Expanse MCRN Freighter scratchbuild

[Uncle Monty]

Greetings fellow modellers

Time for another ship build, this time it's a freighter, very roughly in the style (and markings) of the MCRN ships from the Expanse.
This build began a while ago, it went onto the Shelf of Shame, came off again thanks to a sudden burst of mojo, and right now it's mostly done. I took a lot of pics but never got around to doing a WIP as I didn't know if anything would come of it, so perhaps now the simplest thing is to put all the pics into perhaps three posts to spread the load a little and to make it easier to digest.

 

It began with two basic components:

 

1. An old and very large camera zoom lens inherited from Dad, so vintage 1970s with blurred optics and a mount that fitted nothing currently available on this planet thanks to the collapse of the Soviet Union (Dad went through a stage of buying camera gear from East Germany because it was cheap).
2. A baked bean tin because I thought it had an interesting shape.

 

I had no idea what to do with the lens but then I thought perhaps it could be incorporated into a build of some sort. I had a vague idea that it might work as a spaceship hull, so I dismantled it, binned the glass and superglued some of the components together to create a 'hull'. The bean tin (without beans) was glued onto the front. I also raided my spares box and found a hosepipe nozzle to go on the back as an engine exhaust, and a plastic plumbing joint to go on the front.That gave me this:

 

At this point i lost interest and the project got shelved. Not difficult to see why,
Recently I wondered if I could salvage something from the whole sorry mess and after a lot of thought and googling "expanse ships" I came up with this sketch of a freighter, covered in cargo containers:

 

And here is the very first attempt at creating the freighter. You can see that the length is just over 30cm:

 

 

The grey thing on the front went in the bin and I replaced it with the lens hood and various other bits of plastic to create a sort of docking hatch.

The boxes are the shipping containers and are made of 5mm plastic sheet. I don't know what sort of plastic this is. It's certainly not styrene. Superglue seems to work on it, so that's fine. Anyway, it's fairly sturdy and yet still soft enough to cut with a craft knife. I got it off Amazon and I believe that it's the stuff that architects use to create model buildings. Whatever, it's useful stuff and fairly cheap.

The three bits of styrene that look like wings are going around the engine as baffles, to direct the exhaust away from the hull. Or something like that anyway. I thought that the rear needed something to make it a bit more interesting.

 

Well, another update soon, I'm still sorting out the pics, in the meantime happy modelling all!
cheers
Monty

[ArnoldAmbrose]

       Gidday @Uncle Monty, camera lens body and baked beans tin - I think that was an ingenious idea. You and @Bandsaw Steve should get together and have a conference on unusual model making materials. I like the idea of external cargo containers too. I guess with no atmosphere to worry about they wouldn't have to be streamlined.

       This is an interesting model. Regards, Jeff.

[Bandsaw Steve]

That’s very cool. Above all it looks like a feasible design. It looks like something that one day might actually be built and might actually workFor me that’s the acid test of Sci-fi stuff. 
 

I hope it gets painted in something very high viz! 👍

[Uncle Monty]

Thanks @ArnoldAmbrose!

10 hours ago, ArnoldAmbrose said:

unusual model making materials

Part of the fun for me is looking around the house to see what might work as a ship, truck, whatever. I always try to recycle stuff into the builds rather than buying new - good for the planet AND my wallet.

 

Hi @Bandsaw Steve, thanks very much!

I like to keep some semblance of realism in my stuff, especially the space builds. Probably my engineering background and watching 2001 too many times. Spaceships need to be lumpy and pipes need to start and end somewhere.

 

As for paint, the finish is off-white with flashes of orange as per the MCRN ships so yeah, pretty high-viz. Next installment on its way, once I've organised the pics.

[FG2Si]

Very neat looking model. I never would have thought of using a camera lens and tin can for a base. 

 

It does remind me a lot of the Colonial Movers ship from Battlestar Galactica.

 

Carl

[ArnoldAmbrose]

14 hours ago, Uncle Monty said:

On 8/15/2023 at 2:02 PM, ArnoldAmbrose said:

unusual model making materials

Part of the fun for me is looking around the house to see what might work as a ship, truck, whatever.

Many years ago when our kids were little I decided on an activity using waxed cardboard milk cartons. My son wanted an aircraft carrier, my younger daughter wanted a fish. We achieved both.

Regards, Jeff.

