Monday, December 21, 2009

DX in Half a Day 2 : Some assembly required

DB says: One of the downsides of returning to the rat-race a month ago is that there isn't nearly as much time in the week for modelling. On the plus side, my wallet didn't know what hit it on Tuesday. I'm thinking about buying some new lenses and taking six months off...

I've managed to fit in a few hours this week though as I start to sort out my DX puzzle. First up, here's some bits for your perusal. As with my 'paper' cabs, the thin styrene sides .(25mm/.005in) are backed with clear glass-ic styrene to give 'flush-ish' windows and a stiffer structure.

The bases were cut from thickish styrene, but I'd almost be tempted to laser them in future, although this might beyond the abilities of my Laser Gun Wielding Stormtroopers without turning everything into a smoldering puddle of white. Given the bits, it was then a pretty straightforward process of sticking tab A in slot B, although unlike Mark's work, I don't have any tabs or slots, preferring to guess where the bits go and estimate the right-angles for that homely look.I used a fine tipped permenant marker to do the 'window rubbers' before sticking the 'glass' in and have identified a few changes that I'll make to Mk2 of the CAD drawing. Long hood sides were straightened overnight (bent over a styrene rod with paint tins weighing down the ends) and attached thus:

I then set about making a rear end to cast. After carefully making one up to match the plan I find that... my hood as attached is way too narrow, despite attaching it X distance in from the edges per my feeble reading of the plan... Dammit, here I was thinking I was doing a bang-up job. It' not often you make a diesel hood too narrow, its usually the other way around to clear the mech. The Atlas Dash 8 is amazingly skinny...

The anorexia plastica was remedied by simply attaching another etched hood side over the top of the etched hood sides and this brought things out to the correct width (picture not shown). Its not as if I don't have etched hood sides coming out my ears.

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