MechTech

Looking good Derex! Your fleet is growing fast! Joscasle, looks like you're getting ready to make the death star run soon! William, I empathise with you. I did a bunch of scratch building in 1/350 scale stuff. Now I think my eyes would give me issues. Magnifiers suck on machinery. You're close enough to see the work, then you can't see the controls with them on. The F-18 is looking great! - MT

Thanks for the heads up. The 70's were cool, but can't last forever Maybe my children will like it. - MT

That's too bad Kelsain. Like Pengbuzz mentioned, that's one reason I keep some of my ABS sprues around after building a kit. They're good for fixing stuff and it machines better than styrene for some things. Superglue bonds it to styrene pretty well. The Ghost is coming along great Bolt! I'm glad to see you're building the male power armor Gabe! Looking for something different to watch, my son grabbed the Macross saga so we've been watching it (after many years). He asked me if there even was a male power armor. So now he'll get to see one being built! - MT

The mods are looking good! - MT

It wouldn't kill the Rebels if they used some soap and water on their spacecraft every now and then I think the nozzles look good. How dirty do ion engines get? - MT

Thank you guys, I appreciate it! Yes, decals are evil!!! That's why i try to avoid them too! My Dougram kits took almost as long to decal as to build! - MT

Pengbuzz, great scratch building details! That dio looks great too! Bolt, that hex pattern is looking nice n clean! That is going to look smooth. Derex, that sucks about your paint. Hopefully you can recover. I've lived places that where the weather was too cold or too humid. I got through it by painting outside (rattle can) and then leaving it in a closet or empty room in the house. That way it's inside, but not stinking up the house. Got an spare room/closet? Arbit, I'm glad your hand is fixable. The human body is pretty much "use it or lose it" for everything. So I'm surprised our hobby is not considered good on the hands keeping them moving. Thanks for posting the video too! Joscasle, The chipping on that X-wing looks great! Its looking like it took some "hits." It is nowhere near complete yet, but attached are some views of the parts I have been building. This is the guts in my ships cannon that will fire-off cap strips. The core is a geared motor with a sleeve that fits over it with a helix around it. The motor started slipping so I had to make a brass cross piece to lock it in. That spins inside the frame you see. It still needs refining. The helix also has a tab that engages the flower looking piece which feeds the cap strip through the chute where a bolt cocked by the helix strikes it. Still got a way to go to make everything function smoothly. The chute is styrene so technically its still a model - MT

The rust bucket is looking good! - MT

This is looking great Tekering! I like your idea and mods. Plus the yellow will be gone when you're done - MT

Lots of great build guys in this and the past page. Derex, the shipyards got nothin on you! You're popping those suckers out fast. You can take on the Borg with ships to spare! They're looking good too! Thanks for sharing Gabe. I'd love to see that guy finished. Looking good Pengbuzz! It's sad about people buying everything out! No isopropyl on the shelves anywhere. No noodles, no TP, but there are plenty of vegetarian foods on the shelves! No real photos yet of my canon build. The pieces would look like modern art until put together. - MT

Derex, I AM at home and teleworking. It's still tough to get to modelling. In fact, I've gotten less done since teleworking! Although we do get smoke breaks (minus the smoke and plus the modelling I can't sit all day, a guy's gotta get some exercise at the bench. Cool Electric Indigo! I got to see some of those abandoned in Afghanistan. I wonder if that was the aircraft some LT sat in and pulled the ejection seat handle (and yes, it still worked) That's coming along great Pengbuzz! The flaps add realism. No plane sits out on the ready minus flaps down. So to relate with everyone's pains, I just had carpal tunnel surgery about two months ago. Next hand is probably coming up soon. I can only hold parts for a while before my hand goes to sleep. I miss the days of my "kung foo grip" on parts. That's one thing that slowed me down. Now it's just reworking my current design. - MT

Sqidd, I've used good ole isopropyl alcohol for decades. 70% and 91% are both fine. Its good to ensure all oils and waxes are cleaned off and won't touch the plastic. It may harm some paint (not usually) so protect pre-painted parts just in case. - MT

Sorry to hear that Pengbuzz! I hope all works out for you! - MT

I saw a guy building the Hatchette Bismark. That is just insanely expensive for a kit. That display is CRAZY cool!!! I didn't know they had small screens like that commercially available, but then again, I haven't needed something that size. Would be cool if you could do that for 1/72 scale. - MT

He looks great, in an evil sorta way. Great work and scratchbuilding! - MT

Pengbuzz, Rustoleum for metal is hot towards plastics. This stuff is great. I use the primer for most of my models. Cool Thom and Derex! Looking good! This place is starting to look like the Starship Modeller's Boards Its slow going, but you can see the helical drive from last posts at the bottom and the bolt it drives above it. The backplate will hold everything and the semicircular part is where the caps will feed around. The round milled piece (on top of double sided duct tape) will be cut in half to also be part of the cap feedway. It will all eventually come together. - MT

I like the colors SunDuk! Clean finish too. Nice mods Thom! Cool way to get an obscure vessel. Joscasle, that Tomcat is looking awesome! Great finishing details are going into your build! - MT

The YF-21 and Enterprise are looking great so far! I was having trouble trying to fit the old cap gun mechanism into the turrets I built. Hopefully this is the start of one that WILL fit. So far this is a steel sleeve with a helix soldered around it. A bearing fits on the front to support it. The planetary motor fits into the sleeve for compactness. This mechanism drives the bolt forward and releases it on the cap gun. - MT

Wow, I missed a lot of stuff the last few days! Some cool stuff going on! The Ghost looks like a cool kit! Derex, glad to see you and the other species are getting along now - MT

Cool Electric Indigo (on both). The Minerva cockpit is a cool idea. I'm glad you guys made up Derex. Cats actually make good modelling partners. They don't talk much, though mine keep bumping my hand for loves. - MT

That's great! I love the monster! I was going to share about the printers on sale too. I'm tempted to get one, but gotta replace my mill head first. - MT

Cool, thanks for posting! -MT

You're on to something BigS!!! Things have been slow going lately. I'm redoing my ship's turret. I had issues with the smaller 76mm turret sizes - I just couldn't get the cap gun guts to sit in them nicely. So I had to move up to the good ole' American (now owned by BAE) Mk-45 Mod 4 5 inch gun turret (used all over the world). This thing has more facets than a diamond! Thankfully there are good drawings for it online. I made the buck out of box wood and just sanded it on the disc sander with the table tilting and a compass. Forget doing this thing free-hand!. A "T" nut was added to the bottom to mount it and make pulling the formed plastic off of it easier (use duct tape to grab it if it get stucks). So no one thinks I'm the Martha Stewart of the modelling world, my first pull failed - not enough plastic surrounding the buck to pull down. The second had bad webbing on the backside. The next two were great! Until I sanded down the outside to make the angles crisp. That took too much and made holes. The fifth was with thicker plastic and worked out better. I STILL made a hole in it though! Thankfully small. Now I have to redo the cap gun inside to make it fit and fire at the slower rate of fire (one round every three seconds). - MT

Was having trouble with my PC... See, they like box art too! - MT

Sorry Derex, I'm not laughing at you, I'm laughing with you! I have two full grown cats. One LOVES the model ship I'm building, the other chewed on the mast. The first keeps trying to sit on the flightdeck, and collapsed it through the sides -three times! Nothing broken, but I had to add carbon fiber arrow shafts to support it. Now he doesn't try to sit on it anymore! If you save your boxart, protect your boxes! They make perfect beds for cats.