Thanks Louis, I am considering several options.lmcq11 wrote:Great progress.
I am curious to see how you will manage the gun shield. It was the most complex area to model on mine.
The first one would be the easiest, print it in resin. Result would be perfect with no sanding and I could incluse the attachment points with bolts and nuts for the linkages to the gun.
The second would be to vacform it over a hand sculpted or 3D printed buck. That's my favorite because I can get something very thin yet very strong and keeping its shape in styrene.
The problem is that my vacforming tool is 600x400 mm, way too big for that job. I have built smaller ones in the pasts but I dont know where they are after 2 moves I'm too lazy to build another and drill thousands of holes.
The third option would be to use the Bandai parts. I would have to trim them of course to rescale them from 1/15 to 1/16 but that would work. Parts are a bit thick though.
Making the shield is quite challenging, and I am even more concerning attaching it strongly to the gun.
Another concern of mine is too get the correct anti skid plates for the fenders (dotted) and for the combat compartment. I have a plan for that, I'm going to accurately 3D model each type of antiskid plate and 3D print a master that I will mold and get thin (0.3mm at max) resin castings.
I may also do it the real way and emboss some thin aluminium sheet with a 3D printed roller with the correct pattern. I may try both ways. I would really be able to do embossed aluminium stuff...