MACROSS VF-1 BUILT FROM SCRATCH 1/32 SCALE

[MACROSS MODELLING]

Hi

First of all I´m a big macrossworld fan,

Right now In colaboration with a good friend we are making this scale model from scratch, we were inspired by Jhon Moscato´s project, we are not as good as him, and doesn´t have much experience in model making like him, but when we saw his project magically inspired us to make something similar.

Right now we are having a little trouble making silicon molds, because the mold doesn´t fill completely, we are making our best efford to finish the project, we started 4 months ago, working each weekend since then.

PICTURES: MACROSS VF-1 1/32 SCALE MODEL

We want to have your advice, give us your opinion about our model, if you see something wrong, or you can give us some advice in silicon molding, and resin casting it will be great,

Hope to do lot of friends here,

Best Regards

Ever Lopez

[fulcy]

Wow, that looks awesome! Keep up the great work, and updates on progress...

Oh, and btw, just so you know, it's frowned upon to have a picture in your signature...

[fulcy]

Oh, and if you need some tips with respect to casting and mold making, check out this Dengeki Hobby Magazine article I had translated...

http://www.macrossworld.com/mwf/index.php?showtopic=41

[Knight26]

Holy Mother Loving Shreg, that thing is gorgeous, and you have just elevated yourselves to super fans. Will you be making molds to recast it? Now if you want to be promoted to godhood you'll have to find a way to make that beauty transformable.

[MACROSS MODELLING]

Hi, Excuse me for my bad english, we are not in US. we are mexicans (not the bad ones!), so I hope you understand what I try to say.

first of all, thanks for your support, support words give us more power to finish it as detailed as we can , we started making this model for Us (we like to build models from scratch), but a few guys who saw it in person asked us to make one for them, so we decided to make molds, and cast the model for everyone, but now we are facing a few problems with the molds, because some parts of it doesn´t fill completely,

I´ll try to take a picture of the pieces so you can see the problem and help us solve it.

Making it transformable?? mmmm, we are having lots of troubles making it a static model , I think we are not going to make this model transformable, maybe next one, once we have the knowledge to make it right.

Thanks for your replys

[Skull Leader]

muy bueno! I look forward to more pictures!

[Grayson72]

Hi, Excuse me for my bad english, we are not in US. we are mexicans (not the bad ones!), so I hope you understand what I try to say.

Quick question, who are the bad ones in your opinion?

[007-vf1]

El casting de su modelo se ve muy bien. Por lo que veo ustedes sigen los planos de modelo hecho por hasegawa el cual es el mas correcto y completo.

Cuanto tiempo se toman en construir uno de esos...?

[VF19]

Ummmmm......yeah, what he said.

[MACROSS MODELLING]

Hi Guys,

yes, we took the hasegawa drawings to make this model, at the beginning it was a little bit hard, because we saw lots of versions of the same plane, I think each maker design it own version, you can see lots of details in some models different to others, we tried to make it as similar to hasegawa as possible. At this moment we´ve been working in this model for like 4 months, mostly the weekends.

(Grayson72) by meaning bad mexicans I refer to those you see in the news, I used to spent 3 or 4 months in california each year until I made a big mistake ( I got married) and when I was there always heard in the news talking about mexican guys like robbers, fraudulent guys, and bad people in general, and that´s the general idea of a mexican guy. In part is caused by the news, they always talk about the ugly part of the story. I just wrote that so you don´t think of us like those guys in the news, we have the idea that all the people know mexican guys like a guy not to trust, and that´s not me I´m a friendly guy.

[Grayson72]

Ah ok, thanks for the clarification. I didn't jump to that conclusion but thanks for the heads up anyway

[Mechamaniac]

Wow, I wasn't aware that anyone considered the Mexicans "bad" since that little incident at the Alamo.

Edited May 20, 2004 by Mechamaniac

[MACROSS MODELLING]

By the way, I´m 27 years old, I´m a Industrial designer graduated in Guadalajara Jalisco Mexico, (near Puerto Vallarta)

I´m a part time teacher at an industrial design college in a private university, I´m giving a class but dont know how to translate it, it would be like "mockups and models", the important part is that I assigned my students the final project a month ago, they need to build a 1/10 scale Macross VF-1. It´s going to be 1.40mts long (about five feet long) , There are 6 students in my class, 3 guys and 3 girls, and they are making their best efford to make a good model. Right now they are making molds. I divided the entire plane in " working cells" each of them have a part of the plane to build, so they make the mold of them, and cast 6 pieces, one for each of their classmates, and at the end, each one of them should have a complete model, so in 3 weeks we should have 6 LAAARGE planes for the final exam.

I´ll post some pictures as soon as we can see some advance.

See you guys

[Sebastian]

Hey that is an awsome work! I am sure here will be a lot of members interested in getting your model. I just hope it turns fine, so far it looks really great.

please keep us posted.

