Rollin' on 20's like a player?

Straight out the mill. What do you think paper weight, MWO trophy? either way I feel like milling myself a 2nd one as a desktop ornament you know I have a block of maple about the right size.. (must not get distracted!!).

Supports still to file down and there's a bit that sticks over that front support to go on

Barrel ring details

That warm fuzzy feeling

That warm fuzzy feeling only an AC20 can give you

Interim update - Torso

I've finished the machining on the torso 4 days ago it was the trickiest part so far. I'll go more into that on a proper post later. Unfortunately I hurt my thumb (unrelated to modelling honestly) so I haven't been able to clean off the support structures and lots of nice photos. But I didn't want to leave you wondering what happened so heres a quick pic (painful as it is show unfinished work);

Head laser, rear comms dish, back section to be glued on, the (ammo?) drum, front and back torso

I will put up another post much more in-depth once I get enough dexterity in my thumb to clean all the parts up.

Thumb with a chef's hat on

It looks like I'll need another week for it to heal but it hasn't effected machining I'm already most of the way through the swayback hump.

Hunchback torso drum - 3D torso design

I machined out the rear torso drum first half of this week mainly to make use of the mill while i designed the torso and wrote the CNC code.

2 part machined

A little disappointed I the cylinder has facets it wasn't obvious in the 3D model I guess because its such a big cyclider (3cm dia) even with 100sides it shows 'flats'. Any who I'll give it a quick buff with 400 paper to smooth it down.

Next the task of working out the gun and torso joint. And I can tell you it was a tricky mess to sort out it took 3 days of reworking to finally get something that could be swapped as a single gun yet still retain strength in both the guns bridge and the shoulder joint in the torso all of which wanted the same space.

Open chest surgery

As you can see a huge bite is taken out of the torso for the gun and how the shoulder joint prevents any simple solutions.

And here with have the Support structure clean cut along the AC20 line with any under cuts removed and added to the gun its self to allow the gun to slip over the torso. (those holes are locations for magnets)

And how the AC20/torso are divided


On to machining the torso is taking 30hrs to rough front of the torso alone! yikess so I decided to start that while I write the rest of the code for finishing

Making sections in such big parts is tricky (and stressful for me) the challenges of over looking something go up 10 fold as your at the maximum dimensions the mill and milling bit can do leaving bingo margin for error.

HBK - Armed 'n' shexy

The arms were finished this Saturday. I gave myself Sunday off to play MWO and take a breath before delving into the torso/hunch.

(Usual caveats things are dusty, snapped with my camera phone as I work. Everything gets a stiff brush and a sonic clean before casting)

Range of extension of the first elbow (second is locked until the tab is removed)

New vs Old. - My old attempted at hand making the HBK from scratch this was early MWO before mechlab screen shots were working so it was made from memory.

 

Fist bump - milestone complete

Now I'm at the hardest stage of the design and build the torso is a large piece with many details to add along an awkwardly undulating shaped torso. I then have to configure the torso to hunch joint I think I have it worked out except for the SRM version which looks like it wont be hot swap (ie the left SRM would be glued into place).

Progress for today is the front symmetrical details and scribing panel lines. I do all the symmetrical parts first before the asymmetric stuff. This stage often sees thing adding getting broken once you add in features to make it a workable model but there's no real way of avoiding it despite how painful it can be to redo something when your realise it has to make way for something else.

Fore armed - MWO hunchback progress

Forearms are all machined so here some gratuitous pictures, unglued (except the forearm body) as for they will be cast as separate pieces.

Now you're wondering why is the the forearm sanded so rough well sprue has been filed down but my putty has gone off so I had to order more I want to run a fine bead along the joint before finial buffing to get a seamless join.

The forearm and elbows themselves feature holes for magnets (3x1mm) pre drilled if you want to remove the locking tab allowing for double articulation but still have something to hold it closed position.

The upper arms are machining atm with just the upper elbow joint and the shoulder pad left.

Hips, Arm update and casting frustrations

So the bad is, I'm having casting frustrations. I broke a rule which I learnt the hard way a few years ago when you find a good supplier of RTV and Resin don't change. But I was persuaded to try another brand and no bueno. Long story short the RTV was 'ok' and the resin was pants. The RTV was kind of hard means the mould lines want to spring apart :/ and the resin didn't set leaving a sticky mess in the moulds for me to clean out. Which means a whole wasted weekend of frustration (just take 3days and tear those up >.<). I bought some resin from my normal supplier but the shin moulds are both duff and I will need to make them again. I'd hope to show you full lower body assembly with my hip post but to do that I need a left and right shin and 2 feet.

I'm pushing for time as it is and frankly I'll just have to table making new moulds of the shins till i feel i have some clear air between 3d Jobs/CNC programming/family/real job/Household work.

So here's the hips (I did want to make a video of the articulation between them and the thighs I just don't have the time)

The above is just loosely assembled/pre clean up (I just didn't wish to overlook taking photos)

Now on to lower arms Detailed, jointed, divided up and spruced for CNC

Inside the elbows

Elbows, Fists, Guns, Forearms.

The forearms machining right now quite a long run at 30hrs+ hopefully done by tomorrow mid day.

The other question I've posed myself is does one need to make the PPC variant guns? I mean I know everyone will say yes but its already getting 3 humps, no stock version seems to have PPCs and the extra time to mill the PPCs could be spent getting on with the rest of the model. Its a choice  prioritizing time.