Space Cutter. The phoenix rising from garbage [approx. 60 cm DIY spaceship]

[Pete in Lincs]

It's coming along very nicely with some interesting ideas. I'll try not to steal some of them, but no promises

[voozet]

The covers already look pretty good, but I will have to modify them. It turned out that they no longer fit the hull I had modified earlier 🤣. It happens to me sometimes. My modeling is mainly about managing chaos. @Pete in Lincs I'm not sure if I'm a good source of inspiration/ideas stealing 😝

 

Now I have to figure out how to adjust them with a little work.

To take a mental break from this, I started making the fighters for the hangar bay.

 

A bit of 0.5mm thick styrene and a 0.25mm rod plus half of a plane bomb and this is the first one.

 

 

Thanks for looking. 

Wiesiek

 

[81-er]

That's inspired using the bomb for the fighter, very nice!

 

James

[bianfuxia]

this is coming along amazingly well. Until now I hadn't appreciated that there were fighters involved - they look super cool too!

[voozet]

This is the time to start putting together all the small parts that make up the main deck and upper section. In my case, this means a lot of extra work with fitting parts wich sometimes require reworking. As I mentioned in my last post this was the case with the covers over the engines. There were holes where it connected to the hull that needed to be covered (1.). I found two semi-circular components of some aircraft in a spare parts box that seemed to fit perfectly (2.).

 

And they fit... but only for holes. It turned out that they interfered with the engine covers, which I forgot about at this stage.

 

This mistake meant I had to cut off a piece of the covers and add a complicated wall to make it look good.

 

 

 

On 17/09/2023 at 14:18, bianfuxia said:

Until now I hadn't appreciated that there were fighters involved

Doing them was a possible but not necessary option. Eventually I managed to find the motivation, but I only had enough perseverance to make two Here's the second one:

Building the fighters reminded me that I still haven't finished the hangar bay, especially: the gate/ramp/airlock. The piece of plastic left after cutting out the gate opening will be the extension of the runway.

Upper surface:

 

Bottom surface:

 

Now that the covers over the engines are in place, I also could refine the connections between the various components.

(In the background you can see the remnants of the supernova that exploded over my workshop, leaving tons of debris there 😝)

 

This is what it looks like after adding the top section.

 

 

I also finished the interior of the hangar bay, adding few details to the side walls in places that would be visible through the open gate. The inner hangar deck and the hatch, which is not in this photo but which I made at the very beginning, will be painted separately, and installed at the end.

 

 

The bow of the ship was very poorly constructed. I improved it by adding a cutted torpedo piece. I also glued something I had made earlier as a sensor/radar and a lot of styrene squares.

 

The bow sides still need some work/details/greebles.

 

 

Thanks for watching.

Wiesiek.

[Pete in Lincs]

Looking good, Wiesiek. Do you find that sometimes it's hard to stop adding greeblies? There will be a time when enough is enough though.

This build is going to be tricky to paint, I think. Have you thought about colours? I've painted mine but I'm still not too sure about them.

[Malc2]

Master piece of imagineering!

 

M.

[voozet]

Thanks gentlemen. 

35 minutes ago, Pete in Lincs said:

Do you find that sometimes it's hard to stop adding greeblies?

Definitely. Sometimes it's hard to choose the moment to stop so as not to overdo it. But at the same time I have a strong desire to save spare parts. I am looking for a balance between contradictions.

 

41 minutes ago, Pete in Lincs said:

This build is going to be tricky to paint, I

I am aware of this. I try to build it to make it a little easier by breaking it down into smaller structures, which I will paint separately.

 

46 minutes ago, Pete in Lincs said:

Have you thought about colours?

50 shades of gray 😝 or more seriously: dark gray, light gray plus some strong color: yellow or red.

[ArnoldAmbrose]

7 hours ago, voozet said:

50 shades of gray 😝

LOL 🤣  It's very impressive, and I love those fighters. Regards, Jeff.

[81-er]

This keeps getting better with each update, Wiesiek. I like that you're sharing the evolution of this as well, it gices me a bit more confidence about tackling a total scratch build at some point

 

James

[Uncle Monty]

Epic build

As always, the quality of every little detail is excellent. This really is going to look superb once the paint goes on and it all comes together.

[bianfuxia]

this build is so much fun to follow along! Looking really cool and no guessing where you're going next!

[Thom216]

You don't really appreciate the size until it all starts to go together! Impressive!

