weathering

Ghostbusters Project: Final installation

Due to us having to go to Mexico for 6 months on very short notice in order to treat our daughters brain tumour, building was at a standstill for many months!

Finally, we came back and in January, I started building again.

One of the first things done was to install the electronics in my proton pack and mark this pack finished!

I managed to cram all the electronics down into the lovely metal thrower, but it was a tight squeeze.

I managed to fix the acrylic tube of my thrower partly myself, and partly with the help of a friend with a lathe. I got the edges done on the lathe, and fixed the frosty parts of the acrylic tube by masking the clear tube and running sand paper around the tube until it became properly frosty.

 

 

Once the thrower was done, it was time to turn my attention to the pack itself.

I started by marking the areas on the back plate where I could route cables and mount electronics to not interfere with the shell itself. Then I routed the cables for my two Pyle speakers that provides the sound in my pack.

Next up, I 3d printed housings for my LED reflectors and glued them in place on the shell with e6000 glue.

Some cable ties for cable management…

In a perfect world I would build a rig where the reflectors are mounted on the back plate, but as I was in a bit of a hurry at the moment, I decided to glue them in place for now.

More cable ties are placed for the electronics and cables on the motherboard itself. I also routed cables from the battery to the external board on the back that I will use for recharging my battery and turn on and off the main power of the pack. On the blue battery pack is an extra 120W amp that I am considering using. My electronics kit has a built in 40W amplifier, and it might work, but as I haven’t tried out the pack yet in a convention, it is something the future will have to decide.

The blue battery pack is little on the small scale, but it will work for now.

Once everything was routed, it was just a matter of assembling everything, do a bit of weathering with a chrome pen and some sand paper, and all done!

By |2018-02-18T21:38:59+01:00February 18th, 2018|Building, Ghostbusters, Ghostbusters Proton Pack|Comments Off on Ghostbusters Project: Final installation
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BB-8 progress

Time for another update on my BB-8!

Things have been going well, and this week I printed the last pieces for the body:

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In all, that makes quite a large stack of pieces that I need to go through and sand and treat and all that..

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More importantly, I started experimenting with the weathering. First take a look at my kickass weathering mount setup!

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Once I had this on the inflatable ball, weathering was fun and easy. I must say this is a process I really do enjoy.

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This was only a test with water colours, soon the real weathering will follow, this time with acrylics!

In addition to this milestone, I also got around to making a new PSI, since I lost my old one. Putting it all together looks really nice too!

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Stay tuned… =)

 

By |2016-12-06T00:00:03+01:00October 20th, 2015|BB-8, Building|Comments Off on BB-8 progress
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More Data Panel..

Will this never end?

MORE on this data panel nonsense?
Yes! Indeed!

First the easy bit: I removed the 3d printed coupling once again, and superglued it in place, instead of the hot glue that was not doing its job.. but that was not the big thing!

Basically, I had done the bulk of the panel, but lacked the surrounds for it. I started by looking at the surrounds I already had on the A&A Kit I purchased some years ago and realized that’s not going to work.

So, using that as a template, I started cutting and filing and doing my thing in some 1mm styrene to come up with something like … this:

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I painted that with Satin White, and drybrushed it with some old, trusty “Mithril Silver” and glued it in place..

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filthied it down, just like I did the original panel.. (Using “Chaos Black” and “Flesh Wash”. Really putting these two old Citadel colours to work here)

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.. before I went over it with cotton pads and a solvent to clean it up and also burn the weathering into the lacquer paint.

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It really looks the part (pun intended) now, and it feels more solid.

I tested it in place, and it is ready to be fitted in place, but before I go down that route, there were a couple of other things needs to be done first.

First off, since I want this hatch to be openable, and I didn’t prepare anything for it, I realized I needed to route a hole in my top ring around the utility arm area:

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I fastened an M4 screw in place and it sticks up just enough in my routered path that it works!

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While doing this, I also removed the old magnet holding the door shut… and shimmied off some material that was catching when the door was closing… and this is when R2 realized that “hey, it’s been too long since a blood sacrifice was made”..

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Once the bloodlust of R2 (Bet you didn’t know he had one. All builders can agree with me that he has one) was settled, I could finish off the short time of work for the evening, which was to switch two cables on the dome motor, to make R2 turn his head in the direction I want him to!

Next up is attaching a servo to the frame, and start working on getting this hatch to close… not sure how that’s going to go, to be honest….

When working in cramped areas like this I really wish I had a set of old dentist tools and drills.. it could make live SO much easier 😉

By |2016-12-06T00:00:21+01:00April 12th, 2015|R2-D2|Comments Off on More Data Panel..
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