The following will document the trials and tribulations of building the jedi training remote from ANH. A lot has gone wrong along the way and i have learned a great deal, hopefully this will help others who are contemplating this undertaking and labor of love! I am not new to modeling or prop building but this build sure made it seem that way!
I used the resources here on the RPF extensively and found that two threads really helped me along the way. @TheRealMcFly has a great thread that discusses every aspect of the project start to finish and was a huge help
https://www.therpf.com/showthread.php?t=42132
The other thread is by @KrokoHunter who described a great method for cutting out the circular styrene pieces around the truck rims.
https://www.therpf.com/showthread.php?t=150843
I started collecting the required parts for this project more than two years ago and started building about a year ago, of course life has intervened along the way like buying a new house, switching jobs and having another kid but hey whats life without a challenge. Needless to say this has been a slow burn but i am also determined not to rush it, here we go.
The parts:
I wont go too deep into the parts because they are discussed in depth in the threads linked above.
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Model parts
1/25 AMT Midnight Express - has all the chrome wheels required but not the axle brackets
1/48 Fuman Panther G - Cupola, treads, gun port, commander's hatch, muffler baffle, part #3
1/72 Airfix Panzer IV - Track rollers
1/72 Hasegawa M-4 Sherman- wheel parts
Other:
Plastruct 6" hemispheres - I used the grey ABS for workability instead of the clear
1mm Styrene
Scotchlite
Oomoo 30 silicone rubber and smoothcast 300 liquid plastic
The first thing I did was to mold the parts that I needed multiple of. This was a first for me and I found that i was quickly out of my comfort zone because my molds were full of bubbles and resulted in unusable parts. DaveG made a great tutorial about how he molds small parts which was a huge help.
https://www.therpf.com/showthread.php?t=264222
The next round of molding i prepared better and purchased a vacuum chamber which resulted in perfect molds. I used mostly a couple of block molds but i made a two part mold the cupola and gunport in order to maintain the look of the original parts.
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Molding and casting tips learned from failure:
-follow DavG's tutorial
-use a vacuum chamber. even though oomoo says its not necessary these small parts will always have bubbles if you dont vacuum the silicone
-DONT USE SILICONE MOLD RELEASE FOR 2 PARTS MOLDS. this was a dumb one. This actually means the release is made from silicone, not that it should be used on silicone. the only thing that sticks to silicone is silicone so using this release was like gluing the halves together and actually made my 2 part mold into a solid block!!! use mann 200, thats the good stuff.
-use new bottles of smoothon 300. if it sits on the shelf too long it forms a lot of bubbles.
-lightly spray mold release on the molds prior to casting then dust on talc powder, this will draw the resin into the small parts
-dont rush it
After all of the molding and casting you will have a work bench that looks like this. Ill discuss the sphere and the other styrene parts next.
![Click image for larger version.
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I used the resources here on the RPF extensively and found that two threads really helped me along the way. @TheRealMcFly has a great thread that discusses every aspect of the project start to finish and was a huge help
https://www.therpf.com/showthread.php?t=42132
The other thread is by @KrokoHunter who described a great method for cutting out the circular styrene pieces around the truck rims.
https://www.therpf.com/showthread.php?t=150843
I started collecting the required parts for this project more than two years ago and started building about a year ago, of course life has intervened along the way like buying a new house, switching jobs and having another kid but hey whats life without a challenge. Needless to say this has been a slow burn but i am also determined not to rush it, here we go.
The parts:
I wont go too deep into the parts because they are discussed in depth in the threads linked above.
Model parts
1/25 AMT Midnight Express - has all the chrome wheels required but not the axle brackets
1/48 Fuman Panther G - Cupola, treads, gun port, commander's hatch, muffler baffle, part #3
1/72 Airfix Panzer IV - Track rollers
1/72 Hasegawa M-4 Sherman- wheel parts
Other:
Plastruct 6" hemispheres - I used the grey ABS for workability instead of the clear
1mm Styrene
Scotchlite
Oomoo 30 silicone rubber and smoothcast 300 liquid plastic
The first thing I did was to mold the parts that I needed multiple of. This was a first for me and I found that i was quickly out of my comfort zone because my molds were full of bubbles and resulted in unusable parts. DaveG made a great tutorial about how he molds small parts which was a huge help.
https://www.therpf.com/showthread.php?t=264222
The next round of molding i prepared better and purchased a vacuum chamber which resulted in perfect molds. I used mostly a couple of block molds but i made a two part mold the cupola and gunport in order to maintain the look of the original parts.
Molding and casting tips learned from failure:
-follow DavG's tutorial
-use a vacuum chamber. even though oomoo says its not necessary these small parts will always have bubbles if you dont vacuum the silicone
-DONT USE SILICONE MOLD RELEASE FOR 2 PARTS MOLDS. this was a dumb one. This actually means the release is made from silicone, not that it should be used on silicone. the only thing that sticks to silicone is silicone so using this release was like gluing the halves together and actually made my 2 part mold into a solid block!!! use mann 200, thats the good stuff.
-use new bottles of smoothon 300. if it sits on the shelf too long it forms a lot of bubbles.
-lightly spray mold release on the molds prior to casting then dust on talc powder, this will draw the resin into the small parts
-dont rush it
After all of the molding and casting you will have a work bench that looks like this. Ill discuss the sphere and the other styrene parts next.