Sunday 28 April 2013

Making a Start on The Body

The first task was to split the Body In half this is not too hard a task with a Doc Mego body as they are glued around the edges only. once I have the two halves I can make a JIG to hold the front half of the body, this serves two purposes, the first is to hold the body still while marking it up and also lets me have a set depth to cut too. The second reason is if I need to create a second one I can repeat the process exactly.

01 - Micronaut Jig

as you can see the jig is nothing fancy just some styrene sheet and strip nut it does it’s job.

 

Once marked out I can cut out the section that needs to be removed to accommodate the chest piece, this is done by using a saw and a sharp knife, now begins the process of making the back area of the body where the chest piece will sit, this is done with 1mm Sheet Styrene, cut to size then marked out using the body. The piece is then cut as close to the line as possible, they are then glued into place, I like to use Plasti-Weld glue for this as it is strong and cures in seconds, the panels are then sanded to the perfect fit.

02 - Body With Plating Added03 - Body With Plating added and Sanding Started04 - Body With Plating Missing05 - Plating finished and sanded

Ok next on the agenda was to begin to make the chest piece, the first step is to make the section that sits in the body I started off with some 6.4 by 6.4 mm Styrene Strip cut to length and glued together, these needed to be sanded in width to fit the cut out section, these are then marked for the shape and are sanded to fit, I use Tamyia’s P180 sandpaper for this job, once it is sanded down to the basic fit I clamp the part in place and sand it to the best fit for the body, This is a bit of a tricky job to get even due to the tapered curve.

06 - Half sanded Chest Piece07 - Body with Half Sanded Chest Piece08 - Fully Sanded Chest Piece

 

next I mark a set of alignment morks on the chest piece to make it easy to put in the correct place from here on when it needs to be taken out.

09 - Top View of Chest Piece in Body with Alignment Marks10 - Side View of Chest Piece in Body with Alignment Marks

That's all for the moment, I hope to get some more work done on it in the next few days and get the chest piece ready for the front plate to be built.

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