SPACELINER CONVERTIBLE (A Non-Invasive Sex Reassignment)

[The Renaissance Man]

Jim, hope your recovery is quick.
I love the new shape of the tank.
Would love to see the front of the tank and the bezels.

Thanks John.
Hopefully I can get back on it soon and post some pix of the front as it takes shape!

 

[rickpaulos]

Or sell them to others with a girl's Spaceliner frame.

Yeah, there are a lot of girls spaceliners out there, including 1 in my shed.

 

[sean1960]

Do you use a hot wire? When I've tried sanding it, the pebbles crumble off and it's hard to get it smooth. Maybe there are different grades of material that is better suited for sanding. That polyurea sounds interesting, but do you have to use specialized equipment to apply it?

We use hot wires all the time from hand held to a 8' x 12' hot wire machine. The hot wire machine is what I use most of the day. Any wire frame drawing I can draw on CorelDraw the machine will cut. Sculpting and sanding on EPS is a challenge but you get use to it. We use mostly 1 pound density foam It's easier to work with. To spray the polyurea you do have to get suited up. It's basically bed liner material you don't want to breathe it. The spray rig cost around $12,000+. You can buy paint on coatings. Here's a sample of what I do all day.

 

[The Renaissance Man]

That's some nice looking work!
I'm assuming that most of that is from your CorelDraw models and not by hand. I didn't realize that you could do bas relief with a hot wire machine.

 

[sean1960]

Every thing I cut out on the machine is like a jigsaw puzzle and then each piece is hand carved and sanded to shape. I can only cut silhouettes on the machine. This shark jaw was only a simple line drawing all the teeth and cartilage had to be hand carved.

 

[The Renaissance Man]

QUESTION...
Does anyone have a good match for the turquoise paint on Spaceliners? I'm sure that I'm not the first to try to match it.

This is way ahead of where I am at this point, but not being able to work is giving me time to think about some of the other details before I get there.

 

[The Renaissance Man]

If not available that small, go ahead with your mass production plan--you'll have enough paint to supply the entire world market of turquoise Spaceliner sex change candidates!

Good thinking. That will work perfectly with my ultimate plan!

 

[Glen]

You forgot to add an evil laugh...

mmmmwwwahahahahahaha

Hope you are resting and recuperating well.

By the way, can that foam stuff be got by us mere mortals, or do you have to be a super villain sign dude to get your hands on it? Not that I need any for anything just now but it looks like handy stuff to have.

Glen.

 

[The Renaissance Man]

Glen, this stuff is available through most sign suppliers here in America. I can't speak for New Zealand, but I'm guessing that it's available there also.
Here's the result of a Google search for 'high density urethane board '.
BTW, it's not cheap! Good luck.

 

[milbums]

This makes me want to start looking for a girls spaceliner.

 

[The Renaissance Man]

Thanks milbums, just doing my part to break the glass ceiling for women's bikes and help them earn the respect that they deserve.

You know, by dressing them in men's clothes.

 

[The Renaissance Man]

Was finally able to resume work on the tank today!
There's not a lot to see yet, but I thought I'd post anyway now that I'm back on task.

The tank halves needed to be held together during the shaping process, so I drilled and added dowel pins. I can work with the two pieces together or easily take them apart as necessary.

After they were put together, I cut out the profile on a band saw.

Here are both pieces together after cutting them:

This is obviously the very basic block form, but I have started some of the contour shaping after I took these pix and should have more to show tomorrow.

 

[LukeTheJoker]

Loving it!

Luke.

 

[The Renaissance Man]

At this stage I'm still roughing in the form. I'm using wood carving tools and gradually taking small amounts of material so that I don't go past the final shape. Of course I don't really know what the final shape will be (I'll know it when I see it), so that makes it a little more tricky.

The old adage is to carve away everything that doesn't look like a tank!

 

[LukeTheJoker]

carve away everything that doesn't look like a tank!

Sounds like sound advice!
Looking good TRM!

Luke.

 

[GuitarlCarl]

There is a ton of ideas you could bring to reality with that process...
With a modern flashlight as the guts, and it's cool operating temp, you could fab an awesome art deco headlight.

Carl.

 

[The Renaissance Man]

Thanks, Luke.

Carl, your right. HDU is a great medium to work with. If only I had access to a CNC!

 

[The Renaissance Man]

The main body of the tank is almost ready for primer, (although I'll wait until the torpedo lights are ready before I start priming any of it).

Here's how it's fitting on the bike at this point:

Sorry for the bad picture, I had to lay the bike on its side and take the picture from above.

 

[LukeTheJoker]

Looks awesome!

Luke.

 

[jd56]

Jim, cant wait till the lights are mounted.
I'm thinking if you still want the Spaceliner parts, I'll donate them to the cause.
I sent you an email. I plan on attending the Eden swap and can bring the parts there to save some freight costs if you're going.
JD

Sent from my DROID RAZR using Tapatalk 2