Moon Bus part 9 completed.

I had a bit of a disaster in the painting process which is something I always dread.
The big problem was the paint, top coat and primer just came straight off the black styrene as soon as any masking tape even low-tack got anywhere near it. It flaked off in sheets. It was very depressing.

 

It all had to be scraped off where the masking was eventually going to be placed, to be re-primed and top coated.  Strangely the dodgy primer stuck much better to the parts made from white styrene like the evergreen textured sheet, though small bits were still pulled off with any masking tape application. In these areas I did what I usually do and applied some hair dryer heat to the masking tape as I removed it which aids in softening the gum and preventing small chips coming off.

I did a bit of research to try and figure out why this occurred as it has happened to me randomly in the past. Sometimes the primer is absolutely perfectly fine and very occasionally I find it comes away with the masking. I found a very useful bit of information on you tube about the types of primer I usually use, namely car primer in an aerosol can.

Turns out there are two types available to me locally one good and one bad and I had three cans with both types represented. I sprayed the three different cans I had in sections over some black styrene and after it had dried applied some masking tape. Pulling the masking tape away was extremely revealing. The primer I had used came completely off and the other two had remained intact. The picture below shows the three cans I tested.

 The can on the left was the one I used on this model which failed miserably. The other two behaved as one would hope, they stayed on the surface. It turns out the cans that say Multi Surface work very well on plastic, they even state they work on fibreglass on the back. The one that is labelled acrylic primer appears to be absolutely useless on plastic and therefore I will not use it ever again.

Before this all happened I had decided on a predominantly white finish with some sort of red stripes to match the red on the chassis. Below is the model with the base colour applied which I took into photoshop and tried out a number of various versions of red accents finally deciding on the colour rough shown in the second picture which helped to highlight the shape left between the panels that flow around the windows.

This red motif was then masked up extremely gingerly and sprayed with a small can of Ford Blaze red. The white was actually a warm off white called Antarctic white. Once that was done I re-evaluated the front end and decided that maybe the front panel needed some colour as well. So back to photoshop just to check and the colour rough that resulted shown in the second photo below was more to my liking.

My old weathering technique using a mix of Tamiya flat black and ethanol ( methylated spirits) as a dirty wash was employed. The surface is then cleaned off using a rag damp with ethanol leaving the grunge in the crevices. Dry brushing with a light grey students acrylic followed. Detailed scrapes were painted with acrylic hobby paints, a light grey surround with a dark grey core.

Another of the painting tasks was to paint the occupant figures, something I am pretty terrible at. In an attempt to try and improve in this area I watched a lot of You tube videos on figure painting in acrylics. Below is the result, still pretty poor but a lot better than my previous attempts.

The figures were superglued into their seats and the front panel screwed into position. To hide the screw heads I found a piece of red self adhesive vinyl and punched out some small circles that were pretty much the same diameter as the screw holes. The colour is not an exact match but I think it will do the job. I also used a few pieces of the red vinyl in other places on the model.

The solar panel cells on top were picked out with random squares in three shades of grey.

Finally here is the completed model.

  

Part 1 of this project was way back in October 2014. Part 2, 3 and 4 was a year later in October 2015. Then nothing until 2020. This project has been spread over nearly 6 years so it is satisfying to finally bring it to completion. It's also the third completed model for 2020 which as we all know has been and continues to be a very unusual and challenging year.

Thanks for looking.

More soon...

Moon Bus part 8

The Moon Bus project has completed the primer stage.

The chassis was disassembled and the frames painted red, while the aluminium servos and various other parts were painted matte black after having been sprayed with etch primer.

Next up is to design a paint scheme and then tackle the final paint finish.

I always have some trepidation before starting the paint process having had a number of frustrating experiences at that stage, mostly from spray can valves failing and  putting on too thick a coat in one application, only to have it peel off with the masking tape. The thinner in the car paint spray cans I mostly use, if applied too heavily can dissolve the top surface of the styrene underneath making it smooth and glossy so once dried the paint can just be pulled right off with nothing to key to. The secret to most painting is many light coats, advice I wish I would adhere to and not get carried away trying to cover everything in one go.

