I have been working on the Container ship project which I started in October 2016 and the last post on the project appeared in July 2017. Click on the links below to start at the beginning of the story.
The project stalled while I contemplated building a truss that ties the two ends together, the cockpit section at the front and an engine section at the rear with a number of containers hanging under the truss. I was considering brass tube at the time but some 8mm diameter, 1 metre long steel tubes, four to a package, appeared in my local ALDI supermarket at a cheap price which I thought would be ideal for making the truss. I purchased all they had in my store and at another nearby ALDI store to get enough for the project. That tube stock then sat around for some years as I needed a system of holding the tubes together at the right angles and at the right dimensions. I also needed a method to fishmouth the tube ends where they join to other tubes. More on that later.
Just recently I re-evaluated the project and decided that I didn't think the engine housing I had built was the right proportion for the front cockpit section I made. I decided to scrap the engine housing and build another. That scrapped engine housing will probably end up in some future project so all the work that went into it will not go to waste.
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| The original concept art from Tomy Z-Knights that inspired the project. Thanks to a reader of the RcSciFi blog I was reminded that it appeared in a Hobby Japan magazine from August 1991. |
Looking again at the original concept art that sparked the project I decided to mimic the three cylindrical engine arrangement that attaches to a truncated triangle shaped box. I had almost enough PVC plumbing parts already to hand to make the engines. Arranging the tri-layout of the engines in LibreCAD a free open source 2D CAD program, then gave me the dimensions for the truncated triangle box section.
Below you can see the Pvc engines roughly taped together and the rest of the raw components laid out to get an idea of the relative size of everything together. In the middle are the index card boxes I am going to use as containers. Two lengths of the 1 metre long tube are placed on top where the truss will go.
There will be space for six containers but I only have five so I am thinking of making a tank pod for some variation, an idea inspired by the Hunter Gratzner spaceship from the movie Pitch Black shown below.
The engines will have the usual MR16 12 volt Led downlights mounted in them which fit into a PVC pipe concrete slab repair fitting which in turn fit into a 90mm to 65mm down pipe adaptor with some strips of 2mm styrene glued to the inside. First a piece of masking tape was adhered to the inside surface and marked where it overlapped. This was then removed, measured and then divided into the number of strips required, marked out and returned to the inside surface. The marks from the tape where then transferred to the PVC adapter to guide the placement of the strips which are held in place with a drop or two of thin superglue.
The inner PVC fitting is a nice tight fit once pressed in from the back with the strips holding it firmly. The Led downlights will then get superglued into the interior. I beveled the inner edge of the fitting so the lamps will sit down flush.
Guide marks where also applied to the other end of the engines for future placement of panels. As an alternative to the masking tape method I have a small piece of chipboard marked out with circles and radiating divisions I can use to mark out cylindrical forms. To use it I draw a circle with a compass just slightly wider than the diameter of the object I want to mark out, then centre the object using the guide circle just drawn and then mark of the required divisions.
The truncated triangle shaped box was built from 2mm styrene and a series of three short lengths of PVC pipe glued to the back wall to locate the engines in the correct position.
Then the engines were detailed with kit parts, evergreen textured sheet and single solid core copper wiring for piping. I searched through my kit part stash for any parts that I had in multiples of three so each engine could be similarly detailed. There is still some paneling work to do. In the picture below you can see the ends of all the copper wire piping poking through drilled holes in the PVC parts. The down pipe adapter which is the engine nozzle will remain removable to get access to the lighting connectors. Visible in the picture above is a toggle switch so the engines can be turned off separately from the cockpit lighting.
The truncated triangle box has also been detailed with kit parts and evergreen textured sheet. The picture below shows the bottom surface which is detailed differently to the two upper sides which are mirrored.
The inner face of the engine box has a panel with cutouts made from 2mm styrene and a central circular hatch to access the wiring. I first drew the shape for the panel in Librecad, printed it out full size and stuck it on the styrene for cutting out. All the radiuses were drilled out first with a step drill. I put a dot on my CAD drawing at the centre point of all the radiuses to guide the drilling step. The hatch is held in place with a kitchen cabinet magnet.
The old cockpit section now seemed too small for the new engine design so I made another truncated triangle box to join to the rear of the cockpit section. It was made in much the same way as the rear box. I also sprayed the old cockpit with primer as it is essentially finished bar the interior. In the photos below I have temporarily clamped a couple of the steel tubes in place to see how it is all coming together.
Unfortunately I have only left a small hatch to get access to the cockpit which is going to make fitting out the interior extremely fiddly and frustrating. What a maroon.
The next part of the story concerns the making of the truss.
Thanks for looking.
More soon...
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