rcscifi is now on facebook

Just a quick post to  let you know there is now a rcscifi page on facebook. It is pretty much a mirror of the rcscifi Instagram posts. If you do a search for rcscifi or type @rcscifi in the search box you should find it. This blogsite will still be the place where all the detailed build descriptions will reside. However if you don't like the google comment system you can make use of the facebook comment system.

Here is a sneak peak at a future project.

I recently got hold of a 1/16 Scale Heng Long Leopard Tank chassis via ebay and was given an unwanted clear plastic twist drill stand cover at work. I thought they might go together for a relatively simple project and took a photograph of the two disparate parts arranged together.

 
This photo was then fiddled about with very roughly in photoshop until I got something I thought might be worth pursuing.

That painted image was then dropped into DraftSight and some dimensions figured out in 2D CAD.

I looks a bit like a cross between a Jawa sandcrawler and Thunderbird two, but that's what the shape of the clear drill cover suggested to me. That's as far as I am going to take it for now as there are some other projects besides the current Moebius-1 that are crying out for completion. It will be interesting to see if I can resist the temptation of a new project and finish some old ones. Based on previous form it would seem highly unlikely... we will see.

Moebius-1 part7

The interior of the bubble cockpit is now more or less complete in construction. I will need to spray some grey primer to be sure but I think its got more than enough nurnies to do the job.

I started by making up a cardboard template with the outline of the interior space so I could make sure the centre seat console module and the overhead panel module would fit inside the bubble as I built it.

The occupants are from a Fujimi 1/24 scale drivers set, with the seats a very nicely molded resin cast aftermarket racing seat set. After I received the seats in the post I happened to find a nearly identical pair of styrene seats in a 1/24th scale Supra kit I found in a charity shop. I have had that kit box sitting around for a while now and never thought to look in it. I modified the female figure by making the skirt look more like trousers. I wrapped some thin strips of masking tape around her very skinny legs and the put some white heat shrink tubing over the top and shrank it into place to make some kind of thigh high boots. Their arms had to be heat bent to get then to reach to the side for the seat mounted control panels. I also had to hack away at the male figure to get his shoulders to fit between the seat wings. The foot rest is a couple of photo etch kit parts superglued to a bit of bent brass rod.
 

At the moment the figures and the seat section is removable to help with access while painting but will be permanently fixed in place later. There are a couple of bright white leds buried in the central console  which will throw some light onto the figures. I am planning to add some blue leds behind the central orifice in the back wall. The large white round shape on the back wall is an ABS part salvaged from an old washing machine.

The front bubble can be positioned in place with friction alone with the help of a couple of bits of Hobby King half round ABS, top and bottom that go through some half round holes that were already conveniently in the dome molding.

Thanks for Looking.
More soon...

Moebius-1 part 6

I have started on the main hull and cockpit section.

First up I reinforced the 3mm aluminium plate with some 3mm thick angle, pop riveted on. The weight of the flat top was sagging a bit after pressing on it while detailing the top surface of the flat top. Next some 10mm thick foamed PVC sheet formers were positioned and some 2mm black styrene sheet was added longitudinally.

67mm OD PVC tube was cut up on the bandsaw and superglued to the sides of the black styrene box to form the curved sides of the top of the hull.

The hull was carefully profiled with a Dremel sanding drum to match the curvature of the dome/half sphere which was masked up and superglued to the front end of the hull.
I then filled in the compound curve section of the lower hull with foamed PVC leaving about 2mm left for car putty to form the finished surface.

Car Putty was then applied. When the filler was still at the leather stage unwanted lumps were cut away with an extended Olfa snapper knife, then after fully set sanded with a sanding stick, a piece of 6mm plywood with 80 grit wet and dry sandpaper spray glued on.  This was repeated with rapidly decreasing amounts of filler about 4 times to eventually fill in all the low spots.

The Blue tape covers a DC power connector installed flush with the bottom of the hull. The other hole is for the support pipe.

The dark line shows the point where the hull is split. It hooks on at the top with a tab that fits into a slot and is retained at the bottom with a screw that goes into 3 layers of 2mm styrene. I didn't have this split originally but found I had no room to remove the ribbed cover under the flat top that is held on by a magnet to access all the wiring. I think it will be better to have the cockpit section removable to work on anyway so its turned out for the better. I will install a plug and socket for the electrical power to the cockpit lighting.

Here is the model the right way up so far with a few shamefully unfinished projects in the background.

I was attempting to get this finished for the Wasmex scale model show which is in April but I don't think I will make it as there is still a lot to do. Hopefully I will have it done by Supanova which I believe is in June.

Thanks for looking, more soon...