MechTech

I would suggest using those 6mm geared motors if you really want to motorize the Daedalus. Screw drive or get a SLOW geared version and use a lever or something. That will be a tight fit alone! You could probably get most of it to fit in the legs. Did you solve your battery issue with the Arduino? The opening sequence of DYRL would be great to see all the lights and how they are sequenced - plus some artisitc license. Use magnets as contacts and to hold the ships in place, then you can remove them from the SDF-1. Just some ideas. - MT

Looking good Thom! You can see the throttle quadrants and everything! I love the paint scheme and detail Chavakaiser! It has a realistic look to it. The ship and your figure look GREAT Arbit! The fiber optics take a fairly bland design and make it stand out. The figure looks great with your updates. Are you going to paint highlights on the clothing for depth? ALMOST DONE with the ship. Biggest change was adding a 1/4" lip around the top of the deck from the wheelhouse to the stern. The lip is a "C" channel of styrene that a square tube slides into snuggly. The square tube goes onto the lip of upper deck. So the top deck slides on and is now mostly water proof. No fasteners to undo. I extended it to cover the "exhaust" and give me a small helipad (helicopter sold separately, batteries not included). Also added the "glass," Harpoon missile tubes, rebuilt the .50 cal HMGs with brass parts, and added a ton of detail all over the place to include bollards and other tie downs. The crane was built of spare parts and the inflatable boat needs to be finished up. - MT

This is cool, it is not just the main weapon that is new, the rail guns and other items are new too " the OT ultra fast rail cannon of the shoulder, the elbow joint, the bridge (head), a part panel of the fuselage , It is a model that set secondary guns of each place with new parts. " I was disappointed with the cruiser mode, but this is much better! - MT

With Monsters too! - MT

Nice Jean Arbit! That Tiger will look good once you get some paint on it Zombie. Just hang in there with it! - MT

Thanks NZEOD! It's hard to believe its been 35 years too! - MT

The details do look minimum. The fan blades look shallow without having real blades, just engraved lines. What's with the heads? They should be separate from the fuselage piece. Not to mention the laser thicknesses? Then again, this is NOT the final kit we are looking at so take what you see with a grain of salt.- MT

NZEOD - Those buildings are cool for a diorama! That will look awesome. What material are they made of? NYANKODEVICE - That will be a cool diorama and I think you chose a good scale. The 1/15000 is too small to go into detail with. - MT

(Russian accent) Dosvadania to dose Russian veekles! That came out great Xigfrid! Its cool to see people make models that aren't available commercially. Great finish and execution over all! - MT

That kit is coming along great! The shape of the nose always bothered me too. The extra mini-binder data card that came in each one (that hopefully you got) were really cool too. Mine are framed in my shop. - MT

That's cool Kelsain! Dang, I better hide that ring better now... - MT

If it says "King Bong" on the bottom, its gotta be good! Does it need power to levitate, or is that for rotation and lighting only? The diorama is a good idea with that LCAC too! - MT

Thanks CrossAir! They are from the Italeri 3.7cm Flak gun. I had to heavily sand the backs and then link them together around the base. That diorama sounds cool Arbit! -MT

Talk about a "big girl" Nyankodevice! She is looking great. Thank you guys for the positive feedback! The gun is done! I cut down the mount to the correct height. The "bottling factory" or ammo handling section below deck is included too. It should be two rows of ammo, but I ran out of ammo, so only one row. The bottom piece was a tire machined down. I got the rotary table alignment off so the pieces are slewed slightly, but no one will ever see it besides you guys (sshhh). The whole assembly is hollow and lightweight all the way through to reduce weight on the boat. It only weighs ten grams. I love the Oto Melara so I thought I'd go all out on it. 120 rounds a minute at 3,000 FPM! That's a lot of steel raining down. It is also an effective CIWS system too. - MT

Those look GREAT, especially for tiny 1/700 scale models! - MT

That turned out great CrossAir! The white metal parts were a nice touch for that kit. Nearly finished the gun turret! The turret has an access hatch handle with five spokes on it. Of course I already have spare three and four spoke versions the right size already I can't use. But this has a FIVE spoke version so I had to make one. I cut five slots on the mill rotary table and straightened them up with a razor blade and high power magnification. Then cut it off on the lathe. Then after five tries, finally got a thin enough rim to go onto the outside. The next photos are of the finished turret parts. I think the base is too high so I'm going to cut it down. The ammo feed will glue under the turret next along with some hoist points for the turret. - MT

