Jabberwocky Posted February 28, 2014 Author Share Posted February 28, 2014 I used ordinary Vallejo primer as I've never had problems with it before. except on a greasy 1/32 Hawk. I might not have used it on white metal before though. This time I sprayed it with Halfords primer decanted from a rattle can and it seems to have bonded better. BTW, if anyone is thinking of spraying from an aerosol can into a container prior to pouring it into an airbrush, use something bigger than a Tamiya paint jar. A physicist would probably be able to explain why not using terms like pressure, expansion, velocity and volume, but I'll explain it using words like curses and messy. OK, on with Space City. This is the outer wall of the lower, circular part of the building. The problem was, how to ensure a proper curve when attaching it to the roof "doughnut." The answer was to use the hole left from cutting out the roof as a sort of jig to curve the outer wall into while attaching it to the roof itself. Like this.... ... which is where I discovered that although bare metal foil adhesive will stick foil to styrene, it won't stick styrene to foil. Not on an outside curve anyway, so I had to resort to using CA. Now many modellers will admit to a particular nemesis, and mine is CA glue. I file it along with all the other broken childhood promises like personal helicopters and hover-bikes. "One drop holds a ton," they said, suspending a car above the Tomorrow's World studio floor. Yeah, right. It sticks skin OK, as it should, but can I get it to stick resin to styrene? Or photoetch to resin? It will happily stick photoetch to my cutting mat, or my tweezers, or the first thing it hits when it pings off into the distance, but unless I want to decorate a model with permanently-attached cocktail sticks I try to avoid it. I even bought an expensive set of three applicators specifically for CA. One of them is very useful for using with filler in small amounts, the other two are stuck together. Anyway, eventually I got it to stick together, more or less where I wanted it, and it looked like this, alongside the pillars that hold it off the ground. Important security design for a Space City, that is, it stops anyone getting in without a ladder. And to prove the point, here it is off the ground. Vertical strips then divided up the window sections. The next section, the lower of the rotating parts, was clamped together while it dried. Hollow square sections were cut to hold it, er, square. Now I needed to cut down the turntable so it fitted inside the doughnut and carried the pointlessly revolving tower. Perhaps it's a security measure, and it revolves to stop anybody being able to get in. "Why stop at a revolving door, like the ones that trap trolleys at Morrisons?" asked the architect, "Let's turn the whole thing round, and while we're about it we'll put a huge radar dish on the roof before the Health & Safety dictators seize power." The building needed to sit absolutely centrally on the turntable, otherwise it would not rotate properly without fouling the base. The problem was, how to cut the turntable down from a circle, to a square that fitted into the base of the building accurately? The locating spindle sat in a hollow tube on the upper part, so I drilled through from underneath and obtained a nice central hole to measure from. Just like that. And here it is cut down and fitted into the building, section, square, revolving, for the use of. When in position, I found with a degree of relief, that it fitted within the hole. This was my crude but effective method of getting it aligned vertically before committing to glue. And then it was on to defining the windows. More strip styrene, which sounds quite fun when the weather warms up. Anybody know the rules? I used a wooden template to ensure consistency of spacing. Even thinner strips of styrene were used for the verticals and it was time for the test fit. It fits! It turns! Hurrah! I'm happy with that, a satisfying few days' work. Onwards and upwards. I've cut out the styrene sheet for the next section of the building, so it will be more of the same for a few stories more but with the odd side-pieces sticking out. I might lead wires out underneath to a separate battery holder, to avoid damaging the thing by lifting it in and out all the time. Thanks for sticking with it so far. Cheers, Paul 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bzn20 Posted February 28, 2014 Share Posted February 28, 2014 Very good Paul. All that calculating paid off! I'd forgotten about that building, not really surprising given the years that have passed by! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kallisti Posted February 28, 2014 Share Posted February 28, 2014 This looks to be quite impressive! Keep it up! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hendie Posted March 1, 2014 Share Posted March 1, 2014 great work Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blueliner Posted March 1, 2014 Share Posted March 1, 2014 Great build so far! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hendie Posted March 1, 2014 Share Posted March 1, 2014 excellent, you just don't get theme songs like that anymore do you? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jabberwocky Posted March 1, 2014 Author Share Posted March 1, 2014 What do you do if you see a space man? Park in it, man. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TonyG Posted March 3, 2014 Share Posted March 3, 2014 (edited) Park in it? Ah, got it now.... bit slow today. Edited March 3, 2014 by TonyG Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kallisti Posted March 3, 2014 Share Posted March 3, 2014 What do you do if you see a space man? Park in it, man. Like groan man... