Fram's general buildy thread (Update 12-24 - Overblown gramophone)

[FramFramson]

 

[von Lucky]

I'm impressed. When will you be building the actual island?

[FramFramson]

I'm impressed. When will you be building the actual island?

The shelter's first appearance will be in the swamps of Siberia! A little far from islands unless we're talking a hummock of solid ground in the middle of a bog!

Maybe someday I'll be doing some sunny island stuff though. I'm sure I can't have all my games in dismal climes!

[FramFramson]

Today's exercise in lunacy consists of making a classic early crystal set radio receiver.

First, I wanted the main tuning dial. I took a small eyelet I had and filed it down a little.



Then I glued a finishing nail in the hole. Voila - one oversized dial.



I wanted one of those silly old hexagonal antennas. I formed plasticard around a fat nut and then glued another finishing nail which had had the head snipped off to the bottom. This stage involved several false starts, much broken plasticard and an immense amount of cursing.

I then painted it brass/gold and wrapped it in thin green wire. This also involved immense amounts of cursing. I sort of screwed that up, because the glue wasn't dry, so there are some ugly spots on the antenna. Blah. Too late. Not going to make ANOTHER one.



The speaker was made by jamming some foam into a slightly larger eyelet.



Here is the completed plasticard face (the speaker is not here glued in yet, it's just sitting loose for the photo). The smaller knobs are just other finishing nail heads.



Painted, with tiny markings dabbed on.



Building the case. Almost done!



Finished:

[Constable Bertrand]

The wood stain and the dial markings look the business Fram!

Cheers
Matt.

[Mason]

Quite mad.
But brilliant, nonetheless.
 

[OSHIROmodels]

Cracking 

cheers

James

[leonmallett]

Just scanned through all 11 pages - stunning terrain sir.

[DeafNala]

Now that is COOL! I can remember listening to Brooklyn Dodgers games on a radio not too dissimilar to your model when I was a boy a long time ago. Not only is this a FINE model, it brings back some fine memories as well. VERY WELL DONE!

[Mr. Peabody]

Whoo! That's sweet. 

[gary42]

Say pal,  yer a real fart smeller....er, smart feller!

Awesome as usuall!

[FramFramson]

Thanks gents. It was a fun sort of experiment. This model is sort of aging even by the era I'm gaming (30's), being more WWI-era technology. But I figured it makes good practice for designing more "contemporary" electro-mechanical stuff.

It's a little too big (even given the fact that non-military radios of that era would have been monsters almost that size), but I was working around the size of the eyelet I chose for the speaker (wish I could have found one the same size with just a little thinner rim). Probably would have been more accurate if the cabinet had been about 2-3 mm shorter, but that's such a small difference for something like this so who cares?

Just scanned through all 11 pages - stunning terrain sir.

Ha! Hopefully the effort was worthwhile. I'm trying to add more how-tos and WIP shots.

Now that is COOL! I can remember listening to Brooklyn Dodgers games on a radio not too dissimilar to your model when I was a boy a long time ago. Not only is this a FINE model, it brings back some fine memories as well. VERY WELL DONE!

Haha, that's great! Perhaps the radio will have some more lighthearted appearances in games too.

Say pal,  yer a real fart smeller....er, smart feller!

Awesome as usuall!

Well, I did have bacon and brussels sprouts for dinner the other day...

[6milPhil]

Lovely stuff. I don't think it's too big given it'd have massive valves in it, and the bigger the set the better the signal.

[warburton]

Excellent work!

[zizi666]

Wicked cool.
I really like the foam in the speaker trick.