Apr 232016
Apr 082016
Was working on a model for a client, using a dremel tool with a rotary saw to cut through some fiberglass. The axle of the saw somehow bent around and the saw bit my fargin index finger, taking a chunk off it. Boy howdy has there been a lot of blood. It’s wrapped up tight, but I’m suspecting a visit to the doc might be advisable. Maybe the vet. Probably cheaper.
Next Day UPDATE: Went to the doc.
“You need a few stitches. When did this happen?”
“About 10 hours ago.”
“Oh. Well, too late for stitches.”
So the wound was cleaned up (a process that involved scrub brushes and scissors… *finally,* some good old fashioned *pain*), disinfected, bound up like a big ol’ clown nose, got a tetanus shot, sent on my way. It didn’t look quite as bad as it did last night, but of course last night it was a blood-gusher.
Apr 072016
I’ve always thought the show itself was awful (especially season 2), but the spaceships in “Space 1999” were indisputably awesome, especially the Eagle Transporter. There have been a number of kits of this released over the years, now there’s a great big 1/48 version. I haven’t seen one, and can’t afford one, but it looks spiffy. Someone should buy a couple dozen through this Amazon link and send me one so I can confirm whether or not it’s spiffy.
Apr 022016
A current project nears completion…
Mar 222016
The Third Reich was jam-packed full of ridiculous notions. Genocide. Invading Russia. Declaring war on the US. Superstitious claptrap. Dreams of world domination. Government programs that favor one ethnic group over another. Collective economics. But perhaps the *goofiest* idea was one of Hitler’s favorites: the P1000 “Ratte,” a 1000-ton *tank* packing the turret from a battleship, with two 280mm cannon and diesel engines from U-boats. There is zero chance that it would have worked worth a damn,and had one popped up on a battlefield every tactical bomber in a 500 mile radius would have competed to bob it into oblivion.
I’ve often thought that what the world needed was a good scale model of the Ratte, but I’ve never gotten around to it. But it seems someone else has; TAKom Models has recently released a 1/144 kit of the P1000. It includes two “Maus” tanks for scale. I would have preferred 1/72 scale, but I imagine that would have been a bit spendy.
The box art is fairly epic. Not only does it showcase the ridiculous scale of the Ratte… it also includes Nazi flying saucers because, hey, why not.
The Ratte kit is available on Amazon.
Mar 212016
A while back Horizon Models, a new injection-molded model kit company in Australia, sent me a copy of their first kit, a 1/72 Mercury spacecraft in return for a review. So, here goes.
The kit includes parts to build not only the orbital capsule (with abort tower) but also the earlier “boilerplate” test articles. The results are small… but then, the Mercury capsule wasn’t exactly a Winnebago. Also included are photoetched steel detail parts, and stands for the two kits. The engineering of the parts seems to be quite well done, with the corrugations nice and clean and fricken’ tiny. On the whole this looks like a spiffy kit.
As an engineer, there is one aspect of the kit that makes me scratch my head a tad. The sprue as shown below includes the parts for one complete Mercury capsule, one incomplete Mercury capsule and one stand. In order to make this a “two capsule kit,” Horizon used the simple expedient of including two copies of the sprue. It seems to me that it would have been more efficient to include all the necessary parts (for one flight and one boilerplate) on a single sprue; but in doing it this way the kit builder winds up with a bunch of extra bits to be used for other projects.
The Mercury capsule kit is available from the Horizon Models website for $35.
Horizon has also just released a companion kit, a 1/72 Mercury-Atlas. I haven’t seen that, but it seems promising. And it’s available through Amazon.
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If you have a product you want me to review… hey, why not. Feel free to send me a copy or two. I’m particularly interested in reviewing gold bullion and the like.
Mar 022016
Thought some of y’all might be interested in a current project… CAD model of the Mars Ascent Vehicle from “The Martian.”
Feb 272016
The fact that I made the master CAD models for these, I’m sure, plays no role in my recommendation…
Feb 172016
Anybody have experience using this, or something similar?
20 oz. Chroming Spray Paint
At this very moment I’m watching “All American Makers,” and there’s a couple guys flacking almost exactly this, claiming they invented it. It sure looks like they are claiming to have created something you can buy off the shelf.
Jan 102016
Years ago I bought a Saturn V blueprint off ebay. I then scanned it and sold it on my site. One buyer was Randall Munroe of XKCD,who used it as a basis for his “Up Goer Five.” I suggested to him that he should sell large prints of the UG5, which he did (I imagine I was hardly the only one to suggest this to him). Someone bought one of these prints and stuck it up in a restoration facility at the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum’s Stephen F. Udvar-Hazy Center, where it was photographed in the background during the restoration of the original starship Enterprise filming model. See here:
Star Trek NCC-1701 Studio Model Restoration in 2015
So, yeah, it’s a stretch to lay claim to any value here… but whatever there may be I’ll take.