Author Topic: Blackadder's WIP Warlord Titan (Read 38431 times)

Edmund Blackadder · « **Reply #20 on:** June 4, 2012, 05:00:59 PM »

I pulled a virtual all nighter and managed to apply a bit of colour (gray is a colour) to the mechanical interior of the foot before final assembly. once the rear toe compartment is glued on it will require micro surgery to access the stabilizer components. I did a lot of reinforcing before I sealed it up. Its a good thing I took pictures because painted gray not much of the mechanics is visible.

http://i.imgur.com/7ez94.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/7W8iG.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/jYBJE.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/NzKR9.jpg

Edmund Blackadder · « **Reply #21 on:** June 4, 2012, 05:02:51 PM »

I cut the lower leg panels today, four rectangular pieces 8 inches by 3.5 inches nothing to show really but for dessert I installed some of the detail on the feet which has to be in place to check the clearance the when I bolt the lower knuckle to the foot.

I also got an idea for making the diagonal more flexible, note the right foot the diagonal toes may rotate in place to work with the front toes refer to the third image.

http://i.imgur.com/nu1GC.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/UqVgS.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/dAtnN.jpg

Edmund Blackadder · « **Reply #22 on:** June 4, 2012, 05:04:15 PM »

She's got legs, Er lower legs, Er well plastic rectangles and she knows how to move them, Er well you gotta move them for her.

Hmm sounds like my ex-wife.

Anyhow the pivots seem adequate and should easily support ten lbs each.
http://i.imgur.com/9BEx0.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/sDgm1.jpg

Edmund Blackadder · « **Reply #23 on:** June 4, 2012, 05:05:42 PM »

Patience, one must learn to savor the moment. Assembling these lower legs, as basic a structure as they are, teaches us how to build in strength with a minimum of material. I have assembled a box beam structure out of thin plastic and glue that can easily sustain for years if needs be a weight of 50 lbs or more. The ankle to leg joint likewise. There will be no need for buttresses as in the DS model (A problem he acknowledged in his sparse construction text.) except for decorative purposes plus the leg is moveable.

To quote the old carpenter's maxim, "Measure twice cut once." or the old Italian carpenter's lament, "Sunnva be-atcha I cutta thisa two times and it'sa still too short!"

http://i.imgur.com/jZu28.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/jpEPm.jpg

Edmund Blackadder · « **Reply #24 on:** June 4, 2012, 05:07:41 PM »

Macro setting didn't work too well but these are just interim images There will be others later. To reinforce the ankle joint I applied arc segments for the spacer slides to ride on. This model will be of considerable mass, I figure about 7 kilo, so these shanks must be protected from torsion effects.

http://i.imgur.com/zXZ4e.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/GwNRo.jpg

Edmund Blackadder · « **Reply #25 on:** June 4, 2012, 05:09:56 PM »

You know after I installed those slides I had an epiphany, What if I cut cogs in the slides and used a toothed gear to actuate the semicircle, how would that be? I'll have to redesign the slides a bit but it would make perfect sense to have that as the mechanism.

Meanwhile todays run not as much as I had hoped for but I had to repair the porch.
http://i.imgur.com/iWhNq.jpg

Stepping out

http://i.imgur.com/NfcAf.jpg

You'll have to imagine the rest but the picture height isn't as high as the shoulder mounted lascannons

Edmund Blackadder · « **Reply #26 on:** June 4, 2012, 05:12:00 PM »

I wasn't going to post this until I rectified the problem but then I thought, "Hey this is a good thing to demonstrate that even the Blackadder isn't infallible

and has to go back to the drawing board now and again."

Seems I made the shanks too long by about an inch. measuring for the upper leg somehow the proportions just didn't look right so I remeasured and sure enough I managed to add an extra inch to the overall height.

So what's an inch you may say but to me it will change the look of the finished model from a hulking looming menace to a spindle shanked travesty ergo I shall be cutting the lower legs in half and removing the offending inch but not yet as I may have to do other things as well so might as well do all at once.

http://i.imgur.com/ZuPeb.jpg

Edmund Blackadder · « **Reply #27 on:** June 4, 2012, 05:16:32 PM »

Okay Ladies and Germs, this is what separates the Blackadder from relatively sane individuals. To borrow a phrase from another Charlton Heston movie, "The Agony and the Ecstasy"; The wine is sour, so throw it out!

I'm not happy with the look. The legs are too thin. So I'm bringing out my second biggest Xacto blade and rending judgment on inferior work.

http://i.imgur.com/JzlII.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/BbjB1.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/NOnMO.jpg

Edmund Blackadder · « **Reply #28 on:** June 4, 2012, 05:18:35 PM »

'cut and tacked this together this morning and attempted a side by side comparison. An inch removed may be too much mebbe 3/4 inch but definitely the joint and upper leg is greatly improved.

http://i.imgur.com/g2MjD.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/3fs82.jpg

Edmund Blackadder · « **Reply #29 on:** June 4, 2012, 05:20:48 PM »

The British are masters of understatement. The following I read in a biography of Lord Wellington:

Wellington was discussing with his staff about their inability to provide him with the necessary battlefield intelligence he required to make on the spot decisions regarding the evolution of the battle.

One of his aides suggested he mount a pole in the center of the line to thereby obtain the information first hand.

Refraining to point out the ludicrousness of the suggestion Wellington merely stated, "Damn me Sir! I might fall off.

To which the unflappable aide retorted, "We could tie you up there M'Lord."

