spacewolf Posted July 3, 2011 Author Share Posted July 3, 2011 Looking real good there Vaughn. I always wanted to do some space ships from some of the Sci-Fi B movies I love, just never seem to get around to it. Thanks man, what ships are you talking about ? There are tons of them that haven't been done, one of the reasons I like this stuff. As you might have noticed in some of the last shots the ship had a canopy. My build pics are scattered over several discs so I'm playing catch up trying to get this organized. To do the canopy I first vacuformed with a sheet of 1/16th. This thinned the plastic by 1/3rd. The area for the glass was cut out and sheet added to form the base. Another pull was done with 1/32 sheet acetate. It looked terrible but I spent a week polishing it out and it came out ok. The part was very carefully cut out and fitted to the frame. A bit of smoothing and more polishing and I was very pleased with the result. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacewolf Posted July 3, 2011 Author Share Posted July 3, 2011 With most of the major parts done it was time to start getting this Lady on her feet. First thing was tires. I had hoped to use kit tires but nothing came close to what I needed. The nose wheels are the same dia. as the mains on an FW-190 but all the tires are ribbed. To build them I cut out disc's with a disc cutter and stacked them to give the ribbed effect. The edges were rounded and the center drilled and carved out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacewolf Posted July 3, 2011 Author Share Posted July 3, 2011 The main gear tires were a whole different ball of wax, I had no idea of how, so I just improvised. I grabbed a truck tire from the parts box and wrapped a couple of strips of 1/16th around the outer edge. This was sanded to a rounded shape and used as a master for vacu forming. I did two pulls, cut out the parts and joined them which gave me my basic tire. The hub area was cut out with the disc cutter. The ribbing was another problem... I cut thin strips of sheet and VERY carefully bent them close to the diameter I needed and glued them on. Keeping spacing and the tread in line was a bear but persistance (stupidity ?) came through. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacewolf Posted July 4, 2011 Author Share Posted July 4, 2011 Of course when it came to the wheels, that had to be made as well... ..this scratch building is fun...isn't it ? I grabbed some wheels from a jet kit (think it might have been an F-4 but i'm not sure now) that were the right size and filed a rim into the outer tire face. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacewolf Posted July 4, 2011 Author Share Posted July 4, 2011 Flipping the part over, the center mounting point was nipped off and the center nut from a tank wheel cut off and glued in place. Voila ! one half of a wheel. The inside half was left as is for mounting on the gear leg. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacewolf Posted July 4, 2011 Author Share Posted July 4, 2011 Fitting the wheel into the tire it looks good. A bit of paint and it looks better. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacewolf Posted July 4, 2011 Author Share Posted July 4, 2011 For the mains, rims from a truck were used only adding the center nut from the tank wheels. I painted the wheels flat black, then drybrushed RLM 66 over it. The creep marks are Testors white hand brushed. Thats it for this time. More to come, stay tuned ! Cheers Vaughn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WrongWay Posted July 4, 2011 Share Posted July 4, 2011 I've seen some cool scratch stuff before but this takes the cake! Simply magnificent! Cheers, Don Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DaveJ Posted July 6, 2011 Share Posted July 6, 2011 Brilliant work Mate!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacewolf Posted July 7, 2011 Author Share Posted July 7, 2011 I've seen some cool scratch stuff before but this takes the cake! Simply magnificent! Cheers, Don Thanks Don, that means a lot. There are so many talented scratch builders here that just to be in their company is an honor. Much of what I'm doing on this build was totally unplanned, I'd never made anything like this before and I had no idea what I was going to do..I just dealt with each thing that came along and thought of a way to do it. Each part is a kit in itself, If you break it down it's not impossible, just a lot of work ! Cheers Vaughn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacewolf Posted July 7, 2011 Author Share Posted July 7, 2011 Brilliant work Mate!! Thanks Dave, glad you are enjoying ! Cheers Vaughn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacewolf Posted July 7, 2011 Author Share Posted July 7, 2011 So...now that the Lady has her shoes she needed legs. Again, nothing from other kits came close so I was back to making my own parts. After looking at the 3 views I started by heating and bending 1/16 sheet to shape. A second layer was made and filed to blend with the first to make a tapered laminate for shape and strength. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacewolf Posted July 7, 2011 Author Share Posted July 7, 2011 (edited) Once the two parts were joined I drilled through and added plastic tube to start the leg. A stiffener was made to add to the lower strut structure. Small wheels from the parts box were filed down and ready to be glued to the lower strut to form brake assemblies and help stengthen the wheel mounting points. A thinner piece of tube was prepared and with the larger tube cut, was then inserted to form the oleo strut. Edited July 7, 2011 by spacewolf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacewolf Posted July 7, 2011 Author Share Posted July 7, 2011 (edited) Hans of course is on hand to do QA and make sure all is in order..... The larger tube has been added to make the shock strut. With the brakes on a hole was drilled and a bit of rod inserted for the axle. A couple of thin bands were wrapped around to make the start of the retraction mount. The gear sits at an odd angle a bit like the FW-190. The main strut cants inboard and the wheel sits at a shallower ange but still not vertical. Edited July 7, 2011 by spacewolf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
spacewolf Posted July 7, 2011 Author Share Posted July 7, 2011 The retraction mount point was added and I fitted the wheel to get an idea of how it would look. With Hans posing beside it you can see it's a rather heavy and sizeable assembly. I flattened the wheel a bit to give a more realistic look. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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