Would a Calvin and Hobbes model be welcome here?

[Mysta2]

This is absolutely awesome craftsmanship! I love the details and the process unfolding here! The methods of manufacture... most ingenious. Those hand grips... Wow! Perfect!

... and all those tools you have...:cool

.. are you sure Tony Stark is not involved here?

Ha, we make fun of Tony Stark all the time. "Lets add a little hot rod red" and then he just turns on the machine and walks away, there's so much more involved... and so much to go wrong at any moment, often catastrophically.

 

[rbeach84]

Ha, we make fun of Tony Stark all the time. "Lets add a little hot rod red" and then he just turns on the machine and walks away, there's so much more involved... and so much to go wrong at any moment, often catastrophically.

Aye, though you gotta love the scenes in the first movie where he is getting beaten up while 'experimenting' with his work. Core reality concept: crap never works out exactly how you think it will, certainly not the first time (though if it *ever* does, the feeling is great!)

Continue to admire the work, mate. Really appreciate you sharing the process here.
Regards, Robert

 

[Mysta2]

Just got some fins knocked out over lunch

Sitting on the mill:

Although I should have known better, I first tried these in white acrylic. Acrylic is very hard and brittle, so all of the pointy ends shattered during the cut. ABS it is then.

Things this small are nearly impossible to hold and sand at the same time, I need a nice round curve to the top edge of these suckers so I had to tape them down to something. I used a straight edge (the table top) to get them all aligned so that I could sand them with a sanding block all at once and have them match each other.

The second side is a bit trickier, since I don’t have as much of a flat surface to tape to anymore. It worked out alright though, just had to use gentle strokes with a relatively coarse grit to make sure not to pivot them on the round on the other side and throw them all out of alignment.

I will be doing a bit more finishing on the shapes once they are nice and tightly glued in place. I will have to strip the paint off of the saucer in order to get a proper bond, really the saucers should not have been painted so early and I knew that, but I was shooting red for a job and I just really wanted to see them in red. Anyway, would this thread have been nearly as interesting if they were all just plain frosted acrylic the whole time like the one top?

The fins are flat on the bottom, which makes them point outwards a bit rather than sit vertical. I did not plan this as you can see on the orthos early in this thread. I’m on the fence on whether I should fix this, or if I like them better this way. They’re just taped on in the photo.

 

[Mysta2]

Sitting at an angle reeked of laziness, so I'm fixing it.

Sometimes the best way to match odd shapes it to tape sandpaper directly to the surface you need to match and use it to sand your part.

 

[Mike J.]

Man, that cockpit looks like a million bucks.

 

[Hagoth]

... really the saucers should not have been painted so early and I knew that, but I was shooting red for a job and I just really wanted to see them in red.

"Just add a little Hot Rod red" ... and look what happened! :lol But you are right, it just looks so cool and makes this thread that much more interesting. All these master builder tips are great!

 

[Mysta2]

Thanks all for the compliments. Means a lot from such a talented group.

"Just add a little Hot Rod red" ... and look what happened! :lol But you are right, it just looks so cool and makes this thread that much more interesting. All these master builder tips are great!

Ha! Yeah. Really I guess I should have just made the fins a lot earlier and I could have gone ahead and painted. It is kind of important to have them in the proper color since I had a lot of other complimentary color decisions to make, that's either a reason, or an excuse, not 100 percent sure which.

Now I'm pretty excited though because I've got a lot of fun things I want to do on the exterior once I'm "done" with the interior.

 

[Mysta2]

Finished off the two other interior rings. Added some chalks to really dig down into the seams and tried to rusty up some of the hard lines. It is possible that I overdid it just a little.

Oh, and those chalk pastels did a brilliant job of turning the wheels a nice burned brown leather-ish. I think I found my method for doing the seat color.

I have these really great sticker sheets left over from this Tomytec oil refinery model I just completed for work that I'm pulling all my little stickers and labels from. They are mostly in Japanese, but I'm choosing to ignore that. It's not often that a client wants an off the shelf model for part of their display, but it does happen occasionally.

 

[XSixxX]

*****, Come on!!!!...... This is amazing. Huge Calvin & Hobbes fan as a kid. Spent tons of time grounded and honing my coloring skills in their black and white comic novels. LOL Want!

 

[Space Jockey]

This is incredible. I discovered Calvin & Hobbes when I moved to the US several years ago...superb. Never heard of it in the UK.

 

[SmilingOtter]

You're doing awesome work. This had better be the first of a long line of models we get to watch you build...

 

[Mysta2]

You're doing awesome work. This had better be the first of a long line of models we get to watch you build...

