Bandai Thunderbird 2

[Kallisti]

Alan was a bit of a tart, he fancied Lady P as well, especially during the Thunderbirds are Go movie dream sequence... very dodgy!

[Nigel Heath]

Today I started by removing the engine fronts with my motor tool:

My casting efforts proved to be a fail as the resin has not set properly, I must have got the mix ratio a bit off:

Once I get the bad parts out of the mould I will have another go.

Next thing to go are these recessed areas which need to be opened up to make downward facing windows:

Here they are done:

The rollers should be divided into ten sections, I have decided to attempt this in a lathe type arrangement. I swapped over the collet in my motor tool in readiness:

Please don't laugh, this is how it looked:

I knew those polythene legs would come in for something:

I don't know why but it only cut on one side despite it appearing to be perfectly centered, I will have to finish off the rest by hand:

Here they are more or less finished:

I will trim the axles back after they have been painted.

The engine fronts should be set further back which is a good thing as it means I can hide most of the joint in the recess and makes fitting of the fronts much easier:

That's it for now, bye,

Nigel

[Martian]

Nice work Nigel!

Martin

[bhouse]

This is what the exhaust moulds looked like removed from the flask:

Sorry, Nigel my friend, but you've been rumbled.

I think we're seeing the birth of the Nigel Heath Thomas The Tank Engine tribute kit.

[Pete in Lincs]

Poop poop!

[Nigel Heath]

Today I started removing some of the pod's internal gubbins with one of my heavier duty modelling tools:

My RB Productions bucksaw was the ideal tool for creating the slots for the rollers:

I used a chisel blade to shave away more on the features that were in the way:

The maker's name plate and motor toy tab recesses got the same treatment:

I closed off the redundant wheel holes with some 0.5mm card and then found that the roller axles needed to be recessed to get the right amount protruding on the outside. As there will be quite a bit of fit checking I have also now trimmed the roller axles:

I used some 1mm square strip to make some boxing off round the roller slots as well as closing off the remaining unwanted holes:

The final job of the day was to mix some Milliput and fill the holes as well as getting a few other filled areas done:

It will be nice to see how this all cleans up tomorrow.

Bye for now,

Nigel

[Pete in Lincs]

You know how bicycle wheels go around

when the bike is on a car roof rack?

When TB2 hits mach 2, will the rollers rotate, I wonder.

I remember I filled in that hatch on the roof too.

Just to smooth things out.

[Nigel Heath]

I'm sure Brains would have thought of that and installed a roller braking system that activated automatically after take off.

[Kallisti]

Mach 2?? TB2 is supposed to be able to hit Mach 5 and TB 1 Mach 15!!!

Then again Stingray is supposed to be able to do 300 kts submerged - never mind that at that speed water is essentially a brick wall...

[Hunter Rose]

Then again Stingray is supposed to be able to do 300 kts submerged - never mind that at that speed water is essentially a brick wall...

To be fair they do say "ANYTHING can happen in the next half hour"

Great work on the mods Nigel

[roymattblack]

I built this little beastie a few years ago too.

I binned the naff motor and wheels and filled the holes in the bottom of the pod.

Mine is 'somewhere' on the forum if it's of any use to you.

Loving what you're doing so far.

A great little kit.

Pity there isn't a blinkin' big kit of this iconic craft.

Roy.

[Martian]

"Then again Stingray is supposed to be able to do 300 kts submerged - never mind that at that speed water is essentially a brick wall..."

Mach 2?? TB2 is supposed to be able to hit Mach 5 and TB 1 Mach 15!!!

...

Which is why I am going to nick them both !

The Hood

[Kallisti]

Depends what you mean by "blinkin' big" Aoshima do a 13" version:

(the cockpit windows are too high up in the nose however )

Then there is the Imai 9" version which is the one I used in my launch dio last year

(which has some shape issues, ie under the nose should be flat rather than curving upwards)

Then there is another Aoshima which is often branded as Carlton nowadays which is 8" long - this is distinguishable as it is open cockpit windows and a nicely detailed cockpit OOB. This has a good shape and also comes with an optional grab arm that can be attached to the pod! It also has some detailing on the inner faces of the Pod storage bay.

