I've grabbed decals from a old Robotech truck, a British Chinook helicopter, a 1/24 Formula 1 car and a German 1/35 tank. The last one sadly disintegrated as soon as it hit the water, but the rest worked fine. After a day of drying I've just hit it with a coat of clear varnish, so next week I can start pinlining and the cockpit and engines.
I've had a few ideas for the base but I'm limited by what I can do atm. Printing off templates to sponge didn't really work like I wanted, so back to the classics. Using the template and a pencil, then proper painters tape and a sponge. Like back in them olden days. <cough>
Hey, it works :)
Decided to forgo to extra lift engines as I just could not find any couplings to mate it to the hull in a nice way. I cut the base, sprayed it and just finished the basic striping. And primed the shuttle after adding some tiny greeblies.
Grabbed my box of greeblies and picked out a few bits that should work. Plated over the hole in the back with a bit from a Tie Fighter, got some bigger engines courtesy of a 1/72 T-62 tank, used half a gastank from a PSC M3 Stuart to insert into the front opening, I might add some greeblies to that as sensors....or keep it as is. A hubcap from.....something is now on top for the power...thing. Some 1/35 shells are now on the sides of the cockpit.
Still need to find something suitable for the hole on top of the cockpit. Lengthwise it fits nicely within the builds confinements, but on the sides I have a lot of space. I might scrounge up some parts to give it VTOL like engine pods or something? I think I have stuff for it somewhere.
Cause I want some distraction from screaming at the clouds (hand = pain) I'm going for it with another build over at the LAF.
The theme is Mark - Marker - Marking - Marked.
After a stroll through the goodwill looking for parts I grabbed this little thing from the 25 cents bin (so this is a 50 cent challenge as well, woohoo!).
As I'm not 100% sure about the first crago for the crane I'm still looking to finetune that. But time is also short, so I looked for a easy printable barrel and tested that. Too small. Gave it another try. Too big. Printed that off at 80% and perfect.
Calling the crane done. Johann standing as a size reference. Yes, she is a big girl!
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| My dinner table is a disaster zone, so tomorrow clean up so I can do the next set of drawings and vacume a gazillion small bits of wood from the floor. |
My estimated time for the crane build was 3 weeks, same for the cargoes. I'm actually 1 week ahead which is nice for a change. 1 week per cargo is doable, and then paint all of them combined so I'm ready ahead of time.....cause I have a lot of other things to do, like take a ton of photo's of all of the 20mm stuff I need to sell. Ugh.
I managed to add extra support inside so it now turns as it should, without a wobble or magnets. Pressure fitting wood for the win. Used scrap MDF rounds from the scrap box for the rollers, then used lollypop sticks for the guides.
Keeping parts seperate for now will help with painting.
Tomorrow fine-tuning of the angle of the wheel and adding most of the iron banding.
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| Extra strength, but these will trimmed back to about 1-2 mm before painting. |
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| Justifying the reason whey I have a MDF scraps box. |
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| Lollypot sticks added, and those got sanded down so it sits flush with the crane beam. |
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| Slowly getting there... |
After a long hard day installing another cabinet and prepping my display cases for pick up tomorrow (as I sold them) I fell asleep on the couch till SJors rang the doorbell for hobby night. Oops.
Tonight I used up all of the fireworks wood I had left, so I need to search my attic for the remaining stash to finish this. The balsa I have won't cut it as they are way too thin.
But progress is good.
I've been spending a bit of time every day snipping the heads off of dress pins. This is very taxing on my hands so I do about 20 or so and then call it a day and insert them in the desired places.
Right now I have made a platform and nailed that and got the main beam glued up, as well ad the crane arm laminated but not yet stripped or sanded. Need to do some more eyeballing to see how tall I really want it to be.
Glued and pinned more wood together to get the basic frame together and started adding the iron bands (aka card and pins) and that will take a bit. Once that is done I'll work on the platform and the top of the crane, and after that tie in the wheel.
It's a real bodgejob but it works.
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| Old Fireworks for the win. And yes, I can't cut a straight edge to save my life.... |
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| ....but we are getting there. Ignore the wheel. It thought it was Obi Wan and wanted to have the high ground. |
Stripped the last tape from the roll and used my trusty The Chopper to cut swizzle sticks to size. Clad the roll with it, inside and out, and after drying sanded the sides smooth-ish. Made 2 crosses for the axle to go through and glued those on by 1,5 eye. It sorta works, but I never intended this to be a working crane anyway so no problem.
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| Making the cross in the most high tech way possible |
First thing to build is the wheel. I've looked at scratchbuilding the wheen, 3D printing it and what not. , then took a step back and looked at how others did it.
And we have another competition. Theme is "wheel"
Timelines (all times are midnight Pacific Standard Time
of that day stated - yes my timezone means you get an extra 8 hours you
lucky European sods)
Perfectly doable I say. Well, at least if I don't get sicker then I already am that is. But let's be positive :)
After going over my options I think it is time I make something for Mordheim again, it's been a while. As Mordheim is also a port, I think one of these is in order.
