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...

Barbie Jet - Freighter Spaceship part 2

The cockpit interior and occupant figures were painted and weathered. The lighting wired up and the whole bridge module was glued into position on the hull with no further interior access possible.

Moving on to the rear of the craft I blocked in the tail section and added all the engine bells. The engine lighting was wired in and tested. Before gluing the side pods in position I sprayed primer grey onto the bits that will be extremely difficult to reach later, mainly the area around the cutaways for the large engine bells and the engine bells themselves.

I am using MR11 LED mini downlight bulbs at 12 volts. All six of them together are drawing around 1 amp. These have a bi-pin ceramic connector which just fits inside a small length of pvc conduit that has been glued into holes at the back of each of the acrylic cups I'm using as engine bells.

The two larger engine bells on the side pods have a plastic tap handle glued inside them. The tap handles have a ribbed interior and a slightly curved hexagonal shape that adds a bit of interesting detail.

I also made up a cargo door that would hinge down to form a loading ramp. In this case it is not operable but doubles as an access hatch to get to the engine lighting connectors. I added a switch so the engine lights can be turned off leaving the cockpit interior lights still on.

Once the dimensions could be ascertained I designed up a door detail on LibreCad, my new free ( open source) 2D CAD program of choice. Making sure to put a dot at the centre of each radius I printed it out fullsize and stuck that template onto a piece of 2mm styrene (HIPS) sheet. Then each dot was drilled out with a step drill to 8mm diameter as the curves were designed with a 4mm radius. Then the lines between each hole were cut and the resulting part after a bit of sanding was stuck to a piece of Evergreen grooved sheet. I made up a chunky looking hinge element that acts as a handle to remove the panel which has a magnetic cupboard catch at the top holding it in place. Looks like I will need one at the bottom as well.

I did test that I could get my hand in to where the lighting connectors were to go before I finalised the size of the access hole and therefore the dimensions of the cargo door. 

I put a 1/72 scale man in the following photo which shows the relative size of the spacecraft.

Returning to the front end I chopped the nose cap in half and fixed it in place with some internal tabs of 2mm styrene with thick superglue and epoxy putty to fill the large gaps. More polyester putty will be needed to fully fair in the shape.

Thanks for looking.

More soon.

Moebius-1 part 5

Along with some more styrene sheet and kit part detailing, I have added a piping layer to the underside of the Flat Top.

The large pipes are made from 8mm ABS solid Rod from Hobby King with mid sizes from assorted plastic knitting needles. These were heat bent using a hot air gun and a simple right angle made from a slightly rounded corner of a scrap of 9mm plywood. The solid works well for heat bending as it maintains its profile while bending unlike tube that would collapse and fold in on itself.

Some short pieces of Evergreen Styrene tubing were used on the 8mm rod for joints. The small size pipe is from the usual pvc sheathed copper single core electrical cable at 4mm.

Then, to see how how well it is looking and whether any more detailing is needed it was time to spray some grey primer.

I think it is probably enough detail for now, the rest can be done in paint.

It is time to get started on the hull and cockpit bubble.
More soon...

Moebius-1 part 2

Part 1 here

Most of the large toybashed detail pieces have now been superglued to the underside of the flat top.
The final placement differs only slightly from the preliminary layout and I have laid out a couple of non-lethal plastic mousetraps which you can clearly see labelled Big Cheese.

The clear baby's toy housing has had some 10mm ABS half round strips added to mimic the ribbing in the concept sketch. It took a lot of bending by hand to get them into the contour to match the surface of the baby's toy. The half round strips were purchased online from HobbyKing along with a selection of the other ABS profiles they carry such as square, rod and tube. They are not very precisely extruded, for example the half round shapes are a bit flatter than an exact half circle and the square sides are not exactly at 90 degrees or flat but they come 500mm long and are very cheap.

On the sides there is half a section of a crane toy, another charity shop find and the Blade support arms from the old Bruder dozer toy. I have to find something to go in the gap at the side in front of the mouse trap, it may be half a cab from the Transformers SCVNGR toy.

The front section is pretty much sorted with just a layer of finer detail and piping to come. I have to remember to leave a space for the "pontoon/float" support struts you can see in the concept sketch. In fact I still havn't come up with anything for those pontoon shapes. I was thinking of a couple of submarine hulls chopped up but I cant find any sub kits cheap enough at the size I need and I haven't stumbled across anything suitable in my charity shop visits so far.

The vacant space in front of the engines is also still unresolved at this point, I haven't found anything in my stash I like for that area yet, might have to build something...

Thanks for looking, more soon.