How do I make a copy of a small broken rudder off of a tiny airplane model?

I haven't even purchased a 3d printer yet ( I have a few on the "hot "list, though).

The background...

My grandson broke a tiny (less than one inch high) plastic rudder on his airplane.
That part isn't available until OCTOBER 2015 from the manufacturer!

That got the discussion going (again) on whether or not we should buy a 3D printer at this time.

( I was an early investor (not early enough) in both 3DSystems and Stratasys...so I know little bit about the process)

The 3D printer's use would be two-fold. Teach the grandkids ( ages 8-11-13) the new technology AND make a copy of the missing rudder.

The teaching part is obvious. The machine would be housed at Grandpa's house until we got it up and running and we did some initial experimentation and training for the kids. The printer would then be moved to their house for more continuous experimentation and use.

The more practical issue, though, is ....assuming it was legal...how do I take a picture of the broken airplane piece (glued back together); convert that picture into a usable computer format; and what program do I use to convert the picture into a slice-ready image? etc.

I don't want to buy a 3D printer and then be limited to only buying ready-made images and toys over the internet.

Any and all help appreciated. Thank you, Rich

You redraw it yourself compensating for the weak design problem it has that made it break in the first place. There are loads of suitable pieces of free, easy to use, software that will allow you to do this very quickly and any problems can be handled by other people on here no matter what they are.

Post some pictures of it and someone will advise about which software would be most suitable for your immediate needs.

you need to model it in a cad software. there are programs out there to take pictures but this isnt for anything that needs any kind of accuracy. it works for little statues and things like that. other than that though forget it. you need to teach yourself cad and 3d modeling first.

Hi richg99, and welcome.

Do you have either Solidworks ($) or Blender (free) available? An image can be imported and used as a reference to draw a 2D sketch and then turn that into a 3D STL file for printing. I'm more comfortable doing this in Solidworks, but I know it can be done in Blender also (see Youtube vid here). One thing to be careful of is the scaling of the image to real world dimensions.

This technique might be available for the cloud based drawing packages as well, but i'd have to research that to be sure.

haha looks like mjo beat me to it

Thanks for the quick and helpful responses. As far as posting a picture, the broken part is still at my grandson's so I will post it when it get it back over to my house. MIght be a day or two.

Wonder if Sketchup has any place in all of this? I did fool around with Sketchup a few years ago, but didn't have any real projects at the time.

Great idea to modify/re-create the rudder, since two have been lost (due to poor attachment design) in a few weeks. I can re-draw it to work better, I imagine. thanks rich

p.s. I'd appreciate any suggestions as to specific 3D modelling software (free, if possible) to learn on.

Sketch Up is great for your needs. But the more involved and complex assemblies and models would benefit from a full blown CAD package.

I used sketch Up to draw a finger throttle I took a pic imported into sketch Up then scaled it to size traced the outline then made it 3D and printed it.

Pic...... ...

beerdart, thanks,...that sort of thing is exactly where I have to start. I am downloading Sketchup again right now. I will probably need some help as I get going. Hope I can call on all of you. rich