[voozet]

On 21/09/2023 at 13:00, bianfuxia said:

no guessing where you're going next!

Nobody will guess this. Especially me. Improvisation is strong in this one 😉

 

53 minutes ago, Thom216 said:

You don't really appreciate the size until it all starts to go together!

That's still about 1/3 of the ship. But the largest component (the lower "wing") will be relatively simple, so once I finish the main deck it will go faster.

[voozet]

I had a break of several weeks because the call of duty took me away from the workbench. And when I returned, I spent some time exploring various havens with my wife (it was mainly me who explored the bottled one 😉).

 

But now it's time to go back to the shipyard. Unfortunately, this is the more boring part of the job: paneling.

 

 

 

It's not easy to get it right unless you're Adam Savage. I'm not, so it won't be better 😝

 

The next step will be painting (I think), so from time to time I look at the whole thing, checking what needs to be improved. And I add the parts I made earlier. For example, the main radar.

 

 

I also made a smaller radar which I placed above the hangar gate. It's a few pieces of leftovers put together. I was too lazy to wash the olive paint off the cubic base, which turned out to be a mistake. The glue has wrinkled the paint and it looks a bit like it was welded in a Soviet factory.

 

 

As I wrote earlier: now it's probably time to paint the middle and upper sections.

Thanks for looking.

Wiesiek.

 

[Uncle Monty]

Your panelling is immaculate. It is a bit boring but when the paint goes on and it comes together, it's worth all the effort.

[Pete in Lincs]

2 hours ago, voozet said:

and it looks a bit like it was welded in a Soviet factory.

Or, in a vacuum at some ridiculous speed.

It can't all be perfect. The welding makes a talking point. Bring on the paint!

[81-er]

I think you could give Adam a run for his money with that panelling  It's all looking very good to me, I'm looking forward to seeing how you decide to paint this one

 

James

[voozet]

23 hours ago, Uncle Monty said:

when the paint goes on

 

22 hours ago, Pete in Lincs said:

Bring on the paint!

 

20 hours ago, 81-er said:

I'm looking forward to seeing how you decide to paint this one

I'm also curious what it will look like painted. But I have bad news: we all have to wait a little longer.

Recently I've had a strong feeling that I've forgotten something. Well, I just realized what's missing here. This ship is completely unarmed 🤣. Probably because it was initially supposed to be a civilian freighter. But once I added fighters, the Navy took over. And it could use some rockets and lasers, what do you think?

[Uncle Monty]

Rail guns. Big ones. Lasers are also very cool.

[Pete in Lincs]

Nothing wrong with a Civilian freighter. It's being escorted after all. But a couple of turrets probably wouldn't hurt.

[81-er]

I think Pete has a very good point there, it could be a civilian vessel with an escort. Though it's a dangerous place out there, so a few guns wouldn't go amiss...

 

James

[voozet]

Well, it's time to start the arms race. First, I decided to focus on rocket launchers. But not only.

This is the starting set of production materials (from left to right):

• A badly damaged Lego brick found on the street. I cut it in half and cut off the protruding round parts (I glued five of them together, these are the "Olympic rings" that I will use for the next launcher. I will use a drilled black piece of styrene above the rings).
• Seven pieces of 5 mm diameter clear styrene pipe glued together and filled with putty.
• Some kind of launcher from an airplane kit, which I decided to cover with a styrene turret (also using part of some German WWII tank cover).
• A few trinkets of unknown origin.

 

 

I installed the Lego brick in a styrene structure. Two of the holes that are supposed to be barrels (? I don't know what this part of a launcher is called) had damage. That's why I decided to cover them.

 

Next two of the barrels will be open and that's why I needed the missiles. I found some resin warheads in the spare parts box.

 

 

Launcher no. 1 looks after installation.

 

This is launcher no. 2. Made of transparent tubes, styrene and putty.

 

 

I also made a laser cannon from a piece of plastic spoon and styrene (3mm and 1mm).

 

Finished cannon next to the rocket launcher turret.

 

Thanks for watching.

Wiesiek.

 

 

[Richard E]

On 10/18/2023 at 6:11 PM, Pete in Lincs said:

Nothing wrong with a Civilian freighter. It's being escorted after all. But a couple of turrets probably wouldn't hurt.

 

In the days of sailing ships many merchantmen would be armed so they had some degree of self-protection.

[Pete in Lincs]

A fabulous use of scrap pieces. They look great.