MechTech

Yeah, Duymon, Y-M-C-A-! By the way, I waited nearly 25 years to get my own shop, so it didn't come easy. A little here and there saved up... Derex, I'm givin' your B Wing an "A"! Nice n clean. - MT

Arbit, that LED sequence is great! Duymon, nice finishes on those. Derex, the decanting is a lot of work, but it looks like you have a smooth finish going on. I forgot to take photos of my plane, but as part of our club build, we each built a 1/48 scale warbird and finished it in a NASCAR paint and decal scheme. The 13 foot track the club built is awesome with all the planes on it. I'll have to post photos when I get them. Then I built a 1/72 Osprey with hooks on it. We had to take our models and run them along a cable to make carrier landings using the hooks and a tailhook. I built the Osprey (only plane I had in the right size) and the other photo shows our "carrier deck." It was actually a lot of fun and something different for a change. Back on the ship now. It is taking forever, but it is a PAIN making everything aligned right and getting rid of seams. I'm sure you can see all the clear super glue joints used to fill the gaps a lot of the complicated angles create. Next time I'm drawing this in 3D and cutting parts out digitally. That's it for now. - MT

That looks cool! The first photo looks like you have the toy next to a comic book. - MT

Its quiet over here at MW today! The lifting strakes are now done. It was a pain bending them to fit and then using a ton a glue to seal them down. A whole day of sanding just to clean them up and the other joints. Where you see a visible joint is a lot of glue. The top of the bow is just sitting on to measure the rest of the top sides. - MT

Your finishes are always so smooth Electric Indigo! There's sides on it now! The gaps will become "steps" to provide stability and add lift to get it on a plane. - MT

The only thing I can think of is to carefully glue a piece of sprue onto the cover with a TINY drop of CA and pull it out. Then just clean it up afterward carefully with sandpaper and a bit of buffing. - MT

Thank you guys! Snow day today! So I got some minor work done aligning the water jets. I'm now cleaning up some arrows for clean shafts to go on the underside. - MT

Man! I get to work on my model and miss some great builds and good ideas! Lots of great stuff guys! And happy belated New Year too! Starting Christmas 2018, I finally started on the scratch built ship model. Months back it started as a card stock cutout after drawing it 2D for design. Everything is low tech for now. The bottom is one piece of styrene that was actually cut and folded (after lengthening it). Then came the ribs. I'm using cleaned up carbon fiber arrow shafts on sale for $4 at the local sporting goods store. They give stiffness and are so light. The ship will be 40 inches long and have three jet drives. The last photo is CFS (Cat For Scale). - MT

Merry Macross Christmas guys! I was thinking of getting one of these kits, but looks like they are no longer being carried. - MT

Cool Derex and Arbit! Merry Christmas everyone! Hopefully you got some cool models under the tree! - MT

It looks like the ramp hinges on a couple of tabs on the sides of the exit. Its gotta hinge on something - right!? Cool video. Looking good Electric Indigo! - MT

I'm just seeing this now. Welcome to MW and that IS an AWESOME intro! Awesome build and you can have fun getting carried away with all the extras on a build like that! - MT

That is a cool concept and came out great! Thanks for sharing with us. - MT

She looks great! - MT

I love it! It looks like the replica anime cell on my wall! - MT

Arbit, I would go with a geardrive and just time it if you can keep the voltage relatively constant. A clutch will add some safety to it. - MT

Thrust vectoring joint?

I was backwards (like lots of things) I kept seeing the Robotech kits in stores and finally bought one. After building two of almost every aircraft kit, a Valkyrie was new and awesome!!! And it transformed, it just didn't sit there on my shelf! One day we didn't have Track so I got home early after school and turned on TV to see the first episode of Robotech. OK, so the series got messed up in the U.S, it was still so COOL! I learned how to program my VCR (remember those) and set it with brand new high quality tapes to record. Wish I still had them just for the commercials! - MT

Thanks Arbit. Sadly, there are no real aircraft carriers like the Prometheus. I researched it. Closest is the old Enterprise for the upper bow portion of the deck and today (that didn't exist then) is the Reagan onward for the bulbous bow. But still SO different than reality. Time to scratch-build some stuff! - MT

