OK - turns out the weird transforming shuttle kit wasn't from my dreams but put out by Hasegawa in 1984 and was originally called the Omega - Monogram released it in the USA as part of a line of Young Space Explorer type kits. That's where I picked it up. Dang, that things 25+ years old! Ebay says it's worth about $80 US new, so I don't feel too bad about looting it for parts.
Put in a little work last night on the new looted wagon - wishin' like hell I could put a deff rolla on it (
)!
I'll start with a little experiment I started this weekend. In my bitz box, I've got car/truck model parts (not trukk,
trucks )and as you know, there's a lot of chrome in these kinda kits. I've had some exhaust stack shrouds I've been wanting to use but I know the chrome on them is an issue (glue and paint don't adhere well to it) I decided to see if there was a "Simple Green" style solution to stripping chrome plated parts.
Lo and behold, there was a rumor that good old Coke-a-Cola will strip chrome. Hah! In the military, our mess hall cooks used this to clean their plumbing before inspections so the concept seemed sound. I dipped the parts in a tub with some Coke in it (the clamps thing is to hold the parts down since the carbonation makes the parts float) and left them submerged for 5 days. A little long if you need them short term but I wasn't in a rush and it seemed like it worked ok.
OK, on to the wagon build. About a year ago, our local ING bank had a promotion where they were giving out metal buttons with magnetic backings, instead of pins that would poke holes in delicate fabrics. I happen to have "gotten ahold of" a few hand fulls of these. They're nearly as strong as standard neodyne magnets and came cheap
I epoxied one of these to the backside of the front hull of the Russ. This allows me to make the boomgun swappable with a scorcha.
RANT: The Leman Russ kit os one of the most twisty, out of shape kits I've run into in twenty years - sheesh! I hope the new kits have this fixed.
END RANT:
The next shots shows the base construction of the boomgun. I know, not as impressive as my last one but it'll do (pig). The frontmost part is the mid-sized roadwheel from the Russ kit. I put a small neodyne magnet at the back of the barrel. There will be more detailing of the barrel in time.
Here's the gist of the setup.
And here's with the heat shroud from the semi-truck model.
There's more detailing to do here as well like the application of rivets (more rivets!) and I've got a really cool piece in my bitz box for the scorcha. I have no idea where it came from but it's completely inspired by Kroozas latest Scorcha work.
I also have a really neat idea for the bigshoota mount and a copula for the vehicle commander I'm really excited about. The 1:35 scale M3 Stuart tank is a great model to loot items from for Russ size vehicle. Every Big Mek should have one or two in their junkyard.
Next: scorcha, commander's copula and working on a dozer blade (re-inforced ram).
Later!
