YF-19 Anti-Gullet modification ideas

[Chronocidal]

Ok, so I finally got a 1/60 YF-19 after convincing myself the gullet wasn't so bad.. then realizing, yeah, it still kinda is. Note, this is my own personal nit-picky thing, I know a lot of you have accepted the gullet over time. I might too eventually, but I still like playing with what-ifs.

So I started thinking what I could do to fix it, and how much work it might possibly be.

Somewhere along the way, I realized.. even though the gullet might look oversized, that's not the main problem. Comparing line art, and the overall lines of the fighter... the nose is just sticking way up in the air.

Just fyi, I'm not going to bring up the Hasegawa kit at all, since it really is far too thin to use as a reference. But the overall shape of the plane should have the tip of the nose roughly on the centerline of the design, which continues through the engine exhausts. The thicker legs on the 1/60 makes that difficult, but Yamato exaggerated the problem by nearly eliminating the fuselage curvature, and the nose centerline pops out way above the center of the feet.

Now, the nose angle isn't nearly the only problem.. the 1/60 nose is just thick. The canopy is really high, and the whole nose is just too tall on the whole, but it needs that space for the mechanism inside, so there's not much you can do about that.

It's just missing most of the curvature of the forward fuselage, which should be much more arched than it is.

So, I started thinking of how you could change the level of the nose, while keeping as much of the original structure and mechanism intact as possible.

Essentially, it boils down to modifying one piece (maybe two): the back half of the fuselage Z-fold area, which shortens to go into battroid.

Now, there are a couple ways to go about this.

The simplest way I could think of is shown above. Everything that needs to change is outlined in red. The top of the rear fuselage portion would need to angle down till it was nearly level, and the entire z-fold area would essentially rotate so that the forward nose section would drop. The good part is that the leg joints, main body joint, and nose underside flap joint can all remain essentially the same. You don't even need to modify the landing gear area at all.

The underside nose flap would need to be slimmed down a bit to match the new shape, but that's one of the few places where there's room to spare.

Now, the big question is how this would alter the transformation. I don't think the effects would be terrible. So many of the joints in the nose are double jointed, there's a lot of flexibility in the positioning of the parts in battroid.

On the somewhat unfortunate side, this essentially means rebuilding the mechanism of the Z-fold. This could be good in the sense that it can be strengthened, but it might be complicated to make the new joint strong.

Best case? this would just require remodeling the front edge, and a bit of the sides of the rear fuselage area to match the new nose angle. Worst case, you'd need to make a brand new part for that secion of the fuselage (which would be no small task, since this is also the hip-joint). The end result would put the nose tip much lower than before, and bring back a bit of the arched shape the lineart has for the forward fuselage.

Now, I've never done anything like this, and I probably wouldn't do it unless I had a spare YF-19 to do it on.

What I'd like to come up with is an add-on part that could replace just the front upper half of the Z-fold area. Ideally, it'd be some sort of kit where you just swap a couple pieces, and the nose sits lower.

I'm going to attempt duplicating the YF-19 CAD model at some point in the future, and use that as a test bed for the idea, checking to see if it changes the transformation any. It might even be possible to use 3D printer of some sort to make a new fuselage section with these changes incorporated, but I don't know what type of materials would be needed for that.

Anyone have any thoughts on this? Would it even be worth attempting, or is it more likely to completely screw up the plane?

Edit: It may not look like much of a difference, but here's what the end result would be, without all the extra colors and lines.

Edited December 18, 2009 by Chronocidal

[leading edge]

I'm going to attempt duplicating the YF-19 CAD model at some point in the future, and use that as a test bed for the idea, checking to see if it changes the transformation any. It might even be possible to use 3D printer of some sort to make a new fuselage section with these changes incorporated, but I don't know what type of materials would be needed for that.

Anyone have any thoughts on this? Would it even be worth attempting, or is it more likely to completely screw up the plane?

Edit: It may not look like much of a difference, but here's what the end result would be, without all the extra colors and lines.

The problem with all those solutions no offense is that they are extremely time consuming or very difficult without the proper tools. You said something about a 3d-printer that might help the next question is do you really want to commit that many resources to this? I have a solution it's rather unsophisticated either alter the plastic via heat gun or sand it down and replace mass with liquified ABS plastic as that is what Yamato usually makes their valkyries out of. ABS is very difficult to melt however if you grind a piece and practice with some modeling glue or solvents you can make a paste another idea is just to use my favorite epoxy putty Milliput fine it's extremely good at repairing and supporting surfaces than the usual putties out there and it's very strong. It sound a lot less sophisticated but if you aren't careful the plastic could stick. I sugest you practice with a heat gun or remove the plastic with a fine sanding tool to get the shape you want. As for the shape of the rounded areas Yamato forgot putty or a subtractive method to change shape is an idea. Mind you this suggestion is the best I could come up with so you will probably need to read up on similar method to get the result you want.

Edited December 20, 2009 by leading edge