Junk build? W.I.P

At this point the cabin interior and cockpit consoles are painted. The masking will remain on the outside of the cabin until prime, and paint are done.

This is a closeup of the instrument panel with the gauges, Nav screens, and target screens painted. Once the paint is dry I'll install this subassembly in the cabin, and attach the cabin to the rear section of the ship.

sumpter250 wrote:

I was asked to do a WIP next time I built a "spacecraft".

  Yeah, that was me. Sorry, it was meant to be a compliment, rather than a burden. Your kit-bashes/scratch-builds are so good, I figured some folks around here could learn something from your process (including me ).

Which brings me to your instrument panel. It appears to be pieces of sheet styrene, laminated together, w/ holes punched or drilled in the front sheet, correct? Did you have a master design to work from, or was it for the most part improvised? Did you use Waldron bezels for some of it?

Watching keenly - CJ

The only "burden" is taking the pictures...........before I finish the project! And, I did take it as a compliment, and am doing the build as a return compliment.

  I build a lot of models (model railroading) that have to "follow the plan" as do most of my ship models. Follow the plan, and spend seemingly endless hours researching every little detail.......  when I build one of these, it's pure imagination, it's " that looks good there", or "I can use that for two of these!"  The gauges, were drilled, and then reamed to size. the screens had the four corners drilled, reamed, and then, the rest was cut out from hole to hole, to create the square, or rectangular openings, with the rounded corners.

I 'll buy "aftermarket" parts for a scale project, but usually build all my own for the fantasy bits. I also, in kitbashes, make some of the kit parts into something else entirely (that's "improvised") The overall "design"?....that comes from.....the dark corners of the mind, with a little help from movies, television, a personal connection with technology, and a general feel for what I want to build.

Building scale models is fun. Building these things is fun raised to the fifteenth power! No Plans!, No "rivets", No rules !!!!!

OK, the weapons are built (I have to take some pic's) The subassemblies are all joined together, and I am starting the process I like to call adding "texture" . I've made a "nylon purse", out of a Sow's ear, adding texture is....trying to fool you into thinking it's actually "silk".

The "Yacht America" in my avatar, was built as a Christmas present for my Father, forty years ago. It came back to me when my parents felt time was "getting short", and they "returned" all such gifts. My Dad passed about a year after Mom. He was 90, we were able to say goodby. 

OK. Picture time again. The first two shots are of the primary weapon.

These three are; a right front 3/4 view; a right rear 3/4 view, and a bottom view, of the ship with some of the "texture" applied:

I will continue adding bits and pieces, until I am happy that I have added all the detail I want.  I may be "simply adding texture", but there is a madness to my method. I'm thinking, external access to "hardware", defensive shields and generators, navigation shields and generators, communications, sensors, etc. I also have to consider landing gear, what kind, where, and whether or not to build it functional. This will probably have to be scratchbuilt as a separate subassembly.

I've finished adding all the little details, and have started on the landing gear. the next four pic's, are; Right side, Left side, Front, and Rear of the ship:

The last shot is the nose gear strut, and the tools used. The strut is made from .040" styrene sheet, 5/8" X 1-5/8". Seven holes were drilled, and reamed to size, then the openings were "scribed" out using the back edge of an Xacto #11 blade to "scribe" through a bit at a time. The edges were then cleaned up with a file.

The tools used were: Left, a micro reamer set (most local hobby shops should have) Upper Right, an Xacto handle with a #11 blade, 6" steel ruler, an Xacto handle with a #75 Bit ( the Xacto handles with a cross cut collet can securely hold bits down to #80, and I prefer that to most pin vises) Lower Right, the strut.

The pieces of the nose gear are done and ready to be installed. In both of these photos, the ship is inverted, and the nose gear is visible.

In this shot, from the left, 1.the pivot point (held with first "T" pin), 2.the strut assembly, 3.the skid plate,4.(between "T"pins 2&3) the lift brackets which are connected to a slide plate operated by a hydraulic cylinder, that leads forward(left) fron the slide plate.

In the second shot, the slide plate has been pulled forward, and the skid plate is "down" in the deployed position. You can see the hydraulic cylinder, under (actually "above")and between the strut, and the lift brackets. I'll replace the "T" pins with brass rod, once the final installation is done. the landing gear will be locked in the "down" position".

Next, build the main landing gear assembly. 

  The landing gear is done, and I can't see anything I need to add....at this time....so, If I don't find anything, the next step will be primer.

   The main gear is all hydraulic. I used styrene tube, and brass rod for most of the construction. The nose gear is now locked in place. I chose to make the nose gear totally external so as not to compromise the pressure hull. the main gear did not present that problem. The next two photos show the ship resting on is landing gear:

Hi There,

Just lovin` this build and like padakr I WAN`T to see the paint.  Junk builds like I used to see em. Lets see more soon.

Gary

First, thanks to all for your comments. The ship is in primer and I'm waiting for that to dry thoroughly before I try to take pictures.

That is just amazing how you get that all together and make it look like a reasonable design!

If you can see it, you can build it. As in most all of the models I have built, I have "seen" the finished project, before I started it. Yes, some things change, during construction, but the overall vision remains the guide. What I haven't seen yet, is the final colors. Now that it is in primer, I am happy with the shape, and the placement of parts. I will eventually settle on color. I will have to  spend some time "researching" all my "movies", to see if inspiration is there. 

Here are the shots in primer:

What will your color scheme be?

