Progress on the Bumper.

Managed to squeeze some time in this week to work on the bumper some more, its still a pain in the butt though.

Its finally taken shape, and Iam currently ironing out the final details in the thing. Ran into a bunch of hurdles in the curved parts on the to sides which was the majority of the hassle of this thing, but like all hurdles Ive been over coming them little by little.

The next headache was to figure out how the part contours at the bottom to the side parts. As seen in the above and bottom pics. The right side was fairly simple since it was a pretty easy fillet, but the left side was not so.. Luckily after a lot, and I mean alot of trial and error I was finally able to figure it out. The problem since I had free handed it it required alot of improvising until the final pic happened, Iam satisfied for the most part on how it came out though. Ill more than likley do something a bit different when the time comes to make the thing for real.

Currently Iam fighting on the right side, and it took me pretty much the most of yesterday to finally figure out how to get the groove on the right side to go from square to a round.

Again stuff like this always hits me when Iam not working on the thing, turned out to be something rather simple to do. After some searching on the "google", I found a pretty nice explanation on how go from a square to a round. Link here!

Iam really getting the hang of this, so when ever I tackle something Ive made up Iam glad Ill be able to put what Ive learned so far on this project towards it. So till next post.

Bumper Madness!!!

The Bumper, what can I say. I can solely say that this part has been a royal pain! Ive been working on this part probably for the last 4 days and Iam still not done.

As you can clearly see from the jumbled mess I have here lol. I belive the biggest issue Ive had with this part so far is the blue prints really dont have all the measurements so Ive had to guess on alot of stuff, artist interpretation if you will lol.

So one of the solutions I thought of and seemed to have worked so far was to basically bring in the actual blue print into Sketchup and scale it best I could to the initial part above. That way I could at least try to trace around some of it and make some rough measurements.

Overall Iam pretty happy with it so far, still far from done but still happy with it.

Unfortunately Ill have to put this project on hold after this part is finished or by the weekend, due too needing to start prepping for a Convention Iam gonna be at. I will be having a table with my sister and Iam going to be selling my Perler bead art there. Well till next post.

HGA,Gun Mount, and Filler Plug done.

After working on the pond for a little bit today I was able to finish up 3 other parts on the Proton Pack.

The first and probably one of the easiest pieces was the HGA, pretty standard stuff here just some simple cylinders. The weld line around the top was easy after all that I learned from the Crank Gen.

Next up was the Gun Mount. Now this thing was a little bit of a pain took me about 2 days of work to finish it.

Again knowing what to expect after working on the Crank Gen helped alot for this piece.

The longest thing about this part was trying to find out if the whole part tapers down or just the left part with the ribs. After a long exhausting research spree I finally found out that the whole part tapers down. On a side note the black pack in the back ground in the last pic I did not do, I found it on google warehouse and basically Iam using it as a reference for some of the parts I couldn't find real pictures of.

And finally the Filler plug/spacer this part goes on top of the cyclotron.

This was another simple part to make (Thank god lol), which was nice since Ive been running on fumes today.

All in all a really productive day, and tomorrow Iam off from work so Iam hoping for a repeat of today. Till next time.

The Crank Generator....My God!!

And here is what almost 6 hours of work looks like lol.

Silly me for thinking that this was gonna be easy and take maybe an hour tops! Little did I know how complicated this thing actually was, but man did I learn alot just from this part alone.

Pretty much I had to again do a ton of research and trial and error. This time being how to bevel an edge that goes not only sideways but up and down. I found a vid on how to basically make a beveled or rounded corner cube, but alas that idea didnt work, so again back to the drawing board.

So then I remembered how to make spheres in sketchup, but then this is where sketchup's limitations start to show. When dealing with small measurements the program starts to guesstimate, and thats where the first major problem began. The small radii were not making proper spheres, so in the end I had to basically make my own spheres using quarter sections of the radii to make the rounded corners where all the bevels met. So after almost 6 hours of banging my head trying to figure it out this is what the finished product looks like, still not 100% finished, still need to add some other details but everything else is pretty easy. So my final thought are Iam thinking I might be out growing sketchup, unless there's a way I don't know of that's able to measure out .001's or smaller. Definitely a learning experience that's for sure.

Shingles on the roof.

Well since Iam on a roll today with posts might as well post something Pond related too. These pics are from a week ago and again due to work(I know this is starting to be a recurring theme here) iam now posting them.

And then there was shingles!....Well sorta a quarter of the roof has shingles, half the front and the right side have shingles up, alas this was all the time I had, since my dad was leaving for a hunting trip for a week. My schedule for the rest of the month is lining up pretty well so Iam hoping when he gets back the whole roof will be shingled up.

You can see our makeshift scaffolding in this last pic lol, but hey its how we roll lol. Till next update!

Sketchup Proton Pack in progress.

Well seems I get distracted very easily lol, but Ive been itching to work on my proton pack again but I dont want to start that big of a build just yet. So since Iam dead in the water again with the Pond I figure Id make it in Sketch up, heres the progress so far.

This has been about a couple hours worth of work spread out from the last 3 days, for the most part its just about done. I started by using the same Blue Prints I used to make the wooden one I started a couple years ago, thus putting my skills that I learned from the Blue Print class I took last year this is what I have so far. I can tell you this, I understand those blue prints a hell of alot better now than when I originally used them on the wooden one lol, but I knew it was running a little too smooth so naturally I hit a snag that had me all flustered for about a couple hours.

This bad boy was a pain, I had to figure out how to cut a angle out of this channel to match the rest of the slope shown here, so after alot of trial and error and a bunch of research online. I find out it was actually a pretty easy fix, all I had to was take the channel out and take a the slant part and intersect them, basically I took both shapes and stuck them into each other then in sketchup intersected both objects and it gave me my lines that I could just erase and Wallah!! I finally had my angle cut channel. I should have this all finished probably tonight or tomorrow. Till next update!

Pirahna Plant Perler!

Well Ive been wanting to do this for a while and has been a good constructive way for me to do stuff on days that I cant work on the pond, and also on how easy it is to pick up and make one of these. So finally after a couple ones Ive done, which Ive given away as gifts, Ill have to dig up the photos of those. This will be the official (Non Official lol) first one I made.

The Piranha Plant from Mario Bros, this particular idea Ive checked around has been done alot, but I wanted my own. So after a couple of days between work and working on the pond here it is in all its completed glory.

Pretty easy honestly, bought the small pot at my local Ace Hardware and used some peat moss my sister had lying around. Other than that its been my current addiction lately lol and I cant wait to make more, all my old school favorite video games are now ripe for the picking, and I have a couple of original ideas floating around in my head Iam hoping to many people havnt done yet. Till next update!!!