Daeothar (finally) goes Lunar - Sidestepping to some astronauts

[Daeothar]

Funny you should mention that.

I bought one for myself and my father early last year after their succesfully Kickstarter, but it's the first time I've used it in anger since then.

Basically it's a metal plate with four parallel clips that can swivel on magnetic ball mounts. So you can place the clips anywhere on the surface, at any angle. perfect for soldering jobs, or to hold two bits to glue them together, like here.

It's called the Omnifixo, and you can find them here

[anevilgiraffe]

thank you

EDIT - oooo pricey

[Daeothar]

You're not wrong there

They were around the €40,- mark when I bought them. Still not cheap, but they've gone way up since last year. Maybe not worth it at that price point actually...

[mikedemana]

It's looking great! And here I was stressing out about scratch-building legs for a tripod droid... 

I like how you made the decision to scrap one material that clearly wasn't working, and continue on with another. That's the type of thing that makes me shove something gently to the side of the painting desk to be lost to the dustbin of history...! 

Mike Demana

[Daeothar]

I'm always concerned with durability during play. the last thing I want is for some terrain element that cost a disproportionally long time to craft to be accidentally knocked off during play. And I also do not want my opponents to feel like Hyacint Bucket's nervous neighbour, being handed her tea in the good china

Anyway, I've begun on the detailing of the ascend stage, because down here in the rabbit hole, this needs to be done with reckless abandon

I began lightly with assorted small dome shapes on the front of the hull by adding Tichy Train Group large rivets. Of course I had to first scrape off yet more of the primer for the glue to bond. I'm really regretting jumping the gun on that stage by now...

Then I added two strips to the top of the hatch cavity, and an extra plate on top of the rounded section just above the crew compartment. These were all done with 0.25mm plasticard.

In the same vein, I added a plate to the outside of the hatch cavity, because in all pictures, the hatch is covered in copper foil, but on the port side, a sheet (metal) is clearly seen extending over the foil, but the bottom part is not attached in any way. So I added some 0.25mm polystyrene sheet (black this time) to do the same.

A handle is also added to the starboard side of the hatch cavity, made from a short length of paperclip, which was inserted into two drilled holes.

The small window I cut in the top port hull was covered from the inside with some acetate sheet, but was way too deep. So I filled it with some UV resin and it now sits nice and flush with the hull.

Finally, I added an antenna (or is it a rail handle?) to the port side of the hull, attached with the correct amount of brackets (as if I'd do it any other way ). This is made from ABS/polystyrene rod. I had to superglue the rail to the supports, because as mentioned before, this plastic melts when glued, but does not weld like pure polystyrene like that from Evergreen for instance. So the supports melded into the hull, but not into the railing made from the same material 

Anyway; a lot of very visible work was achieved yesterday, and it's shaping up nicely.

A final bit of work was done on the descend stage by covering the holes in the hull from the inside with some plasticard and then adding two magnets in there. The ascend stage will receive two as well, so the two can attach and separate in a more modern way

[Rick]

Wow, just wow - your attention to detail is awe-inspiring Daeothar.
The only thing that concerns me is that I don't really know the Lunar game background so I don't really know whether an exact copy of a lunar lander would be more appropriate than, say, a modified one similar to the prop lander from 'Moon zero-two'? Presumably Lunar is set in a slightly alternative timeline where Moon missions continued and expanded?

[Daeothar]

Thanks Rick 

I am known to go a bit overboard when it comes to detail. So what I'm doing here, I do for me (because I can't help myself  ), as the game makes no such distinction.

In fact, as it stands today, landers are not even playable; they're just scenery at this point. 

The game focusses on space race era technology, like in the first season of For All Mankind. But nothing prevents one from playing in a scifi setting, the present or the future, with more advanced or scifi tech.

[Cat]

I don't really know the Lunar game background so I don't really know whether an exact copy of a lunar lander would be more appropriate than, say, a modified one similar to the prop lander from 'Moon zero-two'?

Any image you want to run with will work fine.  I'm going with a retro SF look of the later 60s as imagined c.1963 — Mercury Project style space suits, and working on a Gemini rocket style lander.
 
The only crunchy bit of the rules as written is low-conflict armament.  No one wants to start WW3 on Earth, this is not WH1.96K.  That too could be changed to taste of course, but would require rules changes.

[Mad Lord Snapcase]

Lovely detail work.

[mikedemana]

Looking great! Your attention to detail is a help on this project, of course. Can't wait to see it finished...!

Mike Demana

[Daeothar]

So yeah, with all the halloween shenanigans going on, which may have involved me in a scarecrow suit masquerading as a doll next to the bowl of candy, patiently waiting to jumpscare the neighbourhood kids,    I had already predicted there would be little progress this weekend.

But lo and behold; I was able to get an hour or so in, and decided to finish the magnetizing job. I had already glued in the two magnets on the descend stage, but they were sitting ever so slightly proud of the surface. Courtesy of the plastic thickness not being quite uniform across the entire area

So I solved that with some very thin plasticard, which made them perfectly flush, as intended.

And because that went really quickly, I also tackled the ascend stage. Holes were drilled in the right location, they were drilled out to the correct diameter, then I applied superglue and then the magnets, with the help of a flat tool, with which I could insert the magnets and then slide off the tool, making them perfectly flush with the surface as well.

This worked like a dream. So after waiting for the glue to set, I of course tried to connect the two stages. Which failed because I had glued in the last two magnets the wrong way! 

Now I'm going to have to remove them somehow, preferably without damaging the module (too much), all the while feeling like an proper dunce...

[Ultravanillasmurf]

Ouch!

[Cat]

Ouch indeed!

[carlos marighela]

Think of them as anti-gravity devices.

Having done something quite similar, you have my commiserations.

[Rick]

I think we've all been there, Daeothar. Magnets are tricky beasts with a mind of their own!