Alien(s) Narcissus by DanBKing

"In flying, the probability of survival is inversely proportional to the angle of arrival." ~ Neil Armstrong

And, we continue .....

The windows for the upper hull were accurately cut out.
I then laminated two pieces of 0.5mm card to get a thickness of 1mm for the window frames. I then cut this into strips, approximately 3mm wide, keeping the cuts as perpendicular as possible.
These were then glued to the frame edges where indicated. (I was still busy with them when I took the photo.)
Once the framing was dry, from behind, I trimmed the frame strips to size, using the edges of the window parts as reference.


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I decided at this point, to start constructing the forward hull structure.
First of all, I glued the lower hull panels to each other....

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I noticed that some of the panels were slightly warped, probably due to all the laminating.
To overcome this, I used 3mm thick card and cut strips around 10mm wide into long lengths.
These were then cut to the length needed and were glued on their edges and weighted down until dry.
I did the same for the rear panel and upper hull panels too.

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The lower panels were attached to the rear and forward panels first.
The best way I found to do this was to glue the middle section first. The lower panel assembly was laid flat, and using the side panels as reference, I centered the middle hull panel to the middle of the rear panel.
I glued the middle panel square/perpendicular to the rear panel and let the glue dry.

This is now where angles come in to play.....

The the lower and upper hull panels are angled from the rear panel by about 10 deg from perpendicular.
To get the side panels to line up to the rear panel, the rear panel has to be coaxed out of square by about 10 deg, as you can just make out in the pic below.
I then glued the side panels to the rear panel, and using various things to hold everything correctly, I let the glue dry thoroughly.
The front panel was added last.

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While this was drying, I glued the framed windows to their openings in upper hull panels and added the final detail parts to the upper panels. (parts 225, 226, 235-238.)

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The upper hull panels were then glued to the previous sub-assembly in the same manner as the lower hull panels.
The upper and lower panels were then joined together by their edge parts.
The completed front hull was allowed to dry thoroughly.
I still need to do quite a bit of cleaning up and tidying of the front hull assembly, but that will come later.

I then just HAD to see what the front hull assembly looks like on the longitudinal spine assembly .... (just temporary, not glued!!)

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At this point, I started to realize just how BIG this model is going to be! :yesyes:

I almost forgot the two half barrels on the nose....! Nothing too special or difficult here...

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Next up is the nose section.
This I will show in the next thread, later this evening or tomorrow!

Laters.... :wave:
 
"Bird in hand makes it harder to blow nose." ~ Confucius

I built the nose sub-assembly, ready for fitting at a later stage....

First, I printed out a copy of the nose framing parts on thin paper, this I tacked to a piece of 0,5mm card.
Using the parts as reference, I cut out all of the back panels for both sides of the nose. When cutting out, make sure you leave enough space between each part, so that these pieces, when laminated to the nose frame parts, will not hinder any fold lines.

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The nose frame parts were then cut out, WITHOUT cutting out the pieces marked 'X'
All the fold lines for the tabs and individual panels were scored and pre-folded.
The card pieces, from the previous step, were then glued to the back of each frame panel, using a light from behind to line everything up....

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Once all this was dry, I cut out all the parts on the laminated frames marked 'X.'
What you are then left with is a raised frame...

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The recess panels were cut out, slightly larger than the template, so that you have more gluing area.
These were lined up and attached to the laminated frame..

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I made the center section that fits between each nose part....

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The rest of the parts for the nose were carefully cut out, ready for assembly...

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I then used a marker pen of the same colour as the frame, to cover any white-space showing, where I did not line things up very well....
  • The problems with this white-space issue, I will discuss in more detail a little later in the thread. Apart from me being more careful when lining things up, I have a solution to this problem.

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The front engine nozzles in the nose were added next. Check, check and double check that you have the tubes aligned correctly. The tubes need to be horizontal when assembled to the frame, but the front part of the nose is angled inwards at the bottom
I used a tube of thick card to force the nozzles into shape while fitting and gluing...

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The backing piece of each nozzle was then glued in place.

All the remaining parts were assembled to complete the nose.

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This is how it looks, (unglued.) The nose will be permanently attached at a later stage of the build.

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Now it is time to start on the butt of this ship....
I will add more to the thread, as I progress.

Have a great weekend everybody. :CHEERS:

:wave:
 
"Faces can lie. Backsides can't." ~ Yoko Ono

Time to start the rear end of this beast ........
We will begin in the middle...

Part 241, is the main framing piece of the rear center sub structure.
I used my previous method of building up the frame piece to 0.5 mm, instead of all the edges of the sub-panels.

First, all the fold lines of pt 241 were scored and pre-folded..
The pre-laminated pt 249 was cut out around its outer perimeter, leaving the center intact.

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Pieces of 0,5mm card were cut to fit each panel from behind.
It is important to be aware of the folds across pt 241 when gluing these card pieces on.
Leave enough space between them to ensure that the pieces do not jam, hinder or prevent folding pt 241 to its final shape!