[Uncle Monty]

2 hours ago, ArnoldAmbrose said:

Many years ago when our kids were little I decided on an activity using waxed cardboard milk cartons. My son wanted an aircraft carrier, my younger daughter wanted a fish. We achieved both.

Regards, Jeff.

When mine were small, every cardboard box big enough became a castle, or maybe a spaceship!

[Pete in Lincs]

Very creative stuff. I like it, though I have to ask, would you have containers around the engine section? (assuming that this is the bean cans purpose).

If they're already glued into place then I'll sit back and shut up! You ain't seen me, right?

[Uncle Monty]

16 hours ago, Pete in Lincs said:

Very creative stuff. I like it, though I have to ask, would you have containers around the engine section? (assuming that this is the bean cans purpose).

If they're already glued into place then I'll sit back and shut up! You ain't seen me, right?

I ain't seen nuffing, Guv.

Mind you, the bean tin is the front. The engines are the other end

 

[Pete in Lincs]

Doh 😳

[voozet]

Pangalactic multi-material trash bash.  Love it. Especially since I also loveThe Expanse.

 

 

 

[ArnoldAmbrose]

14 hours ago, voozet said:

trash bash.

I like that term, it has a nice sound to it.       Regards, Jeff.

[Uncle Monty]

19 hours ago, voozet said:

Pangalactic multi-material trash bash.  Love it. Especially since I also loveThe Expanse.

 

Thanks Had a lot of fun with this - more pics coming up very soon.

 

 

[Uncle Monty]

Evening All

 

Another update from the MCRN Freighter build.

This time it's all about adding the final greeblies and then the undercoat.

First task here was to make three rocket nozzles for the rear. I had in my spares stash some 12mm acrylic rod which I bought a while ago thinking that it might come in handy one day. So I sawed off a chunk, put it in my drill chuck and then used a woodworking chisel to turn up a rocket nozzle shape. After a few cock-ups and some swearing I got the hang of it and it didn't take too long to make three nozzles. NB I do have a mini-lathe but the chuck is too small to take 12mm rod

 

 

The next job was to build a stand to put the model on. I made this from the 5mm sheet mentioned previously. I like to think it's sort of art deco with a touch of Flash Gordon thrown in.

 

 

At this point I gave the ship a name: "Clarke". Named after my favourite scifi author, and why not.
I added just a few greeblies, probably less than I normally would. I decided that the ship would be a workhorse and essentially very simple; just an engine and a bunch of cargo containers, with not much detailing. I did add some styrene panels to make some  strengthening ribs on the containers. I also added a little crew compartment up front. So now the 'top' is the top of the old lens hood and the little crew compartment sits on top of that.

 

 

Finally the rattle can undercoat went on and it all started to come together. This last shot shows it the right way up and ready for some top coat, decals and weathering.

 

 

I had to make my own decals and print them off on waterslide paper, more on that next time.

 

Happy modeling all, cheers for now
Monty

 

 

[Pete in Lincs]

And the coat of paint brings it all together. Looking good.

[Thom216]

Amazing what a lick of paint will do, in making all your good work shine!

[Uncle Monty]

Greetings BMers

I have now marked this one as completed so here are the last batch of pictures. I have posted more on RFI as well, including a few fun shots of Mars and so on, you can have a look if you like here

 

I had to make some decals which I printed on waterslide paper, as per my usual MO. I looked at quite a few Expanse pics on the net and the shade of orange used for the MCRN ships varies a lot from bright orange to a lurid red, so I went for something in between. A lot of the ships are also quite dark in colour but that can be tricky to photograph so I went for a traditional off-white, with just a few dark grey panels here and there.

The engine nozzles were painted in silver which merges into gunmetal at the base. The three attitude jets have bronze paint on the base. The rocket exhaust baffles are made of styrene sheet and bits of sprue and painted in gunmetal.

The rest of the painting was done with acrylics brushed on. The weathering was very dry dark grey paint, scrubbed into the crevices.

Overall it sort of does what I wanted. It looks a bit Expanse-ish and a bit grubby, like a working cargo ship. I'm glad I didn't add any more greeblies as that might have complicated the lines of it. Instead I spent some time adding flat panels here and there and breaking up the white paint with a few dabs of grey. If nothing else, Dad would have been quite pleased that I found a use for his old camera lens!

Now, on to the next project - just as soon as I've finished landscaping the garden.

cheers all
Monty