I still haven't decided, but I'm leaning towards a light gray under, and a dark(possibly green drab) color on top, with no specific border, or demarcation  between. basicly spray the gray, and shoot the dark with no masking, so there's a fade-in rather than a hard line.

wingzandthingz, saw the digital camo photo in your junkbuild thread.........I'm giving that serious consideration. I've never done "camo", and the digital looks interesting.

I finally decided to try this in digital camo. I'll use the primer color as the darkest, and masked out the areas that will remain "primer". The next color will be a lighter gray, then when that dries, I'll mask out for the third, final color. The markings, in yellow, and white, that show in the photos, are dry transfers. When the finish coat is dry, I'll use masking tape to lift the dry transfers so that the markings are in the first color.

The next five pics, show the completed digital camo paint scheme, views from; Left above:

Left side:

Right side:

Right above:

and, cabin interior from right above:

I'll do a little weathering, and additional paint, here and there, and this will then be finished. 

Hiya Sumpter.

Looks like your having a lot more fun with the digital than me.

Cheers Gary

...Junk build??

Maybe "master build from junk parts" would have been a better title.

The instrament pannel is amazing

The paintjob is amazing...

sorry to come in after it's done- but this is just awesome! And it only took you about a month? I'm sorry I don't know your regular speed- but that's FAST for me! I'm assuming it has to do with the freedom of making your own thing from scratch.

Ping pong balls and a shot glass? and I thought I could call myself a scratchbuilder... this is really awesome Maybe I should peek into the sci-fi forums more often

Thanks all, for the good comments!

The sun is shining in, and in that light I can see that even with care in applying light coats of paint, there was some build up along the edges of the masking tape, so the first order of business is to clean that up

Ping pong balls and a shot glass? and I thought I could call myself a scratchbuilder...

The instrument panel is a technique I first used.....whoa, 26 years ago now. If I can figure out a way to light the interior of that cockpit, I'll take a photo, and post it. 

My "regular speed", is slower. I was working quickly because I was posting progress.  " the freedom of making your own thing from scratch", is more often a slow process, trying to find the "right" place for each part. Taking something like 32 pictures, did slow things down a bit.:)

sumpter250 wrote:

Now, if I had scratchbuilt the reactor, instead of using a ping pong ball.........:)

haha well, it might have looked cooler- but points for inovation and "just plain cool" might have dropped ;)

I really like the shotglass as a way to get a cockpit and cabin all in one with the windscreen, it turned out pretty sweet.

sumpter250 wrote:

" the freedom of making your own thing from scratch", is more often a slow process, trying to find the "right" place for each part. Taking something like 32 pictures, did slow things down a bit.:)

That's interesting, but yeah- that makes sense now that you say it. I guess it's a process of trial and error? "This piece might look good here? No... maybe here" kind of thing?

I really like the landing gear though. This thing will be pretty cool whith some deep space weathering all over it :D

I really like the landing gear though. This thing will be pretty cool whith some deep space weathering all over it :D

Actually, my thoughts about weathering were more in the line of rust/dust on the landing skids, and "discoloration" of the areas around, and behind the muzzels of the weapons. With the inertial drives there is no "blast" or exhaust, to kick up planetary dust, and in deep space (if the deflector shields work properly) there is no "weather". On rare ocasions there would be some blast damage from "return fire". Impact damage from "space junk", is almost non existant, as the matter collectors (the reactor uses matter/matter conversion, so must collect matter for fuel) sweep the area ahead. As empty as deep space seems, at above light speeds, it can get a bit dense. Most of the weathering would come from atmosphere. Even with deflectors at full, if the atmospheric density is miscalculated, you an get some leading edge "crisping", and weapons fireing, in atmosphere can cause some ionization scorching. Then again, while just sitting, some of the flying lifeforms, on some worlds, can be worse than pidgeons. :) :)

would the matter collecter go ahead and suck them in too?

There are far more uses for a "transporter" type device, than "taxi service", and far less need for computer power, if the "transporter", or what I would call a "translocator", simply transports mass. a gram of Pterodactyl, and a gram of "droppings", is two grams of mass (M) in the equasion Energy=Mass X the speed of light squared.(my keyboard doesn't seem to be able to indicate "powers of a number") The matter collector is a translocator, which gathers and stores mass. the reactor uses two translocators, focused at the same point, the physical center of the sphere, where two equal masses are forced to "be" at the same place at the same time......BOOM!, energy! and yes, it would "suck them in too".

" That was awesome to read sumpter- you definitly know your stuff,"......Thank you for the compliment. It's imagination, coupled with the tiny bit of physics I've picked up. It helps to "know the prototype", when building a model of it.

sumpter250 wrote:

It's imagination, coupled with the tiny bit of physics I've picked up. It helps to "know the prototype", when building a model of it.

You've definitly got quite the understanding in my book- and I know what you mean when you talk about knowing the prototype, I need to work on my imaginaion part I supose- the only prototype I've done scratch work on was one I've seen and used in real life

The instrument panel is a technique I first used.....whoa, 26 years ago now. If I can figure out a way to light the interior of that cockpit, I'll take a photo, and post it.

OK, it's 26 years ago.......I finally got a couple of shots of the cabin interior that I built for a small "space freighter" inspired by the Millenium Falcon. This is the only one that shows any detail: The notches on the left side of the rim are locators, the notch at the top is for a spring loaded retainer, which locks the cab to the rest of the model

Technically, this is a scratchbuild, as I actually drew up sketches of what the finished model would look like. The use of "certain, familiar, odds and ends" could put it in the junkbuild catagory. The figures in the photos are 1:64 scale, and the general sizes were determined by the figures. The model is 14-1/4" long.

Here are the photos of the model: