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

[Mjolinor]

Download Cura and take a look. I am not saying it is the best slicer for your needs but it is probably the easiest to have a look at to start with.

[richg99]

Downloaded Cura. and opened my file. Sliced it with Cura, and saved the gcode file.

I told the program that I had a Ultimaker 2, just so it would do something. I presume, from reading the Cura and U2 manuals, that I would now save that file to a SD chip, and put it into the machine and hope for the best. Sounds pretty straight forward, so far.

The resolution that I've seen on some of the sites appears pretty grainy. Is that what you get? Rich

[Mjolinor]

Absolutely it is until you have got to know your printer.

Seriously though there are a lot of ways you can make it better such as sanding or acetone but basically it all depends how much work you want to put into it after it is printed. I tend to not bother, as long as it does the job I need it for then I leave it alone.

[richg99]

Going to a new Makerspace (Spring/The Woodlands, TX-USA) tomorrow to learn more. Glad I found this site. Thanks for all of the help so far. rich

[garyinco]

Going to a new Makerspace (Spring/The Woodlands, TX-USA) tomorrow to learn more. Glad I found this site. Thanks for all of the help so far. rich

I'm not a fan of SketchUp, just not my thing. To me, Blender seems better suited to art forms than precise mechanical objects. A prop is about as precise as you can get. The pitch varies across the length of the blades, unless this is some $10 toy from a convenience store. I know I couldn't even begin to recreate a propellor. ViaCad is a low cost CAD program. I believe they still have a trial version available. The math oriented kid(s) will gravitate toward that, and grab the free version of Blender for the artsy type(s). All will learn important modeling skills and having the printer will be the motivator. And you will thoroughly enjoy having a hobby to really bond with them on.

Buy a different RC vehicle. Go to a hobby shop and tap the experience of people who know what they're talking about. They won't recommend items they can't get parts for. And the object will be functional for more than an hour. Sic(sp?) the kiddos on thingiverse dot com. They will find all kinds of things they want to make. Modeling their own can come a little later.