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Post by Lonesome Crow on Feb 25, 2011 3:24:37 GMT 1
In September 2005 I started a thread over in the eveofthewar.co.uk forum called 'Blueprints of my FM' I showed the step by step construction of a model of my FM design. I had built an 18 inch model of my FM a few years earlier. unfortunately the machine was too heavy for the spindly legs and I had to suspend the model from the ceiling when I wanted to take photos of it. fellow forum member and also a model maker, McTodd suggested I made the main body about the size of a hen's egg, he reckoned the legs would be able to support the weight of the body at that size, even out of solid resin. I made all the parts but never got around to duplicating them or assembling the machine itself, I still had my doubts about the weight of the body. The project got shelved..... until now. Unfortunately I no longer have the original step by step photos, they are not on the eveofthewar forum any more either. these are all the parts I made back in 2005/2006. I never even got around to assembling all the body sections. These are all the parts I made. I have placed a 1 penny piece amongst the body sections to help with the scale. In the centre are the upper parts of the left & right legs. Foot, Toes, Hood support, Hood window, middle section of left or right legs and Heat ray. Bottom part of the rear and one side leg. Body sections assembled. This was the base I made, but is not to the correct scale so I shall remake it and try to make it a bit more interesting, maybe add the ruins of a house. More tomorrow.
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Post by Relyt on Feb 25, 2011 5:03:46 GMT 1
Want.
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Post by poyks on Feb 26, 2011 16:40:39 GMT 1
That's uberly fantastically brilliant!!
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Post by RustiSwordz on Feb 27, 2011 1:30:22 GMT 1
Me also want!
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Post by Deleted on Feb 27, 2011 3:10:16 GMT 1
Me also want! Me also also want! ;D
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Post by Lonesome Crow on Feb 27, 2011 4:35:38 GMT 1
MAKING THE MOULDS At work we use several different types of silicon mould making materials: The pink material (Lab Putty) sets quite firmly but it will distort a little if you press against it, so I don't use it for small model parts that require hot plastic to be pressed into the moulds. I only use it for parts of the model that will be vacuum-formed. The lab putty moulds are sunk into a very hard plaster to stop them from flexing. Holes are drilled into the bottom of the moulds to allow the air to be sucked through, this will leave a row of small pimples on the surface of the model that will require sanding off. The upper and lower parts of the main body will be vacuum-formed and luckily the moulds just fitted into the V-F machine unluckily the tail section was a little too deep for the hot plastic to reach all the way to the bottom of the mould before it cooled, so the the tail was too short and I had to cut it off. I made a separate mould for the tail section to replace the cut of part, this time I didn't use the V-F machine (A full sheet of plastic costs about £1.00) instead I used scrap, off-cuts after heating them over a Bunsen-burner I pressed them into the moulds and it worked perfectly. After trimming the excess plastic off and sanding the base flat I glued it onto the main body. The plastic used is the same stuff your model kit aeroplanes or battleships are made of, so normal model kit glue works well.
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Post by Relyt on Feb 27, 2011 5:14:04 GMT 1
Did somebody say battleships? Of course, I already knew most kits use resin. I'm working on the USS Arizona. Well, I started in October '09 when my computer's graphics card went kaput and started making all sorts of blue green and red dots on my monitor. I had to use my brother's computer while he was away, and that introduced me to the Fallout games. But I pointlessly digress. Unless everyone wants to read my history of battleships (Remember, not warships in general, but just battleships.), it would only take a few minutes to type one up in another thread. "Weekly warships?" Maybe I could do that when I run out of wuts. Or maybe more than ships, I know lots about tanks and planes too.
Model looks good too, Pete.
And in case anyone's wondering where this bunch on sensible nonsense came from, let's just say I say a lot of odd things at 11:14 PM with caffeine in my system.
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Post by Lonesome Crow on Feb 27, 2011 16:23:10 GMT 1
No! this is not made from resin, it's made from polystyrene plastic like an Arfix model kit. And that's not to be confused with the 'expanded polystyrene' USA translation 'Styrofoam'. It's the same plastic but without the gas mixed in it ...... and when I say gas I'm not talking about gasoline. I think the gas in expanded polystyrene/Styrofoam is nitrogen. It's the type of plastic that you use Poly cement to glue it together .... Poly cement is not the stuff you use to glue your dead parrot back on it's perch, that's something completely different. ;D
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Post by Relyt on Feb 27, 2011 22:06:23 GMT 1
Poly cement is not the stuff you use to glue your dead parrot back on it's perch, that's something completely different. ;D That would be an ex-parrot. And yes, I'm referring to the Flying Circus parrot sketch. I was guessing when I said resin. It's the material used for the parts in the kits I buy, and I've no idea what it's made from.