That's looking great Electric Indigo! Looking nice n clean so far Nyankodevice. Thanks Arbit! Here's an idea, it's what I used on the Daedalaus elevator. The motor sits on a swivel and the spring keeps it engaged into the drive gear. If too much power is applied, it just "skips" without grinding down the teeth. Its a type of clutch. The motor drives a gear on a shaft with two other gears. Those gears engage into a rack of gears. The rack faces away from you so you don't see it. No slippage and you can see how small it was (1/200 valks). Hopefully the video works. The camera was overly sensitive to sound, but you get the idea. Also the original video just in case at 19:28. I think You-Tube still has the sound blocked - sorry! I hope that gives you some ideas. - MT Elevator Up.MPG

Lt. Zombie, that's a great change to the engines! Electric Indigo, Thank you! The belt will actually bend into a loop inside the turret. The strip caps can link together so it will be a big loop inside the turret and into the base. - MT

Thank you Mickyg! You are so right! Time is more valuable than our old Macross stuff! Thank you Martin! I guess we're all in the same boat with time and life leaving less time for hobbies. - MT

Brett and Pengbuzz, I love the creativity you both took with your projects. Brett, that was cool going with a Vietnamish-era looking paint scheme. Pengbuzz, that was great taking an F-15 and bashing it with a Transformer! Electric Indigo, I love how you treated the decals to make them look more realistic. That is the next best thing to decal setting solution. Both together look very realistic! Valkyriepm - You're still alive! Good to see Kakizake getting some love! Great paint effects. Long work hours and the commute has cut my "fun" time down. So sorry I don't chat with you guys more. I'm glad to see the great work being posted here though! What have I been doing? For the past several months, bits and pieces as time (and family) allows. I'm calling the Dougram Ironfoot done. The right knee joint broke and I can't fix it due to the wires running through it. So any more handling like further painting could permanently damage it. Sorry, my camera needs to be replaced! Lathed down the old rocket ends and fitted them into styrene tube to extend them and make them more white painting wise. Too much paint will get scraped off if they are removed. What has taken up my hobby time the most is an upcoming ship build. I want to build a large and fast R/C ship. A modern corvette or light frigate which of course there are no large kits of in 1/72nd scale or similar. I think a cool idea would be to have the cannon fire caps! There are no electric cap guns that I have found, so I had to engineer one (actually two). The first design is small and lightweight. It uses a rotating cylinder to pick-up a brass tube piece with a cap on the end from the spring-fed magazine below it. One end of the cylinder is a helix that simultaneously cocks the hammer back and releases it at the right point. PROS: Lightweight, fast and small. CONS: Jams easily, caps don’t always sit right on the tube despite a tight fit and caps have to be cut-out and refitted each use. Only holds 8 rounds. First cylinder auto-cap-cannon photo, at rest. Second, cocked. The second design uses a bolt that is hollow. It has gear teeth on the bottom that are engaged by a pinion gear that cocks it back. The bolt has an insert that strikes the cap as it is released backward when the pinion gear’s teeth run out (similar to some airsoft gun mechanisms). The same shaft also turns a cam that drives a feed arm to advance the cap strip. PROS: Highly reliable, louder (caps and striking force). Can fire several strips inter-locked as a belt. CONS: bigger, heavier, slower, needs more power to run (also making it heavier). First auto-cap-cannon photo, at rest. Second, cocked. Third, loaded with a cap strip. The second design will be used because I can trust it to not jam and it is louder. Next step is to create the turret. It will be the Leonardo (ex-Oto Melara) 127/64 light weight (5 inch/127mm) gun. The barrel is already turned to match its appearance. The barrel only weighs 1 gram by the way. Its hollow to allow smoke and effects to pass through it as a real cannon. That’s it for now. Chat with you guys later! - MT

Whooo Hooo! 200th page in this thread now! Awesome stuff guys! I wish I had more time to follow everyone's work! - MT

Some people here have tried dying in the past. ABS does not absorb dye readily nor do most plastics. Light pastel colors are the best I have seen. I'm with you on the idea though. I hate paint rubbing off too. - MT