Outland Shuttle Build

[Hot4Darmat]

Thanks again for the supportive comments and the warmth. This is truly a great little e-community, and I for one am grateful to be a part of it. Roller coaster is right. I feel like I've had my little "freak out" and am much calmer, and moving ahead in a much more normalized fashion. My wife and I will weigh all the information and risks, not worry about things that aren't in front of us yet, and go with best practices and recommendations we can (sage advice there ekuth, thanks). Thats all there is to do.

Back on topic. Progress! Oddly I got a bunch more building done today while the lads were out playing in the snow and the littlest napped. Not only did I regain the ground lost by the aforementioned squishing incident, I finished building one complete thruster arm assembly. Pics soon.

 

[Hot4Darmat]

Here are a few photos of the progress made today: One of the thruster arm assemblies completed (nearly...the engine itself is still missing, the three attitude thrusters pointing up at the end, and there will be a few more panels and greebles here and there).

On to the pictures.

 

[Hot4Darmat]

And these sort of show what it will look like in place.

 

[Soaring]

Gasp! It's Undescribable! It's....SMEXY! Yeah...
Now for some real Fanboy Descriptions! Very good job on this Darmat, Looks preety real from what I see. And by the end of your fantastic build...grab your video camera, add a backdrop, do a movie, and noone will know it was paper! And for that, you deserve a ------> :woot1:
Sorry to hear about your child, my best prayers and hopes are with him and your family.

 

[CJTK1701]

Gasp! It's Undescribable! It's....SMEXY! Yeah...
Now for some real Fanboy Descriptions! Very good job on this Darmat, Looks preety real from what I see. And by the end of your fantastic build...grab your video camera, add a backdrop, do a movie, and noone will know it was paper! And for that, you deserve a ------> :woot1:
Sorry to hear about your child, my best prayers and hopes are with him and your family.

What he said, on all counts.

 

[Starship Builder]

hi love youre build been watching this thread since it opend great stuff love the deatail of the thrusters and i hope youre son is ok.

 

[Gearz]

All righty then, I'll put the whip away ~ crime paid for in FULL !

Those arms definitely look like the business ~ I love the plating on the sides. Is it laminated onto thick cardstock/cardboard ? All it needs now is the engine pod and few wisps of steam coming off it.

*Oh Nooo.. i just looked at the studio model pics again.. Engines = lotz of CONES AAAaarrrhhh! sign1

 

[Hot4Darmat]

All extra detail panels made to date have indeed been laminated. I basically use 110 lb paper all around, and when I laminate, I just glue the printed part onto some scrap bits of the same stuff. Just two layers thick. The side plates for the thruster arm assemblies are actually fold-over parts. You can kind of see through the assembly, and I didn't want any white showing.

I'm working on finishing the rest of the landing gear and thruster arms...which is lots of building of the same stuff you've already seen. I'll post more photos as soon as something new-ish gets built.

 

[CJTK1701]

Brilliant! Looking forward to your updates and I'll definitely use your technique on one of the bigger models.:thumb:

 

[Hot4Darmat]

Just a quick update for those wondering what happened to this project: All 4 thruster arms pictured in post #63 are almost done. Two more landing gear legs are done and the last one should be finished in the next day or so. More greebling panels have been done and installed. One of the engines has also been built, and photos of it and the rest of the progress will be posted soon.

I've been busy at work, and busy building lots of repetitious paper model parts for this beast (some things need to be made 16 times) in my spare time, of which there hasn't been much.

 

[Hot4Darmat]

Its been a crazy week or so, with many life curve-balls, busy work schedule, etc. But progress has been happening. For starters, this is what 4 leg assemblies look like. Each one contains 16 parts, some of which are really finicky. Take note of the scale cube (resurrected from a recent squishing) to give a sense of how small these assemblies are.

 

[Hot4Darmat]

Here's what one of the actual engine units looks like, pre-greeblies. At first I kind of thought these things were ugly, but the more I worked on it, and looked it over, the more I like it. Each of these assemblies contains 21 parts.

 

[Hot4Darmat]

Here's a quick glimpse at how some of these parts will look together eventually. These are only resting in place. The model has to be leveled and ready with all 4 thruster assemblies in place before I'll glue the legs and everything in place. I don't want to create an OHNO bird.

 

[Gearz]

WOW.. x 2. This is looking like a real construction yard! I love your poetic licence with the camera Duncan! ~ sorry for the attached ~ The progress pics just give me such a feel of realism, that I couldn't resist.

Love the panelling! * I hope Mr Bower gets to see this!


MOST Excellent!
:thumb::thumb::thumb:

 

[shiftdel]

WOW, really impressive!! Excelent work, the paneling, and greeebling detail is wonderful!! Congrats.

 

[dhanners]

That is impressive work, and I can't wait to see more -- or the finished model.

Seeing the photos, though, does remind me of one of my "beefs" with the model, one I've had since I first saw the movie. The bottoms of the engine nozzles seem to rest on the ground, and it always struck me that at ignition, that would create a lot of problems.

 

[Hot4Darmat]

Thanks for the comments. I agree about the engine nozzles. Looking at the model sitting atop the workbench at Mr. Bower's secret underground lair,the engines are clearly just sitting on the same surface. In the movie, the shuttle lands on this big elevated platform with extending blast shields that sort of unfold as it approaches. If you watch the landing sequence carefully (like I did when going for screen caps), you can see that the engine nozzles actually dip into notches or gaps in the platform, so that they don't come to rest on the ground. My take on the design of this shuttle also assumed that the extender arms holding the thrusters to the main body also had some positional "play" to them, like trim, that could raise or lower the engines up or down. I never saw any evidence for this, so feel free to disagree...I just got this from the look of the thing.

 

[Hot4Darmat]

Sorry for the hiatus. Things have been extremely hectic in RL...new house purchase, surgeries, workload, etc. The good news is that the laddie is fine, and the histology report is clear. YAY! Done (for now).

Oh and there's been progress on the paper model test build.

Here are a few shots of the model in its current state. The landing gear are all in, and the thruster arms are all in place. There's a ton of detail missing all over, and the top is still entirely blank (there will be a few layers on the top and sides to be sure). At least you'll get a sense of the general shape of the thing now, as its starting to look basically how it will end up looking. On to the pics.

 

[Hot4Darmat]

Here are a few shots of the comm array and landing/approach radar.

 

[Soaring]

Ton of detail missing? Yeah right! That's a monster already! That model is screaming with detail, even though you say it lacks some. It's coming along fantasticlly by the way, you should go down in papermodel history in my opinion :/