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Post by Lonesome Crow on Feb 28, 2011 23:17:26 GMT 1
MAKING THE HOOD: To save weight I am making the Hood in two parts, this is so I can make it hollow. Again - to save money and avoid unnecessary wastage I'm using offcuts of material - I'll be pressing the hot plastic into the moulds. With the lower half of the hood this can be done easily because the mould is very shallow (the plastic doesn't have to travel far before it cools too much). With the upper half, the mould is much deeper so I've had to make a lab putty reverse of the mould. This is called a 'Die & Counter Die'. After the two halves are formed and trimmed they are glued together. One Hood finished. So from this.........................................................To this. The weight of the white plastic body and hood parts - on the right - is just under 22g That's about the same weight as 5 x 1 pence pieces or if you're an American, Half a Twinkie. ;D As you can see I've already started mass producing the Hoods.
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Post by Commandingtripod on Mar 1, 2011 0:23:32 GMT 1
Oooooooh very nice indeed.
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Post by richardburton on Mar 1, 2011 11:48:57 GMT 1
Very nice!
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Post by Lonesome Crow on Mar 2, 2011 3:23:50 GMT 1
As I said at the beginning of this thread, this is not the first model I've made of this type of Martian War Machine. My original Model - which was much bigger - was made about 20 years ago, it was cast out of a mixture of Polyurethane resin and plastic padding, both products used for repairing the bodywork of cars. I thought if it's strong enough for a car it's got to be strong enough for a model, Right?..... WRONG!! As you can see from the Photos below, time has not been kind to my original model. I made the model fully articulate (it had over 40 independent joints), I wanted to be able to pose the machine in any position and take photos of it and then do paintings from those photos. This was before I had a computer so it would have been a painting not a Photoshop image. But these Pictures do show clearly how the Hood was attached to the main body. Two supporting Struts were connected to the body and these could pivot in an arc of approx 300° This allows the Hood to be either Under the neck of the main body or over it. To allow the Hood to rotate from left to right The Supporting struts had to be able to twist (The top half stays still, attached to the body whilst the lower half rotates with the Hood) as shown in the middle picture. The bottom half of the supporting strut is connected to the Hood via a small bracket, this bracket does the same job as the body connection (Allows the Hood to rotate 300°) The brackets must also run along a rail attached to either side of the Hood, but as you can see in the third picture the bracket must also pivot outwards when the Hood is twisted to either the left or the right. The whole thing works like a set of gimbals on a ship's compass. ......... I'm not going to be able to do all that on a model of this size. So I'll have to chose a position for the hood and stick to it. If I want the Hood facing a different direction I'll have to make a whole new pair of supporting struts. STRUTS & BRACKETS. This is the die and counter die for the supporting struts, A short length of plastic was heated and squashed between the two halves of the mould and then trimmed. Die and counter die for the brackets. Same as above. This little thing is the window to the Hood, it was made by pressing a small disc of half set epoxy putty into a foil from an electric shaver, this gave it a nice compound eye pattern. I then waited until the putty was almost set then I shaped it and trimmed it. I then made a die and counter die from this pattern and cast it up in green tinted clear acrylic. The brackets This is the underside of the Hood, with the holes for the tentacles and Heat-Ray tentacles. You can also see the brackets on the rails at either side of the Hood. Top view of the Hood and again you can see how the brackets slide along the rails. And finally for today here is a mock-up of how all these parts will fit together.
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Post by richardburton on Mar 3, 2011 15:17:00 GMT 1
Wow that really is looking great.
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Post by Lonesome Crow on Mar 5, 2011 22:57:39 GMT 1
MAKING A FOOT: Just a short demo this week. The foot is very small and weighs virtually nothing so there no point in making it hollow, especially as two of the three feet will actually be on the ground in the finished model. So very simply. Hot plastic was pressed into the moulds and removed when cool. This leaves a coller of waste material around the outside called 'FLASH'. Using a medium grade of sandpaper I ware away the back of the part until the flash falls off by itself. After gluing and trimming it looks like this. Still needs toes though.
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