Nigel Heath Posted October 13, 2014 Share Posted October 13, 2014 On the disappearing Alclad, it helps if you avoid handling it for a day or two. This gives it chance to harden up somewhat. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hendie Posted October 13, 2014 Author Share Posted October 13, 2014 Nigel, it was left for about a week. I just don't seem to have any luck with alclad - or maybe it's just the chrome version Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hendie Posted October 18, 2014 Author Share Posted October 18, 2014 (edited) Another small update. I gave up with the alclad. I have decided I hate the stuff. Even after leaving the chrome for over a week without touching it, as soon as I handled it, the darn stuff came off again. That settled my mind - all the sticky-outy bits were going to be gun metal, to match the hemisphere's. The sticky-outy bits were duly given a clean up to get rid of the alcrap, then sprayed with gun metal. I decided to make a start on the dome next. The first thing to be done was to fix the eye stalk in place in side the dome. Of course, the kit supplied parts were useless and didn't fit anyway. I bodged together this arrangement which should hold the eye stalk in place much better than the kit parts ever would have. That allowed me to get the discs on the stalk. They were stuck in place with pva glue which I placed with a pin and capillary action sucked it into the gap between the stalk and the disc. I have an idea for the lights - again, kit one's are crap. I'll have a muck around and see what I can come up with later. I can already see that the dome is the wrong shape. My scratch built dome was much better looking and more accurate than this Comet offering. and to finish off, another tease shot. Here's a few hemisphere's just placed into the skirt. There's not an awful lot left to do. It's just a pain because nothing fits. Comet provide a template to cut the shoulder bars/metally things (<= Collars was the word I was looking for!) with and of course, that doesn't fit either. I am going to have to make my own template, but I am concentrating on getting another couple of models finished first. Edited October 19, 2014 by hendie 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nigel Heath Posted October 18, 2014 Share Posted October 18, 2014 Nice work there hendie and you are right, your dome was much better. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hendie Posted October 29, 2014 Author Share Posted October 29, 2014 (edited) A little bit more progress on this one.... I thought it was time to approach the gun. The kit provides small diameter plastic "rods" - but the rods have a mold mismatch and there are seams on both sides, and they are not quite round, not to mention not very straight! I had some piano wire lying around in my scratch box and thought this would be a much better alternative. The gun was drilled out to accept the piano wire using Ø0.7mm drill bit. First wire fitted in place Sorry for the quality of photo's but the camera batteries were dying on me so I ended up taking just a couple of quick shots - which are slightly out of focus. All the wires fitted Each end of the wire has now been given a dab of superglue and left to harden. Next in line are the collars - stay tuned for the next installment folks Edited October 29, 2014 by hendie 4 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
infofrog Posted October 29, 2014 Share Posted October 29, 2014 I missed this build .. Looks nice .. Rick 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nigel Heath Posted October 30, 2014 Share Posted October 30, 2014 Oh good, Hendie is back to using metric, praise the Lord. Nice work on the gun, looks very good. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hendie Posted October 30, 2014 Author Share Posted October 30, 2014 it does look okay - it's just a pity it doesn't really look anything like the part it's supposed to represent! But that's about as far away from OOTB that I am going to get on this build Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hendie Posted November 2, 2014 Author Share Posted November 2, 2014 Finally managed to get the monkey off my shoulder..... the hemisphere's passed inspection after painting and have all been fitted into the skirt. The hemisphere's are just dry fitted at the moment. A quick test fit showed that most of the hemisphere's are a press fit into the holes. That is great, because it means I can apply glue, probably epoxy from inside the skirt and that also means there is very little chance of getting glue leakage on the outside of the skirt. There were only about 4 hemisphere's in total that were a loose fit. Really the only thing that is holding me back on this one are the collars and slats. I don't seem to be able to get enough enthusiasm to attack them. Although the hemisphere's are actually gun metal, they do look black. I tried the base which is satin black, against the skirt and I could hardly tell the difference between the two colors. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nigel Heath Posted November 2, 2014 Share Posted November 2, 2014 The hemispheres look great but if you had not said they were gunmetal I would have described them as dark grey. Looks good on the red as well. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hendie Posted November 2, 2014 Author Share Posted November 2, 2014 Thanks Nigel. I am going to try and get the collars finished this week - any suggestions as to the color for the slats? I don't know whether to stick with the gun metal color or to lighten things up with some aluminum or similar? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nigel Heath Posted November 2, 2014 Share Posted November 2, 2014 I think I would stick with the gunmetal, aluminium might look too bright and clashy. You are in the best place to judge the aesthetics though so go with whatever you think best. What are you using for the perforated mesh behind the slats? + Any idea where g-usa has gone, he seems rather quiet recently? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hendie Posted November 2, 2014 Author Share Posted November 2, 2014 (edited) I'm going to stick with the horrible octagonal plastic mesh that was supplied with the kit. I wanted this one to be pretty much OOTB as it will be a nice comparison between Periwinkle and a kit version Good call, I'll stick with the gun metal for the slats *** edit *** and no idea where our intrepid George is of late Edited November 2, 2014 by hendie 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
georgeusa Posted November 2, 2014 Share Posted November 2, 2014 Lurking . . . 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nigel Heath Posted November 2, 2014 Share Posted November 2, 2014 With intent to do what??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
georgeusa Posted November 2, 2014 Share Posted November 2, 2014 Well giving away the reason for lurking pretty much ruins the whole lurking process don't cha know! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nigel Heath Posted November 3, 2014 Share Posted November 3, 2014 Fair point just so long as its nothing illegal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
georgeusa Posted November 3, 2014 Share Posted November 3, 2014 Which country? 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nigel Heath Posted November 3, 2014 Share Posted November 3, 2014 In yours of course. I assume you are fully versed in the ways of its legal processes. I do hope hendie will forgive us for hijacking his thread. (I think he quite likes it actually.) 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kallisti Posted November 3, 2014 Share Posted November 3, 2014 Why are you playing with simians when there is a Dalek to build??? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
georgeusa Posted November 3, 2014 Share Posted November 3, 2014 Someone has to. Now back to the Dalek. Hendie, you could always try the aluminum color to see how you like it. It it is too bright, then you could tone it down with Tamiya Smoke to a darker, more subdued finish. Gives you some alternatives. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hendie Posted November 3, 2014 Author Share Posted November 3, 2014 ^^ Nice idea George - if it doesn't look good, I can always respray with gun metal - Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hendie Posted November 10, 2014 Author Share Posted November 10, 2014 another small update as I edge forward trying to complete my three ongoing builds before starting a mammoth scratch build. As I mentioned previously, I intended to build this as close to OOTB as I could as I wanted this to sit beside Periwinkle and basically, show how much better the scratch build was than this kit effort. Comet do provide templates for the collars, however, they are way off. I used theirs as a starting point and concocted my own version - without reference to the plans I have. These collars are done by eye and not by measurement. First off was to sand the bottom of the styrene to provide a flat base. I then covered the styrene in BMF. - I still have to trim the one on the far side here - you can see it's slightly out of shape. Lower collars BMF's and superglued in place. The process was then repeated for the upper collars. Joins are slightly out but they will be hidden by the slats.... eventually. There's still a few wrinkles in the BMF but I want the super glue to fully cure before I start manhandling the stuff trying to buff out any wrinkles. Now, on to the slats..... 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
georgeusa Posted November 10, 2014 Share Posted November 10, 2014 Looking good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hendie Posted November 10, 2014 Author Share Posted November 10, 2014 piece by piece. The worst is now over Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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