MRC - Half-size build report (2011)

[Mike Hungerford]

2011-04-26: I reduced and arranged all the parts for printing.



2011-04-27: I printed all the parts on 15 US Letter size sheets of 165 GSM index card stock.



2011-04-28: Assembly has finally begun!



For comparison, here is the final photo of my previous half-size MRC built in 2007:



Off to finish the starboard shock absorbers and wing!

[Mike Hungerford]

I finished the rest of the shock absorbers, added the starboard wing, and also the rear cabin wall, with clear windows. :-)

I'll add a photo tomorrow; it's bedtime in southern California.

[Edit]
I added the air locks this morning as well.

[Mike Hungerford]

Ladders in progress. Markus, I decided to try cutting your ladders again rather than scratch-building my own as I did last time. Experience and better blades (#11 scalpel blades in place of hobby blades) make a huge difference, but they're still very fragile.



Ladders in place.



By the way, if you were wondering why there's some color inside the wings (and elsewhere), my yellow ink cartridge was nearly empty when I was printing the first page, so I stopped the print, replaced the cartridge, and reprinted on the other side of the paper. :-)

I'm building the side walls, and thought I'd show how the "glazed" windows go together, at least the way I'm doing it:



The "glazing" is 0.1 mm clear plastic that was a protective sheet over the monitor of my laptop. I knew I'd find a use for it some day, and it's a lote easier to work with than the thicker stuff from clamshell packaging. In the image, the strips of plastic are the same width as the window cutouts, their length matches the height of the inside of the wall, and the two small tabs on the window frame sit one to each side of the plastic, trapping it in place. I did glue the plastic strips down, but I don't trust white PVA glue to work well for *any* plastic.

[Niceyard]

The ladders...!!!

This build is AWESOME!

[Mike Hungerford]

The ladders...!!!

This build is AWESOME!

Thank you! At this scale, the ladders are just about 2 cm long. :-)

[Mike Hungerford]

Cabin side walls and windows installed.

[Mike Hungerford]

Crew's quarters door. I think this trumps the ladders, Markus, even with the sloppy touch-up paint job.



The window is glazed and the door swings on those "hinges" that are individual bits of paper 1x2.5 mm or so. The door itself is only 16 mm tall at this scale. I used the doors printed on the walls for the outer layers, and the hinges were cut from the separate door. The middle layer with an enlarged window for the "glazing" to set into was cut from the intended back of the separate door. A three-layer sandwich.

Here's the crew's quarters glued into place:



At this scale, the tabs aren't needed. I think this makes the connection with the other walls and floor cleaner. :-)

[Niceyard]

Yes, all this works very well. There's even a glas in the door, isn't it?
What paint do You use for edging?

[Mike Hungerford]

Yes, all this works very well. There's even a glas in the door, isn't it?

Yes, there is; the same film I used in the other windows.

What paint do You use for edging?

Whatever I have that's close. <G>

In this case it was a 30% grey Faber-Castell Pitt brush pen. For the orange, as it came out of my printer, I found a Marvy Le Plume brush pen labeled "ochre" that was the best match. Unfortunately, while they match well alongside the printed color, they darken it considerably of they overlap. :-/

[Niceyard]

Yes, the problem with brush pens is, that they are very fluid and usually soak deep into the paper because it is ink.
I prefer acrylic colours and paint them very dry (out of the tube) or with very little water with a very fine brush (000 and finer).
The pigments don't soak into the paper but stay on the surface.