That's looking cool Kelsain! Yeah Arbit, it does just grow and grow! Like from an X-acto to a file set, to an airbrush...to a desktop mill! Sanity is Optional, after a lot of research and experience, Sherline has the best small hobby machines by far - no comparison! I have gotten some of the cheap Chinese machines and they have a lot of play in them or don't work smoothly. I even bought a higher end Chinese mill from Micro Mark, and it has issues to include a control board that is starting to go. The tables have a lot of play in them making them wobble. Even after a lot of cleaning up and re-machining, the tables still don't run true. I'll be buying a Sherline mill when I get the money. My Sherline lathe is awesome and runs smooth as silk and is very quiet. I can lathe at night and no one gets woken up. You can even take the head and use it on the lathe or mill to save money, but I'd like both to make it easy to go between machines. Sherline is right in California between LA and San Diego too. You can visit them to check out and try their machines. http://sherline.com/ Everyone: At the bottom of their page is "The Joe Martin Foundation for Exceptional Craftsmanship." Get a box of Kleenex to wipe up your drool and click on their museum link. Scroll down and check out some of the machining examples. The best part, styrene machines like butter versus steel or aluminum. My cutting bits stay sharp for years on styrene only. - MT

That's cool! I have to agree with the color choice. Russian research says it is "calming." I think it's nauseating, but it fits the Zentreadi to a "T." - MT

Thank you very much guys! I started getting into machining because it is ultimately just making a jig. For instance, cutting a bunch of styrene strip to the same length you use a tool or make a jig to keep the parts the same. Machining does the same thing for me on a more flexible level. Even some of the tools you saw me make are a form of jig to help me make something like the barrel. Arbit, It started with a drill press. Sure you can drill holes with it, but if you put parts in it like styrene you can spin them and machine them a little by hand such as making missiles. Its like a lathe, only vertical! Then I got a small X-Y table for my drill press and that makes it like a mill. Now I could make precision cuts in marked increments (like a jig again). Add a rotary table to the X-Y table and you can spin parts and cut them like making gears or simply cutting a circle out. I got tired of calking my neck to the side so I just got the machinist lathe. They say you can make almost anything on a lathe and a mill and I have to agree. Attached are some photos from the 1/350 Monster build I did about three years ago. The first photo is of a mill with a rotary table and the work is supported by a tailstock to keep it stiff. The second photo is another piece on a rotary table with notched cuts being made into it for a ratchet. It was then cut off. Both parts are in the last photo. The ratchet parts are the top right and the "arm" is of course on the bottom. Machines help me make true cuts where as all hand methods were far less precise and clean. If you keep serious about model making, especially scratch building, machines may be the way to go (or 3D printing). By the way, the aluminum part of the barrel I machined, the brass was from an aftermarket 1/32 machine gun barrel. It's about the same diameter as regular pencil lead, so it is very thin! More photos coming up as the parts dry. - MT

I saw those colors and said "Matchbox!" Hopefully the fit isn't too bad on that kit. Some of Matchbox's colored moldings were great when I was a kid, and then others were a pain because they ddin't match the color scheme. Things have been slow going back on my ship. I create one thing and then somehow screw it up. I need to lathe small gun barrels for models so I mounted a drill chuck into bearings for the lathe tail stock. Now thin work can be supported without warping easily. I have to remake this tool too because it has some wobble in it. Got a nice action shot of sparks flying. Then I machined the gun barrel (Oto Melara 76mm) in 1/72nd scale. The turret mount was machined from solid glued together styrene blocks and the rest was from styrene sheet. They were done on a rotary table on a mill. That tool has made a lot of cool things possible. Need to take more pictures after the glue sets and they are mounted to the turret.- MT

I just realized the GU-11 gunpod is the same scale (and roughly) the same size as the old kit: http://www.macrossworld.com/macross/models/imai/imai_orig.htm I have that kit. So yes, you can make that sucker Airsoft capable! Hmm, that would be cool. Those fast packs are large! - MT

That's coming along great! - MT

Those are some great improvements! Are you going to be offering these up? - MT

That would be cool with some custom decals like pilots helmets have on them. - MT

That looks cool! What software are you using? - MT