Scratchbuilding Oberth

[Grayson72]

Ah Deutschland, Guten Tag! Wie geht's?

That's about the extent of my German

[THOR]

THis looks awesome! Keep up the great work!!!

[Gerwalker]

Well, cobywan, "here" is Germany, also known as the most underdeveloped country in the world when it comes to Macross!

NO Macross show has ever been on TV here - the people do not even know the Robothing. Now we have LOTS of anime fans but the younger ones are into dragopokedigi-moon, the older ones like newer stuff like Hellsing, Evangelion or Cowboy-Bebop.

I´m into it since 1983 when a hobby shop here in Cologne had "accidentally" ordered some IMAI kits. Without a TV series to back up any interest they soon vanished from the shelves, but I was immediately hooked by the great boxart. Long story short, I am a Macross fan DESPITE living in Germany.

So my filler seems to be the german equivalent to Bondo, guess I am lucky because my paint sticks quite well to it!

I've found some Macross stuff in München a year an half ago. They had the DVDs and the Macross Design book and some superposeables. Everything very expensive!

The good thing of Germany is that you can find models in almost every big store. In the US, at least in New England, is only an on-line thing or going to a small store in the suburbs.

[cobywan]

I was hooked by the kits at the same time as you. I was on vacation in Pheonix Arizona. There was a hobbyshop in a mall that had this huge pile of Macross kits. I only had $30 and it took be 45 minutes to pick the three that I liked the most.

Those three were;

1/72nd scale Armored VF-1J,

1/72nd Destroid Tomahawk,

and 1/100th scale Regult.

I found out about Robotech from some friends with cable after describing the SDF-1 to them.

Then my local hobby shop started carrying them. I have been in very bad finacial shape ever since.

[Gundamhead]

Same here. Saw the kits in the local hobby shop and saved my allowance/lunch money and hit it every week. Of course there were also Dougram, Crusher Joe, Votoms, and Gundam calling to me. It always killed me when one I hoped to get was sold.

Gee since then I haven't had any money either. I wonder if there's a connection?

BTw Your kit is looking awesome. You've got to do a ARMD in scale with it next.

[Zentrandude]

whats a dragopokedigi-moon? some kind of new anime I haven't seen before?

[Gundamhead]

That's when Super Sayan alien monsters collect themselves in a digital world to chase teeny bopper girls in sailor school outfits. Or something very close to that.

[Zentrandude]

That's when Super Sayan alien monsters collect themselves in a digital world to chase teeny bopper girls in sailor school outfits. Or something very close to that.

doesn't look very entertaining sounds to me of anime based on couple of guys in a chatroom trying to get young girls.

[honneamise]

Gee since then I haven't had any money either. I wonder if there's a connection?

Ha ha , Gundamhead, I guess no matter where we live we all ask ourselves the same questions..

ARMD... have been thinking about it and I really want to build it. But this will be quite a beast. Won´t fit into my pressure pot either or I will have to break it down into many smaller parts.. but the Oberth will look kinda alone on the shelf once it´s finished.

whats a dragopokedigi-moon? some kind of new anime I haven't seen before?

Zentrandude, I was just trying to save bandwidth by compressing useless info.

I was hooked by the kits at the same time as you. I was on vacation in Pheonix Arizona. There was a hobbyshop in a mall that had this huge pile of Macross kits. I only had $30 and it took be 45 minutes to pick the three that I liked the most.

Cobywan that´s EXACTLY what I did back then. Don´t know if it was 45 minutes or 2 hours, but I picked three as well and gone was my money.

My first ones were (they only sold IMAI kits at the store):

-VF-1 J Armored 1/100

-Destroid Monster 1/200

-Megaro Zamac Jha-Giga 1/144 (had no idea that Zamac had nothing to do with Macross at the time. The purple paint scheme grabbed me I think)

[electric indigo]

Aaah, the memories...

I believe I built the green one from the Megaro-Zamac line prior to anything Macross, since it showed up here in Germany a few days earllier. I live near the Dutch border, and over there in Venlo there was a three-store toy shop which had a full shelf of japanese robot kits which instantly blew my head off... not sure if I got it back together since then...

First contact:

VF-1 J Gerwalk

Destroid Tomahawk

-i-

[honneamise]

Ah Deutschland, Guten Tag! Wie geht's?

Thanks, Grayson72, mir geht´s gut! Und selbst? (meaning: and (how are) you?).

Well I´m really fine cause I got tickets for the Ep.III premiere tonight !

Hi electric indigo, good to see that Germany is not nearly as devoid of Macross fans as I thought . And I even know the store in Venlo, too! Though when I found it the brief days of Macross kits were long over.

[honneamise]

More front end....

I added styrene strips to get the rough shape of the "bridge-hump-joint", then added very liberal amounts of putty, then sanded again. I had to choose the final shape of the hump. Although I had made a fitting part out of styrene and "bondo"-like putty, I went with another drop tank. You can see both parts in one of the pics. The tank had a better fit to the front end and the overall look is more aerodynamic-not that it matters in space...

[honneamise]

After some more sanding the whole thing takes shape.

Prior to glueing the hump in place I first had to "box in" the recesses for the upper guns to get their final size right.

[honneamise]

The front end after a coat of primer..... still some sanding to do but the shape seems right I think!

[jardann]

This is looking fantastic!