Sure. This is the most appropriate thing for this forum that I've done in quite a while though. I was thinking about starting a thread for my Brio helicopters.

 

[Mysta2]

I'm just a bit stalled on this project because I' wanted to get the seat frames laser cut, but I don't think my vendor is going to work out for it. Might just machine plastic ones and paint them instead. I did get the cushions done though.

 

[Apollo]

Just revisted this thread!

:eek What a work of art! :eek

 

[Beeb89]

*sniff* (wipes away tear) That's beautiful! Absolutely incredible work!!

-B89!

 

[Mysta2]

Although it took an extra round to get it right, I came up with a seat frame that I’m pretty happy with. I think it will look really good once it’s painted. So good in fact, it’s a shame you can’t see much of it when it’s mounted.

You’ve already seen this one with the paper frame:

Well, I first tried it in styrene with the same data that I was going to use for the metal one. I wasn’t sure that this was going to work for a couple of reasons. Both turned out to be true. First, styrene doesn’t bend well, it’s a great score and snap material. I thought I could get around this by using a little solvent or a little heat to soften up the bend first, but the solvent just caused it to split even more readily. Heat would have worked, but it wouldn’t have solved the second problem. Metal does something magical when you bend it. It both stretches and shrinks when you make a bend which is hard to explain, but essentially you have to make only minimal allowances for compression of your measurements when bending an inside shape. Styrene on the other hand does not do this, so when I bent the sides of the seat in on where the cushion is, it was too small for the cushion.

I made it work more or less, but I had some ideas on how to do it better.

To do this, I broke all of the parts out individually and made it all assemble together instead of fold up.

It’s a fairly simple assembly procedure

Once the base and bottom were in place I had to sand the sides of the back to match the angle of the base since I had cut everything straight. Really it only takes about four or five light strokes on some 600, just make sure the bonds are cured (15 minutes should be plenty of time)

With all the sanding done the easiest way to affix the sides was to just barely touch one edge to the solvent and slide it into alignment. This way it sticks really nicely instead of trying to hold the whole thing together while applying the solvent with a brush, and it still allows a few seconds of wiggle time to get it just right.

Here are a few of them fully assembled.

You can see here that the back sticks up just a little high compared to the sides. I’ll sand all the edges nice and flush before painting. I think I’ll probably go with the same green as the rest of the interior.

 

[rbeach84]

See, perfect example of how you give something directly applicable to *any* modeling with nearly every post. The sequencing you used to allow for sanding the joint-plane for a good fit, for one. The 'edge load' for gluing is another. Plus, may I say that is one nice glue-pot... built in dip ring & everything. I just use frozen orange juice can lids for my CA & solvent 'puddles'...

Enjoying your presentations immensely, Mysta2!

R/ Robert

PS: Any tips for making multiple identical parts from sheet plastic without using machining tools (or lasers?) I have a bomb bay with about 20 structural ribs that I have to cut, and can't seem to keep the 'stack' from sliding around while working the edges. The parts have some lightening holes, and I was considering using them for alignment rods...

 

[Mysta2]

Thanks Robert.

Leroy solvent dispenser
Model no. SD-12

Highly recommended. It will get clogged from time to time if left unused for long periods. Just pop off the lower tube and blow it out and you're good to go.

PS: Any tips for making multiple identical parts from sheet plastic without using machining tools (or lasers?) I have a bomb bay with about 20 structural ribs that I have to cut, and can't seem to keep the 'stack' from sliding around while working the edges. The parts have some lightening holes, and I was considering using them for alignment rods...

I would do exactly that, get some pins that fit the holes (or are smaller than the holes and drill holes for the pins first, and drill them out after the shaping is done) To keep them aligned really nicely it's best to have a good base that the pins go a decent ways into so that they all stay straight, and drill this base with the drill press if you have one. Tape is really handy for transferring pattern also, but it only lasts a few tries as it will start to stretch and loose its tack.

 

[Hagoth]

Yes, even the the tips can be used across multiple applications. Really great information here Mysta2 with very cool models to show the results of all the methods shared. I really appreciate seeing what worked, what didn't, and why.

 

[Mysta2]

All carded up and ready for paint.

primer down, waiting for topcoat. This is where it gets exciting.

I made a whole bunch of the seats and went ahead and painted some of the extras since I wanted to experiment a little with the weathering.

they're definitely far too shiny and boring looking like this, but the color does help to show the detail.

Some of the tools of the trade.

I've got some paneling to do on the saucers yet, but once that's done they'll get clear coat followed by some fairly light weathering.