Builds By Baz - 3 Foot Colonial Viper Mk II

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BuildsByBaz

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3 Foot Colonial Viper Mk II

THE TIME HAS COME.

The full scale Viper is in storage and on pause while I renovate part of my house and build a bigger shed/workshop. I've been putting this off for a long time because of some fears.

1. I might lose much motivation because it will be very difficult to work on in the dismantled state.

2. It may get rodent or water damaged in storage.

3. The rest of my intrusive life may get in the way of completing it.

I'm a pretty determined kind of a bloke, so I will fight all the way, but these are the things on my mind to watch out for. I can't afford to buy the hundreds of dollars in resin just yet as I have to find funds for the renovation and the new shed, which is up in the thousands, even though I am building both of them myself as an owner-builder.

In the meantime, I have a little three-foot model of the Viper to work on in the shed, that doesn't take up any room. This should keep me inspired and help work out a few things, like mounting the wings and guns. A difficult part of the build that makes sense to do small, before moving on to full size.

The Viper will be cast in aluminium with brass and copper highlights and detailing. I have a magnificent picture in my head of the finished model of highly polished metals, now to bring it out into the real world. I've made a start on the pattern for the mold.

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I spent a good 15 hours in the shed today and got a fair bit done. Built the top wing. Turned the cannons out of a couple of hardwood garden stakes, then did some work on the side wings, assembled the top engine nacelle and continued with fill between the formers. Lots of fiddly stuff.

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One brass cannon turned. Nice warm shed, cuppa soup, comfy chair and some tunes. It's good to have machines that do the work while you watch. I'm in no condition to strain and stress at the moment. Keeps my bugs away from others too. Still pretty drained though. I'll do the other one on another day.

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I came up with an inventive way to slot the cannon sections by clamping my Dremel with an end mill bit in it. Indexing achieved by working out circumference of chuck and dividing by the number of slots. Glued on an indicator needle point.

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One cannon completed, slots all indexed in and finished to a high polish.
Started the second cannon tonight.

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In between everything else, I have slowly been building form and detail on the wings. They look a bit rough at this stage, but they get better with every session I spend on them.

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Cannons finished and given some protection while they wait for the rest of the ship to be completed.

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Some pics showing various parts of the three footer at different stages. Because I am using a variety of scrap material and fillers, the sanded finish is difficult to get consistent. Some of it sands very easily, leaving convex depressions in the surface, while the harder materials leave lumps and bumps. To try to solve this, I'm sealing the parts with a lacquer, akin to resin hardening. At least after a few coats of that, I can apply a single putty, then sand it down to the hardened surface.

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A mate with a CNC router cut a base for me with a 3D file from thingyverse. I have a big block of wood to glue and screw to the bottom of it to give it weight, then I will paint it all up pretty.

I welded a stand post and bracket to mount the Viper on. The intake fan blades are made out of the metal lid on a pack of cut off disks. The detailing in the back of the exhausts is cable ties.

More details and painting to go, but getting close now.

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Full story at www.buildsbybaz.com

Baz.
 
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