Then there is the kit Nigel is using which is about 6-7" long and comes with the 3 Elevator cars. (It suffers from the same shape issues at the 9" Imai)

Here are the 13" 9" and 8" next to each other

Now of course if you want a REALLY big model, there is the Imai 22" kit of which there are currently 3 available on eBay at prices for $350, $380 and ahem $1100

There is also a large garage kit in fibreglass that is "studio scale", ie about 3 feet long...

[Nigel Heath]

Today I recast the exhausts with properly measured out quantities of each component of the resin and got a much better result:

I hack sawed the ends off:

Then I squared them up and made them to the right length on some 120 grit wet and dry:

Then there were all the holes to drill out:

This resin does work nicely, I think it's even better than kit styrene and infinitely better than polythene. Next I glued on the end caps with five minute epoxy:

Then they got the filler treatment, I've also tidied up all the Milliput from yesterday:

I might have a go at some rescribing next.

Bye for now,

Nigel

[Martian]

Those exhausts have turned out a treat, looks like they will be much better for my getaway!

The Hood

[Nigel Heath]

Here's a small update before tea time. Using my Olfa P-Cutter and insulation tape as a guide I started on the rescribing:

Sanding off the raised lines and leaving the dust in the lines helps to illustrate progress:

Rescribing is not my favourite job so I left it there for now, instead I decided to finish off the engine fronts. First I made a card template for the upper profile and transferred it to the plastic:

Removing the upper moulded portion I found there wasn't such a favourable recess as the lower half so careful fitting will be required:

Here they are both finished:

I'll leave them off until I've finished the rescribing though.

Bye for now,

Nigel

[Chillitt]

One of these days I shall stumble across a cheapo four post car lift and make that T2 garden shed. It would be good to have somewhere to keep the T4 lawnmower...

Edited May 13, 2016 by Mike
Removing large photo-quote

[Pete in Lincs]

Someone was scratchbuilding a large TB2 on here a while ago?

Looks like the one I built was the 9 inch Imai version.

Oh, nice work, Nigel.

(Phew, nearly forgot that. He'd never forgive me)

[Martian]

Good progress, I will be flying away in her sooner rather than later at this rate!

The Hood

[CliffB]

I'm just catching up with this one Nigel and it's great!

As an aside, I had no idea that there were so many TB2 kits available. TB2 Single Type Group Build anyone?

Cliff

[Martian]

I'm just catching up with this one Nigel and it's great!

As an aside, I had no idea that there were so many TB2 kits available. TB2 Single Type Group Build anyone?

Cliff

Good idea! I can nick them all then and the Thunderbirds will be mine, all mine!

The Hood

[Tomoshenko]

FAB Nigel FAB. Will it have your trademark fire extinguisher? Perhaps a special one with a Gerry Anderson makeover. Also recommend a car alarm (Thunderbird 2 alarm) to stop Martin nicking it.

[picard]

"Good idea! I can nick them all then and the Thunderbirds will be mine, all mine! The Hood"

Just remember, we do know which pyramid you live in if you do indeed succeed, and whatever you do everyone, just don't look into his eyes...........

Nice one Martin.

[Nigel Heath]

Today I have mainly been rescribing, not very interesting or photogenic so this is a short update. However, the first thing I did was to clean up the exhausts which are now ready for some paint:

Based loosely on references I added some panel lines to the pod:

The last bit of scribing was round these downward pointing thrusters which also need drilling out:

Here is all the rescribing, glad to get it out of the way TBH, as well as those thrusters opened up:

Now I just need to finish off the lower windows and then I think I'll give it all a wash before proceeding with some painting.

Bye for now,

Nigel

[Hunter Rose]

Nice work Nigel, its great watching this come together