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The parts marked 'X' were then cut out. I found that cutting all these out was best done by cutting each individual plane at a time; horizontal, vertical, diagonal, etc. This saves having to turn the part 60 times to achieve all the cuts! :cool:
I did not cut up to the corners, thereby keeping the cut out piece still intact to the frame as a whole. This helps keep everything lined up.
I cut all the main cuts this way and then later cleanly chopped the corners.
I then glued pt 249 onto its position and let the glue dry well.

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The inner section of pt 249 was cut out as square as possible, keeping in mind that the cut goes through the lamination of pt 241 & 249 here!
The edges needed sanding lightly to get rid of the burrs...

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After corner cropping and cleaning up, the frame is done.

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The sub panels were then cut out and glued to their respective positions on the back of the frame.
Pre-laminated parts 248 & 258 were cut out and glued to the back of the hatch sub panel.

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The laminated detail pieces were cut out, edge-colored and added to the sub panels.

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Next, I cut out the rear and two side panels of the sub-assembly, but did not laminate them to thicker reinforcing card at this stage.
These were carefully glued to the frame, ensuring everything was kept good and square.
The small tabs, at the ends of the frame rails around the hatch, I removed. I noticed that the tabs were pushing the side panel away from the sub panels by the thickness of the tab. This created an unsightly gap (0.25 mm) between the sub and side panels. With the tabs removed, this section was just edge glued to the side panels.

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Once the glue was dry, I cut out reinforcing card pieces for the side and rear panels, making sure they fit nice and snug and glued them in.

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After I had checked the alignment and squareness of the whole sub-assembly, I closed off the back.
  • I cannot stress enough, the importance of getting this sub-assembly perfectly square. Just like the lateral spine, a lot hangs off of this sub-assembly and if it is not nice and square and strong, it will exasperate alignment problems later.
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To complete this sub-assembly, the two rectangular parts were made up and attached to the rear of the sub-assembly. Note that the angled ends of these parts face outwards.
The chevron was assembled. Check for fit before gluing and trim if/where necessary. This was then glued to the center of the lower sub-panels completing this part of the build.

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I hope everybody has a great New Year!!

See you all soon!!

:wave:
 
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Dan, this painstaking attention for details and care proves that you haven't lost your mojo at all. It's such a joy seeing everything come together. And your indepth explanations are the icing on the cake. Superb! :)
 
Are you on some planet that revolves really quick and live in a different time realm that allows you to bang out work like this so fast? Excellent looking parts. The whole model will be a sight to behold. ;)
 
WOW WEE!!!! That is perfecto! You really are inspiring me to get back to work on my projects, I totally want to become good at stuff like this as you are!
 
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Are you on some planet that revolves really quick and live in a different time realm that allows you to bang out work like this so fast? Excellent looking parts. The whole model will be a sight to behold. ;)

I hope so!

Let's just say I am bored with normality and have a lot of time on my hands.
So, I am making constructive use of it. ;) :cool:
 
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I think thats why he was off line al the time he was preparing all the models to show us now.
Nah, not true! Most of my models are in the same state, or worse, since when I went AWOL for a while.

This is a completely new build. Most posts are within 4 days of the subject when posted.
I hope I can keep going at this pace.
If life doesn't get in the way again, all should be good and all is on track
If life gets in the way again, it can *** off! ...I am going to finish this model, real time! :cool:
 
"Foundations to be reliable must always be unshakable." ~ Hannah Whitall Smith


Furthering the construction of the rear components.....

With the construction of the center rear section complete, it is time to move on to the engine substructures.
I hope you remembered to print 2 copies of page 43, as there is only one substructure provided in the template!

Like the rear center section, the engine substructures need to be strong. But, more importantly they need to be built with precision!
The angles of the surfaces that the engines attach to, need to be close to perfect, otherwise you will get unsightly gaps when gluing the engines on later!

When building these substructures, use the following adage:

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:sticktongue:

No, but seriously, getting these substructures as square and true as possible is paramount!!! Use set-squares, machined blocks, or whatever you need, to make sure everything ends up square and true, when gluing and when completed.

This is how I did mine .....

In this pic of one of the substructure side panels, I have indicated two things: The blue lines show the faces that the upper and lower engines will eventually attach to, and the yellow arrows indicate the reference points for attaching the face panels squarely. These points will line up with the fold lines on the face panels.
If you do not get these exactly lined up when attaching the face panels, you will get a twist in the whole substructure when fully assembled.

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I started with the pointy bit first! The parts were cut out, edge coloured and pre-folded where necessary. Make sure the folds across the part with the cutout are as exact as possible.
The two detail panels were glued on while everything was still in the flat.

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The inset piece was attached next. I started by folding all the side flaps of the cutout, in on themselves, out of the way. The same for the side parts of the inset piece.

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I started by gluing one long edge of the inset piece to its corresponding tab, ensuring it was dead centered and square..
I recommend using a glue that gives you a bit of time to adjust the parts, before it sets.
The glue was allowed to dry.

