Oblivion bubble ship[Randy Cooper]

[Kiwimaddog]

Hi everybody.

I can start of by introducing myself since this is my first ever post on this forum, Name's Henrik, Resident of Gothenburg, Sweden.
As my daytime-job I work as a Design engineer for a car company.

Enough about that though, and onto the build at hand...
I ordered a Bubbleship some time ago from Randy Cooper and the time has now come for me to put it together and consequently, start a build-thread(To keep up the motivation).

Step one for me was to put all the resin-parts in a soap-filled bath overnight, after which I started to plan out my build.
(I see a lot of sanding in my immediate future...)

Since I am a sucker for details, I decided to drill out the barrels out of the main-guns and replace them with aluminum tubing.

I also tried out some paint(Gun metal) and added some detail. I am not overly pleased with the result though, and will try some more matt paint.

Since I did not really like the shape of the padding for the seats(Too thick and uneven in shape), and I saw a problem in getting the white glossy parts looking good, I decided to remove the padding on the part itself and to later put on my own after I paint the part white(Again, a lot of sanding to come).

I had some issues with the fit of some of the parts. I had in the back of my mind heard someone talking about putting parts in hot water and reshape the parts somewhat. I decided to give it a try and lo and behold, it worked miracles. Pictures show before and after.

That is about as far as I've gotten. I'll update from time to time. I leave a picture of what the desk looks like at the moment

 

[Bouq]

Thanks for this objective and detailed WIP Kiwimaddog.
I Look forward to seeing the following steps

 

[joberg]

You should be a sucker for details since you're a Design Engineer for a car company:behave And being a designer, I'm liking the transformation you've put into the details of the model.
Any add-on is an improvement (hence, the tubes for the main guns). Good call for the padding on the seats; it'll look way better in the end.
Yes! Very good prep work=very good final product (but you know that better than me). Keep up the great work/transfo and eager to see your next update.

 

[Kiwimaddog]

So. Small update.

I've basically been busy trying to get the main fuselage parts to fit together as good as possible before bonding them together.
I mark the area and dremel it into the correct shape.

This of course means that I need to scribe the panel-lines again where I've modified the shape. This is something I planned on doing either way since I want them clear and defined enough when the time comes for weathering later on.

Since I am sometimes impatient I rewarded myself by sanding and putting on the base-coat of paint on the main guns. Feel good to have some parts that don't require more sanding(Unless I mess up the paint-job later, that is....)

 

[jake88]

Great info and work on this kit. Thanks for the breakdown
.

 

[Kiwimaddog]

I have not had that much time to work on the build the last days, but I've squeezed in some things at least.

Mainly, I've worked on the shape and fit of the Engines, a lot of work has been needed to get the parts to sit nice and snug together. Not all there yet but it's coming along slowly.

Also, I testfitted all the major parts together.

Finished and painted the modified seats. Next up is masking and painting the black parts + adding the custom padding(Which I'm yet to make)

I'm trying to decide what paint to use regarding the metallic looking parts. At the moment I'm considering Alclad ALC-116(Alu, Semi matt) or possibly ALC-117(Alu Dull). Anybody who can come up with a good proposal for a good color-match for the metallic looking parts below?

 

[Generalurko]

Given the price of the kit and the general high-regard for Randy Cooper in the prop community, I was expecting a much cleaner kit. Seems like there's a lot of work that has to go into it before it gets even close to being a nice kit. You're doing great work on it. Keep it up. I look forward to seeing the end result.

 

[Axlotl]

I'm trying to decide what paint to use regarding the metallic looking parts. At the moment I'm considering Alclad ALC-116(Alu, Semi matt) or possibly ALC-117(Alu Dull). Anybody who can come up with a good proposal for a good color-match for the metallic looking parts below?

Looks like plain old gunmetal grey to me.
I'd just mix some black into some Testors silver, myself.

 

[joberg]

Yep ^^Axlotl hit the nail on the head: gunmetal grey is your best bet. Looking good so far; yes, lots of work left to be done...it's going to look very good!

 

[Kiwimaddog]

Given the price of the kit and the general high-regard for Randy Cooper in the prop community, I was expecting a much cleaner kit. Seems like there's a lot of work that has to go into it before it gets even close to being a nice kit. You're doing great work on it. Keep it up. I look forward to seeing the end result.

Well, I think I might have been a bit late when ordering the kit and I believe the silicon has probably been used to cast a few to many kits. To be completely honest, I was slightly surprised myself. But then again, Who doesn't like sanding and sanding and sanding anyway?

- - - Updated - - -

Looks like plain old gunmetal grey to me.
I'd just mix some black into some Testors silver, myself.

I'll give that a shot then, Thank you for the input

 

[Kiwimaddog]

Right,

Of course I managed to mess up the guns :facepalm I think probably because I masked them like a week before applying the final paint. I usually also lay on a thin layer of the base color over the masking but for some reason, that did not work this time. I used the failed parts to try out some weathering though so not a complete waste

So I've been thinking a lot about order of assembly.
One thing that I want to avoid is to have to mask parts where I do not really have to. One place where this might be a problem is with the rear rotor. I decided to prepaint the rotor itself + the parts of the housing that are white, later I can just mask off the entire area.

Also, I assembled and glued together the first bubble. Of course, I ran into issues here as well.

After a lot of grinding to get a good fit with a nice and even gap around the engine, I glued it all together and because I needed to apply some tension to the main sphere, it slightly deformed the area around the engine which messed up my even gap. Which sucked. I have not really decided on how to handle this yet.

Lastly, I been working some on the fusilage + panel lines. The greyish hue in the picture below is because I tried out some Panel line accent color to assess if they are deep and consistent enough.

 

[JHY]

Looks like you're making good progress on a tricky kit. The Bubble ship is a great design, but, I feel, not an ideal subject for resin. Stay with it!

 

[joberg]

Is the gap between the cap and the rim of the bubble engine wider because the hole in the bubble is deformed or the cap is?

 

[Kiwimaddog]

Is the gap between the cap and the rim of the bubble engine wider because the hole in the bubble is deformed or the cap is?

It is the hole of the rim/bubble. It looked fine before gluing the upper and lower parts together (I glued in the engine-part to the rim-part before cementing the the two big halfs to one.)

 

[joberg]

Bondo filler will do the trick...unless you put the whole bubble in warm water and try to re-shape it:confused

 

[Kiwimaddog]

Bondo filler will do the trick...unless you put the whole bubble in warm water and try to re-shape it:confused

Right. Since I am really tired of sanding, I tried trick 2, put in in warm water first.
And ****, it worked. The tension in the bubble seemed to kind of let go, and I could put in some spacers around the engine until it cooled down. Pretty damn cool, If you ask me :thumbsup

Otherwise, I've been doing some work on The opposite bubble + added the padding on the pilot seat.

(Damn, these photos are unforgiving at closeup., so much left to do...)

 

[Kiwimaddog]

Ok.

So The weekend I've beenfocusing on getting the Pilot-seat and controls done.
For some reason, The joystick(among other, minor parts) were missing in the shipping-box, So I had to scrap build my own out of Styrene tubing and putty.

I'm pleased with the result, I must say.

Also, I finished the Safety belt and finished up painting.

And the result....

 

[joberg]

Good stuff! Those seats are much better know!

 

[Kiwimaddog]

Good stuff! Those seats are much better know!

Thanks. It's tricky to get the seat-belts to sit in a good way and I'm not 100% pleased just yet though. I'll revisit those later though, Working on the bubbles now

 

[GF]

your making this kit shine, great work so far!