Cosmo Zero Docking in Hangar 3 Diorama, Finished!

I went to the local model railroad shop and found some perfect scale pipe handrails!

That was the final touch needed to finish this pig up. They only had two packs at the store and I wasn't sure they were going to be enough, but I managed to get it to work.

After installing the railing, I mounted the arm holding the Zero in place with some 90 second epoxy, which held perfectly. 

So it's all done! I think it's not to shabby for my first scratch build. 

Cosmo Zero and Hangar Diorama update: A Call to Arms.

I got a bit more done this weekend. I put together all the missiles that came with the Zero kit, painted and gave a panel wash then placed them down in the lower bay. Some may recognize that cluster of tanks in the bottom right as coming from the ancient Revell See-through Apollo 11 command service module! I have been moving this box of spare parts around for over 30 years!











I put together an crane arm from spare parts, mostly Macross Valkyrie parts from the 80's and the landing gear from this kit. God Bless the spare parts box! I set it in place to see how it would look. Good enough for me.































I have been wracking my brain as to how I was going to suspend the aircraft from the crane arm. I settled on glueing small marshmallow shaped magnets to the ends of the arms, and then some flat magnets on the aircraft. They are very strong and hold the weight of the model no problem. They also allow me to remove the plane if I ever need to.

I moved them as far back as I could but it still wasn't at the balancing point of the model, so I hid a piece of steel rod tucked under the aircraft's nose an the right side where you can't see it. To quote Steve Neill, "The Camera will never see it!" This balanced it out nicely.

















I held the arm in place with my hand and took a few shots to see how she looked. Not too shabby. I can't do the final install until I get ahold of some hand rails for the decks behind the plane. I'm going to go the the local model railroad shop this Saturday to get some. Once those are in, I can mount the arm and plane in permanently.

Stay tuned!

Cosmo Zero and Hangar 3 progress

 Long ago when I first started this kit, I royally screwed it up after a really good start. I ended up throwing this across the room and shattering it into many tiny bits (see the "Irate" part in the Blog name). I managed to collect all the bits and get it together pretty well. Since it is going into a diorama of the hangar bay I figured that it would make sense for a very worn out, battle weary plane to be returning to port. It's not my best work but I think that once its in the bay with the lighting, it will look alright. Now I just have to fabricate an arm to hold it in place and figure out how to mount it.

With that out of the way I got to building the flight control room for the upper floor. I cut some 0.30" styrene and glued it together with my trusty Gorilla Gel super glue. I added some random details from my spare parts box, painted it all gray and drilled the holes for the fiber optics. I then contracted the ceiling with the lighting strips in place for the hallway lights, and added some Blue candle flicker LEDs to the inside of the control room to simulate the flickering of screens reflecting off the walls.

After getting it all painted, wired up and installed I am pretty happy with the results. I need to find some remade scale hand railing because what I tried to scratch build look like doggy doo doo.
I'm going to try and work out the arm that holds the plane and how to mount the whole thing later this week. Stay Tuned!

Nine Months! I could have built a baby!

I haven't built anything for Nine Months! I have been playing a lot of World of Warcraft: Legion and Overwatch for those months. But I finally got the itch again.

So, I cleaned up the garage and started working on scratch building a Death Star II from Return of the Jedi. Long story short, I need a plastic globe and a lot of money to get that one done, so It's on the back burner for now. Looking around the garage for something else to do, I see the Space Battleship Yamato Hangar 3 diorama sitting over in the corner all lonely and half started. I should finish that.

I did a little clean up on the Cosmo Zero I destroyed. I'm going to have to have it be really battle damaged or buy a new kit because I really screwed that kit up after such a great start. I think battle damage will be okay as it will depict a beaten fighter coming back to the hangar for much needed repairs.























I built the second floor and installed the hallway light and painted the hand rails yellow. I set the second floor in place to see the lighting. I need to do some light blocking on the front edge, but overall I think it looks okay. More to come this weekend!