Bandsaw Steve

Mirage G? Variable geometry Mirage prototype.

Wow! That’s impressively massive and massively impressive. 🤣

Fantastic result! Congratulations on this outstanding work.

That’s a stunning finish you have achieved!

This looks fantastic. Do you think it will be completed before the group-build deadline?

I once had a huntsman living in my room in a mining camp. When I moved in I was initially freaked out but knowing that they are both native and harmless I decided to try to live with it and treat it as a pet. But let me tell you, even after a month’s acclimatisation, when you wake up in the middle of the night and a full-size one of these 🕷️ is on your bed-spread, or on the wall above your head, or smack in the middle of the mirror in your bathroom the 😱 !?!!!#%! factor remains very strong. In the end Harry the Huntsman and I had a final showdown, and I won. Sorry Harry. 🕷️

Yes, it would be ideal for that. You might remember I used it for the blast-bag on the PZH-2000.

Great work. I especially like the Astute sub. It has a more complex yet appealing hull shape.

Mistakes of Omission So far this project has gone remarkably smoothly and has benefitted from some notable good luck with respect to finding various things of exactly the right size and shape. Inevitably something was going to go wrong. In this post, I am happy to say, I have had a couple of mistakes and 'issues' to address, all of which are completely of my own making. It was about time really, If I ever get smooth sailing all the way to the end of a project then I'm probably not testing myself adequately. The first issue is my failure to adequately research the detailed shape of the area around the EVA access hatch. The geometry in this area is much more complex than I realized. Here is a view of the relevant section of NASA’s model in the Esperance community museum. The photo below is annotated to make the issue clearer. The orange rectangle marks the EVA hatch. The red lines mark out a projection of the edge of the orbital workshop assembly cut at 90 degrees to the long axis of the ship. Note that the EVA hatch sits below that 90 degree projection of the edge of the workshop. In other words, it’s set within a sort of recessed ‘portico’ within the limits of the workshop module. Since this whole area is recessed, none of it can be seen in any purely orthogonal set of drawings. With these facts in mind I now realize that when I made the front workshop bulkhead (see photo below) instead of modelling it as a single flat circular panel, I should have cut the MDF into a three-quarters of a circle segment and recessed the final quarter into the workshop to a depth of about 2 cm. That would have formed a nice ‘portico’. That would have been easy to do at the time, but to correct this now would be a nightmare. So now my cunning plan is to ignore the whole issue and continue as if blissfully ignorant. I’m hoping you will approve of this slap-dash approach and not notify the authorities. 🤫 Instead of fixing the ‘EVA door is supposed to be in a porch’ problem I just pressed on and sectioned off a quarter of the front of the bulkhead with a couple of plastic triangles as below. I then added the EVA door into a highly inaccurate but ‘as close to accurate as possible’ position and added some arbitrary surface ‘greeblies’ (shown below). Later on I found some reasonable photos of the real thing and replaced these 'greeblies' with some simple but much more accurate details. As part of – yet another – mistake of omission I had not really thought very much about how to make the conical shroud that covers the front of the workshop (where the MDF is currently exposed). In some photos this appears to be formed from a thin, rough, wrinkly metallic foil and in others it almost has a sort fabric look about it. Although I had not really planned this out I think I came up with a simple and reasonably effective solution. I cut off a 3mm length of PVC piping and went to my local hobby shop and bought some Milliput. I’ve used Milliput in the past before and it’s brilliant stuff but I’ve never used it for something quite as large as this. @mollythedog is a master user of Milliput. He builds entire ship models -albeit very small ones - out of this stuff. So, when he recommended mixing the epoxy-putty (in this case black) with the hardening agent on a roughly 60 / 40 basis rather the 50 / 50 split in the official instructions, I took note. Molly maintains that putting less hardening agent in the mix keeps the putty softer and ‘open’ for work longer but has no detrimental effect on the final strength. Here’s the mix that I used. As per Molly’s recommendation it’s about a 60 / 40 split and this worked nicely for me. As I’m sure you all know the two sausages must be thoroughly ‘worked’ together and blended to a completely uniform shade before you can do anything with them. Here’s the start of the process. It looks like… Ummm… Anyway, after a fair bit of mixing and sculpting I had formed the basic conical structure. Note how the PVC circle has formed a sort of ‘dam’ against which I have pushed up the Milliput. By using the face of a fine curved file I was able to impart a nice texture and series of wrinkles into the ‘fabric’ I’m not sure that this is completely accurate but it’s not bad. (Note how in the photo below the greeblies have been updated and improved). There is a similar, but much flatter, profile cone at the rear of the workshop. This too was something that I had no real plan on how to deal with so just waded in and tried making it with Milliput. By the end of it I was starting to wonder if I’d taken up pottery for a hobby. (Sorry about the blurry photo and the creepy-looking dude staring out of the google-home screen. I have no idea what that was about but it all looks down-right Orwellian here!) This is a better view and it shows the final product. Despite all of the black mess smeared all over the place - which BTW is very easily dealt with - I was quite pleased with this. Full marks to Milliput! By the end of all this malarky I had this... and this. Not perfect but it could be worse.👍 Note that the solar sail is temporarily affixed but even after just a few minutes is sagging dreadfully. How to fix that will be in the next update. That’s when you will see what ‘failure to plan’ really is all about. 😱 Best Regards, Bandsaw Steve.

Great to see you back here. Another fantastic project too. I have nothing against 3D printing but I generally find the old fashioned methods more engaging to watch so I’m pleased you’ve moved a bit further back in that direction. 👍

I do like your way of making people. It looks very promising. Expect to see me shamelessly copying this at some point. 👍

Gosh. 😳

By the way. I have recently rediscovered an old idea for a project from way back that fits this topic soooo absolutely perfectly that, if this proposal goes ahead, I will have no choice but to build the cursed thing. Damn you @bianfuxia and your happy band of peacenik, hippy, pinko, love-bombed weirdos! ☮️✌️🕊️☮️✌️

Yes he is schizophrenic and so am I. 😳😵‍💫

Superb and inspiring work!

Soooo very cool! 😎

‘Give Peace A Chance’ 👍 I like it. 👍 My name is already on the list. You have my vote at the next bunfight and if time / build schedule permits I’ll be in. I have loads of good subjects in mind. Bandsaw Steve.

Awesome job!

Very impressive work. 😮

Yeah. I’ll try to squeeze something in, ideally something from NZ. Hopefully by then both Xantho and the Mirage will be firmly in the completed category.

I would have to agree with this suggestion. To me at least, the term ‘peace dividend’ Is strongly tied up with post cold-war defence cuts. When I first saw this proposal I assumed it was going to be about military gear that was stood-down or disposed of in the early to mid 1990’s. Just saying. 😬

Nice idea. Very close to the concept of the ‘peace dividend’ proposed just a day or two ago on these pages. I can see these two ideas merging. FWIW I prefer the ‘civvies’ name.

Congratulations ‘Golden Age’ folks. Will probably not join this group-build but am looking forward to watching from the sidelines. Am hoping for lots of colour and lots of rarely-modelled subject matter. 👍

Wow - this one’s gaining momentum quickly. 27 sign-ups in less than ten days. Is that a record?

Congratulations. A beautiful model. 👍