It's fairly usual that I tend to keep putting off doing the paint and tend to find any excuse not to do it, like start a new project (SPACE BARGE). Once I get started its usually not so bad and it generally turns out OK. As with many things getting started is the hardest bit.

I also have to paint the cockpit interior and have a go at figure painting for the occupants.
I have been watching a number of figure painting tutorials on YouTube being greatly disappointed in my previous poor efforts. The tutorials I can recommend are Kujo Painting particularly his Porco Rosso series and Dana Howl who has a slightly different technique using Underpainting and Glazing delivered in a very dry and amusing style.

The current thinking is to go for a NASA style white, given that it is a Moon Bus, along with red accents to match the chassis.

Note that in the photos below the headlights and the tailights are much dimmer than normal as they are shining through a layer of masking tape.

Thanks for looking.
More soon...

Moon Bus part 7

I had mentioned in Moon Bus part 5 that a suspension problem had stalled the project four years ago and that I had recently found a solution to cure the issue.

Back in the part 1 of this project I described making some adapters out of PVC to adapt the angled shock mounts on the Venom Creeper axles to support a vertical shock position and a sway bar link.
One of these broke with the model just sitting there doing nothing and I realised they were not up to the task. I needed to find a solution for the project to progress.

Four years later it dawned on me while waiting for a cycle to finish on the CNC lathe at work on how to make a better adapter fairly easily. The solution was to make it from some aluminium sheet and twist it in the middle to compensate for the angled axle shock mounts.

Original PVC adapters with the prototupe aluminium adapter below.

I made a prototype to see if I could make it work and it seemed like it would do the job so I made 4 good ones and fitted them to the axles.  I made them by hack-sawing and filing  some pieces of aluminium strip and placed each end in turn in a vice and twisted the middle to the required angle using a adjustable spanner. The two end holes were tapped M3  for the shock ends and sway bar linkage and the middle hole drilled out 3.1mm for clearance on the M3 through bolt and aluminium spacer which attaches them to the axle shock mounts.

With that obstacle out of the way the project continued and I did the work on the cockpit. Next up was paneling the hull.

This was the hull as it has been sitting for 4 years.

I took that photo into photoshop and scribbled away very roughly to get some ideas for a panel layout. The picture below shows what ended up after a few rejected ideas and was enough to move on to a cardboard trial template which in turn lead to cutting some 1mm styrene.

Very rough scribbles in photoshop is all I needed to generate an idea for the paneling concept.

Cardboard trial template on left, 1mm styrene panel on the right.

I wanted to try for a sort of Data70 feel to the paneling. Data70 was a font designed in 1970 which when I was a kid represented the coolest sci-fi look ever.

Each panel was cut out using a step drill to cut the 12mm radius corners, an olfa knife cutting the straight lines with a metal ruler and a dremel sanding drum to complete. The panels had to be carefully pre-bent to match the curve of the hull. Some of the 1mm styrene was brittle due to sunlight and just broke up so frustratingly a few panels had to be made twice. The underlying skin on the hull was also made from the same batch of 1mm styrene and where it has seen some indirect sunlight it had started to craze and crack in a few places. I think the black styrene is more susceptible to this than the usual white styrene. The new panels have helped to reinforce the thin hull considerably and with the eventual addition of paint I don't foresee the cracking being an issue in the future.

There is more surface paneling to be done and a couple of solar panels to made for the top and a little more detailing still to go before I get to the primer stage.

 

The hull is increasing in weight as the panels and detailing are added. So far the shocks in which I added extra springs at the start of the project are holding up the weight just fine. I may need to make stiffer sway bars to correct any lean if it appears.

I would like to get the wheels anodised red to tie in with the rest of the colour accents on the chassis and maybe the chassis frames as well though that may prove to be outside my budget.

Thanks for looking.
More soon...

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6, Part 7,