I'm keeping my eyes on this thread for sure.

Can't wait to see the finished product.

[cobywan]

I always liked the Oberth, but you are making it look damn elegant. This is a great project. I'm glad you decided to do it.

[honneamise]

Started to make the missile banks today. I drew the parts on a piece of 1.5mm styrene and engraved the covers - it´s easiest to do this while everything is still flat.

[Zentrandude]

ohh very nice. like the pic of it with the clouds in the background. its a flying

[honneamise]

The parts are built up similar to a cardboard model, but with the thick material it is much more work.

[honneamise]

One is basically ready but I will smooth all the edges considerably or it will certainly NOT match the elegance of the bow! But I´ll wait until I´ve got all three missile banks ready, I guess it will beeasier to sand them down all at once.

ohh very nice. like the pic of it with the clouds in the background. its a flying

Yeah Zentrandude and there are no strings attached (just a hand but you can´t see it) I like blue skies since I don´t see them that often.

[Mechmaster]

Cobywan that´s EXACTLY what I did back then. Don´t know if it was 45 minutes or 2 hours, but I picked three as well and gone was my money.

My first ones were (they only sold IMAI kits at the store):

-VF-1 J Armored 1/100

-Destroid Monster 1/200

-Megaro Zamac Jha-Giga 1/144 (had no idea that Zamac had nothing to do with Macross at the time. The purple paint scheme grabbed me I think)

Same thing happened to me, except I had a bit more money and bought about 8 kits on the first day and then went back the following day and bought another 25 or 30. I ended up with 7 of the Zamac kits and the rest were from Macross. I guess a lot of us discovered Macross and through it anime in general, in this manner, makes you wonder what might have happened if Imai had hired a different artist to do their Macross box-art.

Germany sounds an awful lot like England, even down to the blue skies (or lack of) though if anything the UK is even more of a black spot for anime.

Awesome work on the Oberth, if you do produce a resin kit from it I think I will be there with the other resin-hounds. Keep up the great work.

[Grayson72]

Now that is a thing of beauty, absolute perfection, keep it comin'

[honneamise]

Finally all three missile banks are built and all the edges smoothed. Now I need an aft extension to the curved upper deck that goes between/around them.

[honneamise]

close up

[THOR]

Fantastic! I love watching this build-up. Great skills!

-THOR

[Beltane70]

I just came across this thread, and I must say, your Oberth model is a very impressive peice of work so far. I can't wait to see what the finished product looks like!

[honneamise]

Update:

The missile banks get "embedded" into an extension of the upper deck. Here you can see the parts that go around them. When the whole assembly was glued onto the aft part of the ship (missile banks in place for proper positioning) I sanded everything smooth to match the curvature of the forward part of the deck.

Missile banks are still removable to get them out of way when I start working on the wings.

[honneamise]

whole thing looks like this:

[honneamise]

The day is still young so I guess it is time to build the wings. This is no part I was particularly looking forward to tackle - the wings cannot be just glued to each side, they must fit to the hull and this has quite an angle to take care of!

First step:easy just a spar with a flat triangle on it.

The corresponding triangle on the undersides must be deeper to fit the hull angle- less easy, had some trial and error here

The "leading edge" section comes next. I decided to make upper and lower part out of 1mm styrene for stability - as a result I had to sand the insides down to nothingness at the front edge. Gave me a pain in the..err...hand.

[honneamise]

After plenty of fun and games the parts finally conformed to the contour of the hull and all the angles matched! The wing actually looks like the lineart now though it still needs to be "beefed up" on the upper side to get a flush fit to the upper deck.

After glueing the parts together I literally "flooded" the inside of the wing by applying Bondo (I mean the Bondo-like stuff I use) with a syringe - works well and prevents warping or breaking I hope.

The only thing that bugs me now is that I have built ONE wing but this damned thing needs TWO!!!

[Guest Bromgrev]

It's a beauty already. Ich kann gar nicht warten bis es fertig ist!

[Grayson72]

Missile banks are still removable to get them out of way when I start working on the wings.

They better be removable for proper casting later

This is such a great build up, really educational just from a scratch building perspective.

[honneamise]

It's a beauty already. Ich kann gar nicht warten bis es fertig ist!

Thank you Bromgrev - By the way that´s pretty perfect German - another German speaker on this thread??

Grayson72 I think you are completely right. I won´t glue the missile banks on and cast them as separate pieces. Better for casting and I guess model builders will like a little more assembly better than just glueing three big chunks of resin together. Since I´m one of them I will keep that in mind.

Same thing with the engines. If I just wanted to scratchbuild them I´d build them in one piece(each), but since I´m taking the casting process into account I think it is better to go with three parts - front intake plate, middle section, exhaust plate at the end. I already have sleepless nights just figureing out how to produce the least visible mold seams...

[honneamise]

Second wing added....always the same funny thing: I build two identical parts (well left and right - but if placed onto each other they look the same) and glue them onto exactly the same positions on each side - why are they always looking completely non-aligned? : I spent some hours just checking, sanding, aligning etc until I finally got it right

Well enough of that, the Oberth has wings now. Next step is installing the upper panels with the intake slots added.

[honneamise]

With the wings in place the upper portions were almost easy to install and align I glued an end plate to each wing and did some sanding to get rid of all the boxy edges and angles. Very aerodynamic looking now