Pocket Rocket part1

This project has come about after being given a reject resin print of a part from a Babylon five Starfury model a few years ago. The top wing section looked like it was scaled wrongly in one dimension so it didn't fit the rest of the printed parts. For some time I have been thinking about how to incorporate it into a project and just recently an idea bubbled up, the stars aligned and the project became a possibility.

On the Hobby link Japan website I stumbled across a 1/20th scale Macross fighter nose section model kit that I thought I could get a decent sized cockpit and canopy from.

 

With that in mind I did a thumbnail sketch that incorporated the resin printed reject wing. I thought this design  with a flat upper surface showed some promise and was worth pursuing a bit further.

 

I was considering how to make the fuselage shape and decided to see if I had anything in my plastic shapes stash that might fit the bill.

I dug out a rocket toy which I believe was some sort of  Pocket Polly doll toy hence the name of the project. The rocket shape was combined with a acrylic wine glass at the rear and a small toy snow globe at the front (both of which were a charity shop finds) with the wing section and it all seemed to come together with pleasing proportions.

The acrylic wineglass had its stem sawed off and then the nub sanded smooth. It later got a hole drilled through for a rear rod mount.

The cockpit surround was cut down and a flat sheet made up for the top of the fuselage. The top sheet of 2mm styrene is made slightly oversize and will be sanded back once permanently glued in place.

Before getting too carried away I made up three blocks of PVC which were drilled and tapped M12 for a front, rear and bottom mounting point. These were secured with layers of baking soda and thin superglue making a pretty rigid structural support system.

 Next up was the installation of wiring and power connectors for the engine and cockpit lighting.

I put one DC power socket at the rear and two towards the front, one on each side. The engine lights will be the usual 12 volt MR16 LED downlights with ceramic two pin connectors. I modified the cockpit kit's instrument panel/screen so I could back light it with a single white LED. In the picture below you can see the 680 ohm resistor on the positive lead that goes to that instrument panel LED so it can happily run on the 12 volt supply.

Here's a picture showing the LED in position behind the panel followed by the backlit screen. The graphics on the screen came with the kit.

 The other part I am using from the Macross nose donor kit is the wheel well and eventually the nose wheel landing gear. The plan is to make two sets of doors, one in the closed position and one set open that can be plugged in and out as required. Same for the landing gear plugged in for landed and removed for flight. I still have to work out a way of plugging these in, possibly tiny magnets, not sure yet.

 

The engines themselves were made from a combination of PVC plumbing fittings, PVC pipe and plastic double walled drinking cups that came with a domed lid and a big spiral drinking straw. I cut the outer wall of the cups away from the inner wall and am just using the outer. The front of the engines is half of a clear plastic fillable Christmas bauble you can find in craft shops. For the engine nozzles I am using downpipe adapters that go from 90mm pipe to 65mm pipe. Inside these I have pushed in another sort of PVC pipe adapter that has an internal thread on one end. It just happened to fit inside the downpipe adapter when I was in the hardware store. I often wander about in the hardware store trying out different diameters of things to see if they will go together and looking for some sort of interesting  shapes. It is rare that I find what I am looking for but every now and again something comes together.

I built a rudimentary jig to hold the fuselage vertically so I could position the engines perpendicular and determine what angle to sand the ends of the wings away to fit. I had marks and wooden guides to position the engines as symmetrically as possible whilst super-gluing. Both mating surfaces were first roughed up with coarse sandpaper. After hitting the thick super glue with accelerator I filled any gaps and reinforced the joint with baking soda and thin super glue.

 Finally after soldering in the downlight connectors the engine lighting could be tested.

