problems. The inside wheels seem to be a bit too little after printing - they don't fill the gaps in the bigger wheels, leaving like a 1-2 mm free space. I'm not a graphics magician, but I think I've did the scaling in a proper way (all the pics scaled down with the same factor, in both horizontal and vertical dimensions, proportionally).

Any tips?

The sources files is what you have already. I worked using directly the BMP However, rescalling with any decent graphics editing program shouldn't give you bad results. If you don't have one and don't want to buy one, just download a free trial version of Photoshop, it will be OK