So here is an interesting and long winded tangent! I am rebuilding my calves using the Excellent Dancin_Fool files and I made a goof. I missed a piece of detail that really adds dimension to the build. What I missed was a V channel that goes across the calf and a depresson in both sides of the knee. Well if you've ever built V channels out of 8 or so minute pieces of cardstock you probably know how hard it is to make them turn out sharp. I want a very sharp build and nice "Panel Lines" where the breaks occur and what I did was terrible as I am striving to be as outstanding as Surreal Studios and so many of the ultra sharp builders. Here is a pic of the finished seam... Stinks in the worst way!:sick Mostly because it is too wide and varies greatly in width and depth, so not very uniform as a machined panel line should be. I do know you can cut them in later, :unsure but with what as a guide and hopefully a very stready hand LOL!
I tore it apart immediately because it is not up to standard.
I asked myself, "self? WWTSD? What would Tony Stark Do? :cool
I decided to be creative and use some airplane ideas! I ran thin strips of soaked hard balsa at the seams and working to keep the seam curves glued them on and dried them with a hot blow dryer to maintain the curves imparted by the cardstock pattern.
I then laminated on a 0.03mm piece of hard carbon fiber with CA glue for an edge that looks like this.:love
After I placed little aircraft plywood buttons along the seam below the edges so that they will be hidden deep in the seam and give a nice consistant thickness to my gap.
Followed by mating the seams with CA glue.
It was a little tricky to do by myself with one near miss fingers glued together moment :wacko but if you go slow and do two buttons at a time you"ll be ok!
I am going to get CA kicker or accelerator tomorrow as I pass the hobby shop. Much quicker to use kickker!
What you end up with is a seam that when the piece is done it can be taken apart or dremmeled out later after filling and sanding without damaging the structure of the piece. Much better than the first one in my opinion... Why all the trouble? I believe that the finished product is based on the quality of the understructure. So I basically just build a curving, flexible U channel that when cut out should yield a very pretty panel line/gap! Mucho better!
Well back to the build!
