Triumph class DS

[Colt Ward]

Anyone ever make one that was mech-scale-ish?

[worktroll]

At around half a meter - 18 inches - long, and not a lot less wide, that's definitely an impressive build!

A map-scale one wouldn't be bad to scratch up from polystyrene foam, but I may just leave the mech-scale for someone with more spare man-cave than I have ;)

[Colt Ward]

Well, I have all these tubs that formula comes in . . . and I am already using one as two aircraft style modern hangers.  And I noticed that if I left four of them whole it would give the space as four open doors for decks/bays . . . and I could use purple foamboard for the little stubby wings at the end and as the body the four tubs would be in.

[worktroll]

Would love to see what you come up with!

On rough estimation - Sarna provides a top and side view, and it'd be easy enough to free-hand the front/rear profile from that - the body's going to be 9" wide and about 3" deep (overall height 6", with half of that the fin). Carving from foamblock - even three 1" sheets trimmed to size - should work. Building up from the 'hangars' as a base? Might be worth doing the front & back in foam, then using some sort of slightly flexible material to build up the remaining hull?

[Colt Ward]

So this is what I am looking at for the 'core' of the design and then cut purple foam for the 'lifting body' look of the design.

This is the image I think I can match, which I think is the Assault Triumph rather than the original-


But it works with the parts I have and will give a lot of detail.



You can see a metal Battlemaster and the Lance Pack box & Cyclops to judge scale- could not find my yardstick.  The purple part is where the sealed opening for the formula is located, I need to remove the peel on 2 more that I washed out but I grabbed some I had not started on to make this visual example.  Others are being used for mechbays, ASF/SC hangers and vehicle garages.  Might do some of the others with building up around one to make a ammo dump bunker.

After looking at a few things, I think I will use brads to pin the 4 containers together with liberal applications of superglue.  I am also considering some balsa wood to help form the frame underneath along with plastic coke bottle caps to form wheels though not sure what they will connect to as landing gear to the frame.  Problem for the rest of the frame is I have not found a good angle to get a look at what the stern looks like.



I have a pair of these bottles to form the engine nacelles along with some of the caps from baby food pouches to be accent work for the intakes since the bottom part is concave.  The opening where you drink from would be the nozzles for the thrust.  I am thinking of using the spray foam inside the bottle to reinforce the juice bottle's structure.


For the nose I have a mini Nilla Wafter to form the structure of the nose and I will probably get a styrofoam ball or something to round off the edge of it.  Half a foam ball will let me score it like its taken damage.

I also have ping pong balls & cheap plastic christmas ornaments (Dollar store!) to cut up as turrets.  Or just mount left over MWDA weapons for the 'guns' the Triumph would have trained out.

[Colt Ward]

Since each can will open up, I will need to look at how to layout the vehicle bays inside.  Trying to figure out if I will try different levels inside, trying to remember my fat fingers will be trying to get little pieces to stick together inside.

[Colt Ward]

Btw, tested it . . . I can easily get 11 vehicles in each of those cans- even MWDA vehicles as long as they are not giant.  Each one has a slight curve so I need to figure out something to deal with that . . . anyone ever pour anything in to offer a flat floor?

[mbear]

Btw, tested it . . . I can easily get 11 vehicles in each of those cans- even MWDA vehicles as long as they are not giant.  Each one has a slight curve so I need to figure out something to deal with that . . . anyone ever pour anything in to offer a flat floor?

Two part epoxy resin (for casting stuff) could probably do it. You'd need to put something along the edge of the container to form a lip to keep the resin inside. For what it's worth when I'm working with resin I use a half-sheet pan lined with cheap silicone kitchen paper as a work surface. The sheet pan contains any spills, and the silicone paper makes cleaning up hardened resin a breeze. The resin just pops right off.

The only problem I forsee is that the epoxy resin generates heat as it cures so you may warp the thin plastic of the container. You might be able to get around that by putting the container on an icepack or wet towel or something. (Of course if there's a spill your icepack/towel is hosed.)

I've got it: After you add your edge/lip to the container, try pouring water in it to test for leaks. If it's watertight, it'll probably be resin-tight.