De paso, los mexicanotes son todos malos. En mayor o menor grado... pero al final toooodos son malotes.

Nah! de hecho mi experiencia ha sido excelente, tengo muchos amigos compatriotas tuyos, y por Dios que son entretenidos. De escucharles hablar ya me dan risa. No pienses que hay tan mala opinion, Uds son excelentes personas.

bienvenido a MW!!

[dyowelb]

1/10!!!!! that's freakingly huge.....

[Gerwalker]

Bienvenido!!

Hey, excellent work. Keep posting!!

About bad mexicans: those with big mustaches and BIG hats with a gun in each hand shooting everybody... those are the bad ones...

Your comment about the bad mexicans in the news reminds me a chapter of Michael Moore's Stupid White Men book that deals about how the US media uses stereotypes and exagerate the bad dids of minorities. Good reading.

[Ghadrack]

1/10th!!!!! Do you see the size of that leg part in the picture? I wonder how much you could charge collectors for a 5 foot long Valkyrie, and dear god, how they could display the thing!

Man, that is an awesome homework assignment!

[xstoys]

By the way, I´m 27 years old, I´m a Industrial designer graduated in Guadalajara Jalisco Mexico, (near Puerto Vallarta)

I´m a part time teacher at an industrial design college in a private university, I´m giving a class but dont know how to translate it, it would be like "mockups and models", the important part is that I assigned my students the final project a month ago, they need to build a 1/10 scale Macross VF-1. It´s going to be 1.40mts long (about five feet long) , There are 6 students in my class, 3 guys and 3 girls, and they are making their best efford to make a good model. Right now they are making molds. I divided the entire plane in " working cells" each of them have a part of the plane to build, so they make the mold of them, and cast 6 pieces, one for each of their classmates, and at the end, each one of them should have a complete model, so in 3 weeks we should have 6 LAAARGE planes for the final exam.

I´ll post some pictures as soon as we can see some advance.

See you guys

Hey, I 'm also an industrial designer, and I teach product/toy design part-time at a private college in Pasadena, CA called the Art Center College of Design.

I've thought about making my students design & build me a valkyrie, but decided against it. I thought some one at the school may have caught on that I doing it for my own selfish reasons; so I make them design & build "Transformers" instead. It's still somewhat linked to my hobby, but not exactly, & not as obvious.

Welcome aboard!

[fulcy]

but now we are facing a few problems with the molds, because some parts of it doesn´t fill completely,

I´ll try to take a picture of the pieces so you can see the problem and help us solve it.

Well, take pictures of the problems you are having casting/molding, and we can try to help as best as we can. I'm not really too sure what you mean by 'it doesn't fill completely' - are you talking about when you are making the mold, or are you talking about when you try to cast a part from the mold? If it's what I'm thinking you're encountering, sounds like air is trapped in the mold, and has no way of getting out...

[THOR]

Awesome work!!!!!

I love the amount of zest being poured into these scratchbuilds.

Keep up the great work!!!!

[MACROSS MODELLING]

Hey, I 'm also an industrial designer, and I teach product/toy design part-time at a private college in Pasadena, CA called the Art Center College of Design. 

I've thought about making my students design & build me a valkyrie, but decided against it. I thought some one at the school may have caught on that I doing it for my own selfish reasons; so I make them design & build "Transformers" instead. It's still somewhat linked to my hobby, but not exactly, & not as obvious. 

Art Center!! WOW, if you need an assitant just call me! I had a drawing teacher from the art center, he is damn good! do you think you can send me some pictures of your student´s transformer?

thank you all guys for your support, I´ll post some pictures in a few hours.

Thanks

[Less than Super Ostrich]

Muy bien!

It looks like it is coming along very well. I think it looks absolutely great! Thanks for posting your progress. This is exactly what we need... some more artists to design some original beauties!

Thanks again,

LTSO

[cobywan]

Boy I feel like a heel giving up on mine way back.

Well I will start again once the CNC is plugged in. Nice work by the way.

[pfunk]

that looks beutifull so far, nice detail work. Good way to section it all out like that, looks like a real fusalage. keep up the good work and keep us posted

[hirohawa]

Incredible!

[U.N. SPACY]

Awesome work , great details , love the fuselage and the cockpit . Keep up posting images

[U.N. SPACY]

are you going to recast the model? I have 2 anime stores, and would be great to distribute your model . got more models?

[MACROSS MODELLING]

Hi

sorry for the delay with the pictures. Here are some pictures of the pieces, The mold is OK, but can´t fill it with the resin, I´m making some tests with different kinds of resin, please take a look and give me some advice.

Thanks.

Edited May 22, 2004 by MACROSS MODELLING

[MACROSS MODELLING]

are you going to recast the model? I have 2 anime stores, and would be great to distribute your model  . got more models?

