How many of you can relate?

Bored, Bored, Bored...

No commissions coming in right now.  No real motivation to finish anything other than Scott's Atlas. Job hunting just sucks.  Anyone else feeling kinda glum lately?

For those not interested in my whining, here are some pics of the Centurion I am having printed.

Scott's MWO Atlas

Alright everyone.  I have gotten my hands on Scott's MWO Atlas and am in the process of cleaning it up.   Some pieces got broken in transit...others have little gaps and what-not that can cause problems when casting. I am not going to do a pre-order on this one as the caster is significantly backed up and it could be the end of the summer before this one is done.  What I need is a firm commitment to buy a copy of this beast.  Without doing a pre-order I run the risk of kitting this and getting stuck with lots of stock...although I doubt it with this one. Costs? I am guessing this one will run around $200. It is bigger than the Armorcast Atlas and will have TWO different heads!

Final Five

Other than the one being held for my "printer," there are 5 Masakari kits remaining.  Once these sell, that may be the end of the run for this year. There are too many other projects in the pipeline to sink money into rather than into stock that may end up sitting on a shelf. 

Speaking of "the printer," more trial runs....

Thor

Well, the Thor went to the caster this week.  We should have some kits in the next 5 weeks or so. All Mad Cat Mk II kits have been shipped. Now we are just waiting on the Vulture MK IV. I have to say, I think kits named Vulture are bad luck. There were so many issues with the MK II it took 5 months to get it completed and orders filled. Anyway, here are some quick picks of the Thor parts that I sent to the caster. 

Masakari Kits Available

I have a few of these left.  If you are interested, please contact me!  

I am also available for commissions...unique creations or build-up of kits.

Building the Masakari

Recently I tossed together a copy of the Masakari and wanted to make the community aware of a few snags I ran into.  Just a reminder from a previous post...the original was never intended to be kitted. While I did re-engineer some parts, there were still some shortcomings. Also, there were some parts where I felt we had to strike a balance between casting ease and building ease.

1.  The main issue...the main body is HEAVY! The caster tried to hollow cast this, but those big cut-ins around the cockpit made it very problematic. If I build another, I may bore out some hole from the bottom and then cover them with sheet styrene detail just to reduce the weight a bit.

2.  I added pins to the knee area rather than the old flat mating surfaces. On my kit, the holes and pins are not lining up quite right so I had to do some tweaking there.  I used a 5-minute 2-part epoxy on that joint and let the epoxy cure for a day or so before adding the body.  That joint gave way (see #1) after a couple days.  I cleaned the joint and used CA the second time and it seems to be holding.

3. The elbow is more of a ball and divot rather than ball and socket. I tried one arm with epoxy and one arm with CA...the Epoxy held better.  In fact, I swift bump on the CA arm and it snapped off.

4. Pins were added to the ankle as they were with the knee and I had the same fit problems here. They lined up well enough on the master but are a tad off on the casting. No issues with buckling here.

5.  The PPC barrels are not as snug as I would like, but nothing a little CA can't handle.

6.  The tabs where the arms connect to the body need to be sanded down a bit...or drill out the hole in the upper arm a bit more.

In hindsight, if I had realized the body would weigh so much, I would have made the upper and lower leg one big piece...caster be damned.   Overall, I am about 85% happy with this kit.  I still think the Dervish has been the best engineered yet.  Don't get me wrong, this thing builds into a badass mech...there are just always issues trying to take something never designed to be a model and make it into one.

On another note...the Thor is up in the casting queue.  Start saving your pennies.  The engineering on this one is close to the Dervish.  Scott at Messy Desk made me a copy of the legs he used on his that I just HAD to modify to make them a bit more like the TRO version. This one should be available in late May/early June.

I also started cutting plastic on the Templar. Lacking any commissions, I decided to go ahead and do one that I have been wanting for a long time.  This mech was my favorite ride in the PC game.  Let's see if I can do it justice.