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The next stage is a little tricky and I would suggest doing numerous dry fits, until you are comfortable with how everything pulls together to its final shape.
The other long side of the inset was then glued to its corresponding tab, ensuring all is centered and square.
DO NOT glue the folded inset piece side panels yet. This is done once the whole substructure is complete.

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Next up the side panels were attached to this assembly. First, I glued the two opposite long edges of once side of the previous assembly to each side panel.
Make sure the fold line of the face panel lines up exactly with the corresponding reference points, shown earlier in this post.

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Then nose tab and the other long edges were attached them same way on the other side. Concentrate on those reference points while gluing. If all is square, the small end pieces will line up automatically.

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The remaining face panels were first laminated to a piece of thick card for strength and then, using those important reference points again, were glued on.
Again, check, check and double check for squareness while gluing these on.

I cut out, trimmed to fit and laminated two pieces of strengthening card, to the inside faces of the side panels, in exactly the same way as the rear center section was constructed in the last post.
Once the glue had dried and everything was nice and square and true, the side pieces of the earlier inset piece were glued on. These should line up easily, if not, there is a twist somewhere in the assembly. Use something long, from the back of the still open substructure, to push the inset panel tabs into place if required.

Once I was happy that the whole substructure alignment is as it should be, I glued on the strengthened back panel, checking for alignment and squareness again for the umpteenth time!

In the next post, we begin with the rear corner detail panels.

See you all soon!

:wave:
 
"I ran into Isosceles. He had a great idea for a new triangle!" ~ Woody Allen


We begin again with the last main substructures of the hull, the triangular detail panels at the rear.

Again, I built them in pairs. I started with the upper panels.

The frame piece was laminated to 0.75mm and cut out. As before, I cut out all the main cuts leaving the corners intact.
The corners where then chopped out with a chisel type blade, this keeps everything nice and square.

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The sub-panels were then pre-folded, prepared, laminated to thick card and cut out.
Part 360, the framing piece for the cut out on the sub-panel, was glued on without removing the center of it. Once the glue had dried, the cutout was made through both part 360, the sub-panel and the laminated strengthening card.

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The frame was then glued to the sub-panel and all the detail pieces were cut out and edge coloured and glued in place.
I also made up the inset pieces for the cutouts.

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At this stage, I want to point out something that has annoyed me slightly while building this model so far.
As I have mentioned previously, the template as a whole has very fine tolerances. With this in mind, I have noticed something that could be changed to really improve the model template.
On most all of the sub-panels throughout the model, the demarcations where the detail pieces are to be placed are white with a darker border. Easy to see, I agree, but if a detail piece is cut ever so slightly smaller, when the piece is glued on, this whiteness of the demarcation will show, as pointed out in the pic below. The same result will occur if you don't align the detail piece perfectly. The white areas stick out like a sore thumb.
It would be so much better if these demarcations were the same colour as the panel as a whole.

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The upper rear sub-panels are the only exception to this. Half of the demarcations are white, the other are the same as the panel colour!!
In the pic of the template below you can see this clearly. The detail pieces ringed in blue have their demarcations in white, but the green ringed pieces' corresponding demarcations are the panel colour on part 357 (the sub-panel.)
I really don't understand why the designer did not do this throughout the whole template.
But there again, all you GIMP, Inkscape and Photoshop gurus out there could easily fix this problem, I guess.

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Right, moaning over. Back to the build ...
The upper sub-panels' detailing was completed, (and white areas coloured!) and the inset panels were glued into place.

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Next up the lower rear detail panels.

First the frame was carefully cut out Take your time with this and use a sharp/new blade. Some of the framing rails are very thin and delicate. I cut all these out first. as this will leave a large mass of support paper around these rails. The rest of the frame was then cut out. The frame was then edge-coloured. Again, be careful with those thin rails when you do this, because if you are using some form of liquid colour like ink, paint, markers, etc, the liquid will seep into the thin rail, soften it and make them extremely prone to tearing and/or deforming.

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The frame was then carefully glued to the pre-laminated sub-panel and all the detail pieces were glued into place.
I didn't line up the frame in this pic very well at all, but it doesn't affect the structure in any way, just lots of colouring to do to hide the damn white again. :bulgeeye:

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The inset pieces were added to complete these lower panels.

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Due to all the laminating and gluing I ended up with this problem again, which I'll fix shortly.

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The upper and lower detail panels were joined together at the side panel.

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The warping in the detail panels was addressed in the same way as the forward hull panels. I made sure that nothing was going to jam up or snag when doing final assembly of these parts.

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The two remaining panels for each side set were added, and also braced. As you add this bracing, before the glue dries, check that nothing snags or jams up by folding the whole structure into its final shape. If it does, adjust or trim where necessary.

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Then both panel sets were glued together into their final pyramidal shape completing this sub section.
I will post photos of this in my next post, as I am at my picture limit on this post already!

See you all soon!!

:wave:
 
So much information. Well chosen pics means less words. Excellent, the "show side" of the model is movie miniature quality. ;)
 
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