While I was being too much of a perfectionist with last week's effort, I wanted to avoid the same imperfections for the next one. I.e. keep the size under control, and do actual track links this time. I started with the track links as I knew this was going to be the most involved and lengthy part of the build, but once I got it right, future builds would be easier. This was because I was going to make some crude, two-part, push moulds which would enable me to mass produce the links with minimal effort. I'm not great at precision cutting, but I don't mind filing a part after the fact to it fits. If you're unfamiliar with such things, I will say it requires a certain amount of preparation and good old trial & error. It's only worth doing if the part you're making is A) rare/annoying to source or B) you're making so many of the things it works out to a time saving. Obviously doing a bunch of track links is a massive B, and if you want to know more about the process, I'm going to include a link here to a video. It probably explains things better than I can. My initial design was to base these around zip ties and paper clips, but these proved to be too slight for this style of mould. Instead, I went for something based on cut down nanoblocks, tubing and scrap plastic. These are perhaps a bit chunky, and aren't interlocking, but I have to work with what I have.
So while I was prepping that and creating a lot of miscasts, I went to work on the actual tonk. This proved to be a series of happy accidents. I'd decided to use a small spraybottle from an airline travel kit for the turret joint. During installation, the top, which I had intended to build up into the turret, pinged off into a corner and presumably Narnia as I have yet to find it. However, a small make-up tub from the same set would work just as well. Actually, better, as it had an indentation on one side the same diameter as the spray mechanism, so it flows better. The track wheels meanwhile were left overs from an old Frame Arms kit, these having been selected as convenient short-cut while I worked out the track links. These are single mould piece with four wheels and a rectangular behind. These looked the part, but there was a lot of empty space that would make adding tracks impractical. So, I wrapped the piece with EVA foam to fill those gaps and make for better connections. Then it hit me, I can do the same thing with lego and disks. That will make the next one so much easier to do! The track links meanwhile, while requiring significant clean-up and gap-filling, went on with almost no issue, when I'd been suspecting a need to mod something to make 'em fit. Word to the wise: if you're trying something like this, do the visible areas first, that way, if you have to bodge something, it's on the underside. I only really needed to add a strip of EVA to bridge a gap. And finally, once I' d added some panels to the side, the tonk proved to be very close to the 7 by 5cm target. I was quite pleased. Painting then continued in my usual way, this time featuring lime green, and some homebrew mud paint to obscure some imperfections.
Generally, I'm a lot happier with how this turned out versus week 4's creation. That was OK, well-liked even, but this is more scale appropriate, and looks a bit better. I'm inclined to do three more like this, and redesignate the bigger green one as a prototype. That puts me a little behind schedule, but I do have some time off this week. I’ll have plenty of time to catch up, assuming nothing happens to distract me…
Uh-oh.
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