 

 

Unfortunately the cockpit kit does not come with a pilot figure so I need to source some sort of 1/20 scale pilot or perhaps a formula one driver figure to go in the seat. In the photos below for scale I have a MaK 1/20 scale figure. I may have to use this figure which means butchering her into a seated position if I can't find anything else at a sensible price. I also made up a shape to mate with the rear of the cockpit which just stops with a flat bulkhead. It is made from a few layers of 10mm foamed PVC sheet, stuck together with thick superglue and then sawn and sanded to shape. Wearing a disposable rubber glove, I wiped thin superglue over the surface which gives it  a hard skin which can be  fine sanded smooth.

The upper surface, cockpit interior and the rear cockpit block then got a blast of primer grey. The cockpit exterior is still loose at this stage as I need to finish painting the interior and add the pilot figure  before gluing it down.

So far I am pretty happy with the overall proportions. It is turning out as well as I had hoped when I started and that is a fairly reliable sign that I will push this through to completion.

Thanks for looking.

More soon...

Creeper 6X6 part 8

 The Creeper 6X6 project is now complete.

The primer grey model was sprayed with primer flat white and then random panels were masked up and sprayed with a satin off white colour and a satin white. All these paints are from spray cans of the Rustoleum 2X cover range. 

  I then took a photo at that stage and fiddled about in photoshop to determine a pleasing marking scheme.

The red markings were masked up and sprayed with an ancient tin of Humbrol flat red. The edges of the masking for the red markings had a few dabs of liquid latex masking medium to leave some chipped edges. Stupidly I only did this on one side forgetting to do it on the second side. Some dabs of white paint and some rubbing with a rag dampened with methylated spirits during the application of the wash soon remedied that omission. 

The numbers were designed on Inkscape and then printed out full size on paper. The paper numerals were then stuck with double sided tape to some masking tape applied to the model. The outline of the text was then carefully cut around with a scapel using a steel ruler for the straight bits and freehand for the curves. The number shapes were then peeled out and the numerals sprayed with flat black. It is not perfect up close but is good enough to pass.

That was left to dry out for a week and then I began the weathering process by applying a brown wash of Tamiya flat black and red brown mix heavily diluted with metho into all the scribed panel lines and around the edges of any detail. The grey roof detail sections received a flat black wash to further accent the recesses. Then using a metho soaked rag the surface wash was wiped clean in the direction of any desired streaks. The grey parts were then drybrushed using white students acrylic paint

The Humbrol red paint even after drying can still be loosened with the metho rag so I had to be careful not to rub it all away. I do however like the effect it has on weathering the paint, making it look sun and rain damaged. One just has to be judicious in the application and wipe off the red residue on the white areas which are not effected.

Using an acrylic grey paint I then added some chipping to the exposed bits of the body that would be susceptible to any graze damage. I also used applied this treatment to any paint finish anomalies to cover them up.  

The last thing was to add a few decals, mostly from the sheet I made up for the  Moon Bug project. Once the decals were dry I masked up the panels they were applied to and sprayed a coat of clear flat. The red dot in the middle of the black zero in front of the three is also a decal. It just happened to fit and I liked the graphic effect.

Finally here is the completed model.

Only eleven years in the making. I think it has turned out the way I had hoped when I started the project back in 2011. It was a very tortuous route but I learnt a lot along the way and it was the genesis for many of my completed RC vehicle projects.

Thanks for looking.

More soon...

Creeper 6x6 part 7

 In the end I decided to scribe panel lines and not apply panels reasoning that this is a vehicle not a large spaceship and smooth surfaces are fine. I feel that in this case the scribed lines busy up the surface sufficiently and tie all the details together. Speaking of details I added a few recessed and flat round shapes here and there to represent access panels, water filling and dumping ports and recharging points.

Finally the model has reached the grey primer stage.

The plan for the colour scheme at this point is to be predominantly NASA white with grey detail sections and red markings very much like the science vessel project. The idea is that this is a well maintained and efficient vehicle not as beaten up and weathered as some of my past vehicle projects.

That will be heavily influenced by how well the painting process transpires. The more mistakes and painting mishaps I encounter will result in a more heavily weathered result to hide all those problems.