mung
Sr Member
A while ago I came across some scifi art by Fred Gambino that sparked an idea for a possible spaceship project.
The artwork shows a single seater craft with side mounted vertical "wings" in the TIE fighter style of configuration.
Something about the dynamic nature of the illustration really grabbed me and I started the preliminary investigation to see if I could turn this into an actual project.
As is usual for me I was interested in freely interpreting the design in my own way.
It was more the general layout that interested me rather than the any specific details in the illustration.
I found a couple of possible plastic kitchen items at charity stores that might be the basis of the hull shape but I eventually rejected them as not being quite right.
I then looked into possible model kit donors and thought of a F86 Sabre fuselage looking at 1/32 scale kits which at the time were too expensive and ultimately too small for a decent sized model.
I thought maybe there might be a Radio Control aircraft fuselage that could be adapted but they were either way too expensive or molded from foam which is not of any use.
I did some thumbnails for the project early on trying out a curved version of the "wings" instead of the flat ones depicted in the inspiration art.
Later I did a bit of photo-shopping of a Sabre photo to see if it would kinda' work.
Beyond that nothing further came of it and the project was shelved in the vague hope that at some future time a suitable donor hull shape would turn up.
Just recently I stumbled across a pre-owned Hobby Boss 1/18th scale F86 Sabre kit which was reasonably priced for its size being 600mm long.
This kit was perfect for this project so I couldn't help myself purchased it and dove in.
The kit appears to have come from moldings for a toy because it uses screws to hold it together, the airbrakes, gun panels and landing gear doors are all hinged to be opened and closed and the recessed panel lines are quite coarse for the scale.
However although it may not have the accurate to scale detailing desired by the scale aircraft modeler, it is perfect for the scifi kit basher being made from decent styrene with a 2mm wall thickness, perfect for cutting, hacking and glueing.
The first thing I did was to cement the two fuselage halves together and then draw a line at the horizontal cutting point along the sides.
I taped a fine marker to a surface gauge and drew a straight line all around while the fuselage was held level on a block of wood. The fuselage was then carefully cut in half with a zona saw.
The tail was slightly shortened and the bottom section had a large slice removed from the middle so the front intake would be raked back at an angle.
The tail fin was also sawn off and positioned further forward.
I built a support block from 10mm PVC sheet with M12 tapped holes for mounting points on each side and the bottom.
The threaded holes were doubled up with more 10mm sheet making them 20mm deep. power connections for the 12 volt supply use 2.5mm dc connectors.
They are mounted to a small styrene plate so they can be recessed into the 2mm styrene sheet skin that will span the 75mm stretch gap between the two fuselage halves at the sides.
The interior intake was also glued together and then cut in half and filled in with 1mm styrene sheet.
Small tabs were added so the sides could be aligned to the cut edges without falling in.
I'm using some 12 volt MR11 Led mini downlights for the engines again with the usual 2 pin ceramic connectors.
The bulbs will have to be superglued in place as they are going to be covered by the nozzles made from the propeller shrouds of the two Submarine kits I used in the Space Barge project.
The intention is to have the rear side panels removable for access to the connectors if ever needed.
A switch was added near the bottom power connector to separately switch the engine lighting on or off separately.
The switch was mounted on a small piece of 2mm styrene and then a slot cut into the fuselage so it could be slightly recessed.
I don't want the panel to ever push out of its slot when operating the switch so the panel edges were reinforced with baking soda and thin superglue.
Some LED lighting was added to the cockpit instrument panel.
A small styrene box was made containing three LEDs, a red a white and a blue just for some colour variation with an opal perspex diffuser and attached to the back of the panel.
A suitable resistor was added to the positive end so they will run at the 12 volts dc that will be supplied.
The cockpit interior was painted first before the lighting was installed
To be continued...
The artwork shows a single seater craft with side mounted vertical "wings" in the TIE fighter style of configuration.
Something about the dynamic nature of the illustration really grabbed me and I started the preliminary investigation to see if I could turn this into an actual project.
As is usual for me I was interested in freely interpreting the design in my own way.
It was more the general layout that interested me rather than the any specific details in the illustration.
I found a couple of possible plastic kitchen items at charity stores that might be the basis of the hull shape but I eventually rejected them as not being quite right.
I then looked into possible model kit donors and thought of a F86 Sabre fuselage looking at 1/32 scale kits which at the time were too expensive and ultimately too small for a decent sized model.
I thought maybe there might be a Radio Control aircraft fuselage that could be adapted but they were either way too expensive or molded from foam which is not of any use.
I did some thumbnails for the project early on trying out a curved version of the "wings" instead of the flat ones depicted in the inspiration art.
Later I did a bit of photo-shopping of a Sabre photo to see if it would kinda' work.
Beyond that nothing further came of it and the project was shelved in the vague hope that at some future time a suitable donor hull shape would turn up.
Just recently I stumbled across a pre-owned Hobby Boss 1/18th scale F86 Sabre kit which was reasonably priced for its size being 600mm long.
This kit was perfect for this project so I couldn't help myself purchased it and dove in.
The kit appears to have come from moldings for a toy because it uses screws to hold it together, the airbrakes, gun panels and landing gear doors are all hinged to be opened and closed and the recessed panel lines are quite coarse for the scale.
However although it may not have the accurate to scale detailing desired by the scale aircraft modeler, it is perfect for the scifi kit basher being made from decent styrene with a 2mm wall thickness, perfect for cutting, hacking and glueing.
The first thing I did was to cement the two fuselage halves together and then draw a line at the horizontal cutting point along the sides.
I taped a fine marker to a surface gauge and drew a straight line all around while the fuselage was held level on a block of wood. The fuselage was then carefully cut in half with a zona saw.
The tail was slightly shortened and the bottom section had a large slice removed from the middle so the front intake would be raked back at an angle.
The tail fin was also sawn off and positioned further forward.
I built a support block from 10mm PVC sheet with M12 tapped holes for mounting points on each side and the bottom.
The threaded holes were doubled up with more 10mm sheet making them 20mm deep. power connections for the 12 volt supply use 2.5mm dc connectors.
They are mounted to a small styrene plate so they can be recessed into the 2mm styrene sheet skin that will span the 75mm stretch gap between the two fuselage halves at the sides.
The interior intake was also glued together and then cut in half and filled in with 1mm styrene sheet.
Small tabs were added so the sides could be aligned to the cut edges without falling in.
I'm using some 12 volt MR11 Led mini downlights for the engines again with the usual 2 pin ceramic connectors.
The bulbs will have to be superglued in place as they are going to be covered by the nozzles made from the propeller shrouds of the two Submarine kits I used in the Space Barge project.
The intention is to have the rear side panels removable for access to the connectors if ever needed.
A switch was added near the bottom power connector to separately switch the engine lighting on or off separately.
The switch was mounted on a small piece of 2mm styrene and then a slot cut into the fuselage so it could be slightly recessed.
I don't want the panel to ever push out of its slot when operating the switch so the panel edges were reinforced with baking soda and thin superglue.
Some LED lighting was added to the cockpit instrument panel.
A small styrene box was made containing three LEDs, a red a white and a blue just for some colour variation with an opal perspex diffuser and attached to the back of the panel.
A suitable resistor was added to the positive end so they will run at the 12 volts dc that will be supplied.
The cockpit interior was painted first before the lighting was installed
To be continued...
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