Holy Mother Loving Shreg, that thing is gorgeous, and you have just elevated yourselves to super fans. Will you be making molds to recast it? Now if you want to be promoted to godhood you'll have to find a way to make that beauty transformable.

Well, mmm, that was the idea at the beginning, but when we saw that Jhon Moscato had some problems about a license or something like that, we asked Jhon, and Shawn for some advice, but never received any answer from them, so we are a little affraid about that, if you know the way to sell it, please let us know. We´ll be glad to produce this model for everybody, right now we have a few models in our collection, all from scratch, all in production (most of them racing cars), but we haven´t had any problems about license, because its a small production. But in this case we don´t know, If you know something about this, comments and advice are welcome.

[fulcy]

What kind of equipment are you using to cast? Just pouring resin into molds? Looks like there's alot of air bubbles present in the resin - that you aren't degassing your resin either before pouring it, or while it is in the mold. Do you have access to a pressure chamber, or vacuum chamber? You can degas the resin using a vacuum chamber, and that would remove most, if not all of the air bubbles present in the parts. It would also help get the resin into every corner of the mold, ensuring a good cast. A pressure chamber doesn't remove the air bubbles, it just makes the air bubbles much smaller (by pressurizing them), reducing the size of the air bubbles in the cast parts. A vacuum chamber is my first recommendation - I bet that solves all your problems (though, it also looks like there is air getting trapped in the molds - you may need to cut some extra vents into the molds to let the air out. Check the translated article I linked to, it gives great info on venting your molds to get most if not all the air out of the molds). Hope this helps!

[THOR]

http://www.smooth-on.com/default.htm

Here is a link to the company I use for mold making materials if you didn't know of them already.

[Valkyrie]

That's an extremely impressive sculpting job so far!

But I don't think I have to tell you that those castings are pretty bad...

Resin casting isn't exactly something you can just jump into and expect good results right away. It takes a good deal of experience to get good at it. Looking back, my casts were pretty rough for the first two years I was doing it. (Though I progressed a lot faster once I had access to better information and better equipment)

But here are a few tips to help you get a better start;

- Follow Fulcy's guide. It's a good start, using tried and true methods. Even what I do is just variations upon those ideas. And I've been refining my technique for quite a while now.

- Use a thin, fairly slow curing resin. The stuff I use has a 7 minute pot life (time until it starts thickening) and 1 hour demold time. I find it to be adequate time for just about anything.

And forget the clear stuff. That stuff's such a pain, I only use it on parts that absolutely have to be clear.

- With conventional casting techniques, air bubbles are inevitable. Even if you get the molds completely filled. But you can help eliminate them with pressure casting.

A pressure casting setup is the first equipment investment most beginning casters make. It's relatively inexpensive (under $200, including an air compressor), and can eliminate air bubbles completely, if your mold is designed well.

It works by pressurizing the mold and the resin inside it. Under pressure, the small air bubbles compress to the point where they almost don't exist. The resin cures, trapping the air in its compressed state, and the result is no more air bubbles.

But pressure casting isn't exactly a 'magic bullet' that will fix all of your casting problems. If there are large air bubbles, they won't go away. And if your mold material itself has a lot of air bubbles in it, it can create a whole new set of problems also.

Keep up the good work, but just don't rush into casting it. That looks like a great sculpt, and it deserves to be made into a great resin kit.

Perhaps you could find someone here who could do the casting work for you, even. (Though I'd have to bow out, myself. The Monster project is keeping me plenty busy )

[THOR]

http://abbess.com/vac/degassing-kit-small.html

vacuum chamber...

[MACROSS MODELLING]

hi to everyone.

Sorry for the delay on the posts, but right now we are making the final exams and had a lot of things to do, I wish the day could have 4 hours more!

We had a guy who make all the molds for our models, he also made all the casts and everything, but he´s not with us anymores, he left to pursuit the "american dream", he is probably working in texas or california, but that´s his story. So right now we are trying to make all the molds by ourselves to start casting the model completely. But we don´t have the experience he has, and we are making a lot of mistakes.

We´ve made 50% of the molds (the easy ones) , but we are facing a little problems to make some parts of it, the Fulcy´s guide is great, but it only explains 2 part molds. we have parts, like the legs (engines) that require maybe a 3 or 4 part molds, and don´t know where to make the "separation" for those parts, or a good method to make a "more than 2 parts mold" if you have some advices or pictures you can give to us, it would be great.

Here I´m posting some pictures of the engine, this is one of the parts I need some help.

Here is a picture of my workshop, there is the body for a 1/4 scale ferrari F-1 that I´m building parallel to this project, sorry for the mess, but I don´t have too much time to clean it, but even if I have it, I would use it to make models

see you guys, hope you answer soon.

[MACROSS MODELLING]

by the way, we used the Fulcy´s method and it worked great, it copied all the bolts of the wings, and every detail, and most important the mold was fully loaded with resin.

thanks for the tip