--
E. Blackadder

Edmund Blackadder · « **Reply #30 on:** June 4, 2012, 05:22:28 PM »

I spent the entire weekend revamping the lower legs making them wider and a half inch shorter. I cut down the radius of the hip and decreased the front to back measurement of the upper legs and and sheathed the whole all the while remodeling the bath which somehow takes precedence?

http://i.imgur.com/ZgFwu.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/m78Af.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/lhla6.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/0xoyh.jpg

Edmund Blackadder · « **Reply #31 on:** June 4, 2012, 05:24:04 PM »

Well I did have to cut the upper legs down again another 4MM all around. I installed the skin (AGAIN) and am working on the detail.

I made a couple of jigs to facilitate the assembly first a cutting jig so the zipper-like trim is homogeneous and equally spaced.

And a small aligning jig so the truncated pieces are aligned with their opposite number.

DS has 9 sets up the back of the leg but I got ten with approximately the same spacing so either his are larger or his legs are shorter or he isn't as anal about the spacing.

http://i.imgur.com/TxC3n.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/VS9QD.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/OXFmS.jpg

Cutting jig

http://i.imgur.com/F0DbE.jpg

Aligning jig

Shas'Oink · « **Reply #32 on:** June 4, 2012, 05:57:28 PM »

Hold on lets scale back a minute...

You said: "measure twice, cut once"... So, erm... whats your excuse for the first set of legs!?!?

How do you get through the tedious repetitive work??

Edmund Blackadder · « **Reply #33 on:** June 4, 2012, 06:04:34 PM »

Quote from: Oink on June 4, 2012, 05:57:28 PM

Hold on lets scale back a minute...

You said: "measure twice, cut once"... So, erm... whats your excuse for the first set of legs!?!?

How do you get through the tedious repetitive work??

To answer the first question I had nothing to actually measure. I had an image in perspective to go by. What looked right in 2D looked wrong in 3D.

As far as repetitive work I just rationalize, "At least I am not knitting an Afghan blanket."

Edmund Blackadder · « **Reply #34 on:** June 5, 2012, 04:59:38 PM »

I use Ambroid ProWeld when I can get it. I keep it in a Tamiya bottle because it's less prone to tipping and the fine tipped brush wastes a lot less solvent (Its really not a glue so much as a plastic melter.)

For really large surfaces I use Testors red or blue tubed styrene cement. I see little difference between the two other than the toxicity of the red but I've never ben afacked bi iet myslef.

Hmmm.......... I seem to have experienced a flurry of activity this weekend completing the basic upper leg structure and adding a bit of detail.

Time to take stock and see where I've gone wrong.

One step forward and two steps back seems to be my mantra............. ........

http://i.imgur.com/QrumW.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/Ldi0k.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/wCBgI.jpg

Edmund Blackadder · « **Reply #35 on:** June 5, 2012, 05:02:05 PM »

The Blackadder is in his glory. I relish doing the fine detail. Well this project is fraught with minute detail some of which is smaller than the pixel resolution in the images I have.

You're going to have to look close (If you're so inclined I won't presume my work is worth more than a causal glance.) to see where the changes are in the detail. I'm particularly pleased with the piping on the edge of the hip plate reinforcement which is literally a thread of styrene 0.4 MM by 0.75 MM. Strips so fine as to be ephemeral when full strength ProWeld is applied. I used de-volatilized Proweld to keep it from disappearing. The cog components on the ankle quadrant (sic) are a gimmee.
Note that the strips on either side of the Bow-tie like trim which I presume serve some utilitarian function.

The Knee plate reinforcements are in progress at the moment............

http://i.imgur.com/Y61a8.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/YDhLP.jpg

Edmund Blackadder · « **Reply #36 on:** June 5, 2012, 05:07:55 PM »

A poor showing this week I'm afraid, my real job workload was staggering but I did manage to rebuild the front of the knee joint (Why does it look like a marshmallow Easter peep?) and add a lot of basic detail.

God this will be detail heavy I'm up over a pound for each leg and half the detail isn't installed.

I'm taking a crash course on fiber optics and will be incorporating it in this and the Thunderhawk

http://i.imgur.com/GLg6l.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/EcUcel.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/lFLrX.jpg

Edmund Blackadder · « **Reply #37 on:** June 5, 2012, 05:23:09 PM »

It's time to address the most baffling component of this project, namely what the outrageously long hydraulic cylinder is for running down the calf of the leg?

It appears in the epic model as well as the DS construct but I can fathom no applicable purpose. The quadrant gear in the ankle provides the step motion and that is supplemented by the small cylinders attached to the heel which mimic the function of the Achilles tendon. Were the cylinder attached upper leg behind the knee it would serve as the calf muscle but it doesn't attach there anyway it looks very interesting so I am including it in my construct complete with superfluous safety guard rails so people twenty feet off the ground don't lose an arm in the massive hydraulic piston.

As it is right now each of these legs are as complex as anything I have built with the exception of Lucie's pedal appendages and they are about only half detailed. Surprisingly my enthusiasm has not flagged.

http://i.imgur.com/ySHyN.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/opJp9.jpg

http://i.imgur.com/OBj8D.jpg

SnipingSnowman · « **Reply #38 on:** June 8, 2012, 06:23:05 AM »

Maybe they had intended it as a calf muscle, and didn't think anyone like you would look at it closely enough to realise that it's actually useless.

Mon'Tau · « **Reply #39 on:** June 13, 2012, 05:32:00 PM »

This is the kind of thing that goes down in legend. You see a few Warlords out there, but the meticulous detail you are putting into this is astounding. The rest of us mere mortals just have to sit back, and enjoy the ride. Extremely well done.

ARMIES

Members Online

Author Topic: Blackadder's WIP Warlord Titan (Read 38431 times)