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jabberwocky Posted March 18, 2014 Author Share Posted March 18, 2014 A bit of an update: Space City is progressing, but suffered a bit of a setback when all the styrene strip decided to fall off the second block overnight. I don't know why; the lower part worked perfectly OK, but the bit on top of it, using exactly the same materials, adhesive and method, didn't. The strips that came off were all curly and bent, therefore unusable so I decided to use masking tape for the horizontal parts of the building between the windows. (There's probably a technical building term for these). However, after a bit of jiggery-pokery and a lot of cursing it is now at this stage, roughly primed and waiting for a neater top coat of paint. I'm trying to decide what colour the masonry should be, and leaning towards a lightish grey. It's a bit wobbly at the moment due to a fair amount of play in the turntable spindle, but I shall try to correct this when I bond it all together on the base. I've bought an AA battery holder so I can fix the turntable down permanently and lead battery wires away underneath. This should help prevent damaging the thing by removing the need to lift it on and off to switch it on and change batteries. A bit of a test drive, and it rotates. Look, it's turned round! And under its own power. Take my word for it, it did that all by itself. I'm hoping it will look OK when it's all together, as all measurements have been taken using a pair of dividers against frame captures on the PC screen, and comparing distances against the Fireball model, trying to compensate for converging verticals, parallax and perspective. If there are any actual dimensions published anywhere, I haven't been able to find them and anyway it's too late now. Meanwhile, Fireball has come along a bit as well. Most of the paint is on, the portholes have had a dollop of Krystal Klear in them and the vac-form canopies have been cut out, sanded to shape and fitted with Gator Glue. This was the most difficult part of the build so far, and I ended up sanding off the prominent window framing on the cockpit to get a reasonable fit. I'll replace the framing with 0.5mm painted masking tape. Rocket engines have been painted and she's nearly ready for a clear coat and decals. I like the way it's taking shape and proving to be a very pleasing kit to build. Almost there! Cheers, Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevecombeboy Posted March 18, 2014 Share Posted March 18, 2014 Excellent, nice finish and really looks the part. I always wondered.... er, what happened to Fireball's XL 1 - 4 , anybody know? Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max Headroom Posted March 18, 2014 Share Posted March 18, 2014 Space Monster features the disappearance of XL-2. See episode list here http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Fireball_XL5_episodes Trevor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roymattblack Posted March 18, 2014 Share Posted March 18, 2014 XL's 1-4 never appeared on the TV series as far as I know, but frequently popped up in the TV21 comic. Lovely model BTW...... Roy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max Headroom Posted March 18, 2014 Share Posted March 18, 2014 XL's 1-4 never appeared on the TV series as far as I know, but frequently popped up in the TV21 comic. Lovely model BTW...... Roy. Roy I thought one did hence my link above. Mind you you're talking 40+ years since I actually saw an episode! Trevor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kallisti Posted March 18, 2014 Share Posted March 18, 2014 There is a superb joke in the Alan Moore graphic novel The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen : Black Dossier. The heroes arrive at Birmingham Spaceport and see the Pancake Extra Large Series 4. When asked about the strange name they get told "They name their new models after how the previous one ended up. There was Mushroom Cloud X-L 2, The Shrapnel X-L 3 and now the Pancake X-L 4"... so you pretty much know whats going to happen when the heroes steal the ship to escape... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevecombeboy Posted March 19, 2014 Share Posted March 19, 2014 The knowledge on this site is awesome!!! Sorry, didn't mean to hi-jack the thread! Steve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TonyG Posted March 21, 2014 Share Posted March 21, 2014 Is it finished yet????? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jabberwocky Posted March 21, 2014 Author Share Posted March 21, 2014 Is it finished yet????? Nearly, Tony. Fireball has been given a coat of Clear and had the decals applied. Once they have dried properly I'll give it another clear coat and it's done. Window framing was done with 0.5mm masking tape painted the same colour as the fuselage. There are some details to be painted yet on the launch trolley, like the stripes around the rockets and the runway, then the Space City building needs some tidying up. So far I'm very happy with the way this has turned out, it looks very much as I remember it on the tellybox, only coloured-in. It's a great little kit but I just wish it was bigger. That's the short edge of an A4 picture frame above, to give an indication of size. Judging from some of the comments on here, it's sparked some trips down memory lane for a few people. It will be interesting to see people's reactions if I can get it to SmallSpace this year. Next stop RFI probably. Thanks for looking, Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
David Womby Posted March 21, 2014 Share Posted March 21, 2014 Fantastic reproduction of Space City to go with that terrific XL5. Well done David Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kallisti Posted March 21, 2014 Share Posted March 21, 2014 Like it - I reckon we're going to have a cracking stand at Smallspace this year Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Max Headroom Posted March 21, 2014 Share Posted March 21, 2014 So cool! Trevor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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