Okay, this is kinda important because it’ll affect how I unfold the trucks and pretty much all of the other wheeled vehicles in this set. I did an alternate unfolding for the Limoën Zoom that eliminates gluing the wheel wells to the sides of the car and changes up the assembly sequence a bit.
Short form: the car goes together as an upper and a lower half. In my 2 test builds, it seems significantly easier, but I don’t know how much of that comes from all the practice I’ve had building this model and how much of that really has to do with the new unfolding, so that’s where you guys come in.
Meet Bunbun:
I’d like you guys to take a poke at building it. You can skip the wheels and the lightbar if you like–I’m more interested in your opinions on how the chassis goes together.
Download link: (link removed. Thanks for testing!)
Let me know how you get on in the comments section. Thanks in advance!
Want to support this project?
Visit the project page for details: Project: Spaceport
Now is that a pizza delivery car or a pampered pooch mobile.
My niece will love this one
Can’t say it’s my favorite color, but I’ll take a crack at it tonight. Another project can wait an extra day
i’ll print it tonight.
I’ll print and build this one tonight. Looking at the instructions, I’m in love with the design and the reinforcements should make this an extremely sturdy model. They’ll also avoid the problem of the sides trying to bow inwards that the HL300, Brio, and Interceptor had. (I built my own braces to match the width of the bottom, and it made all the difference in the world.)
The Bunbun scheme is an awesome Easter egg (absolutely NO pun intended) type of thing for the early supporters, too!
this new setup does seem much easier to build.
an excellent solution! much easier to line up parts now.
Just finished putting together the body assemblies; I’ll do the tires later. (And leave the light bar off.)
It *is* a good deal easier this way, and faster as well (I think.) Unfortunately, I didn’t get very good results. Specifically, my wheel wells don’t mate with the upper body very well, leaving gaps between. (I’ve known people with cars like that, thanks to rust!) Next time I’m going to have to work harder at building the wheel wells better.
I did want to thank you for doing this civilian model of the Zoom! I’d been looking at my Security car and thinking how cute it would be as a sub-compact civilian car. Not sure I was imagining pink, mind you; but I do find “Bun Bun” awfully damn cute. So, Thanks!
(Also thanks for fully texturing the roof, so that omiting the light bar is an option.)
Northernheathen: It belongs to a college student in Landing City. That’s where all the politicians, intellectuals, college students, and assorted nuts live.
Vermin King, WW8, Patrick R Jackson, AoM: Thanks!
Carl Fishman: Yep, I had the same problem with the gaps on my test builds as well, but not so bad that I couldn’t live with it. The proper solution to that is for me to simply make the inner fender bits larger or omit them entirely, but I wanted to make sure it actually built up better this way before making a major change to the geometry.
As for the lightbar, it’s easier to leave it in as optional content for all variations than it is to remove it from select variations, so I just omit the white glue zone on the roof for models that don’t require lightbars. I did that for the admin vehicle too–it comes with a yellow lightbar but no roof glue zones.
After reading Carl’s comment, I put tabs on the inside of the wheel openings. Didn’t exactly line up right, but it did hold the wheel wells to the body. Not sure how bad the gaps would have been without the tabs. I tried. I’ll have to try again tomorrow.
Vermin King: Oh. The wheel wells aren’t supposed to be connected to the upper body at all, they’re supposed to float. You basically recreated part of the previous unfolding when you added the glue tabs back to the wheel openings.
What I wanted to know from everyone was whether or not the new top-to-bottom joining method provided for a less frustrating overall build experience than that of the previous iteration, which went together differently. I wasn’t worried about how it looked, just how quickly and easily it went together compared to the previous unfolding.
The gaps between the wheel wells and the body are very easily solved by scaling the wheel wells up larger than the wheel cutouts on the sides, but I had to know if the new assembly method was easier and quicker before I changed the geometry, because changing the geometry requires me to redo and re-export 24 cars. So any changes I make have to be solid ones before I go to all that trouble.
Since the new assembly process actually seems to have worked for other people besides me, I started on the v3 revision. I’m about 75% of the way through it at the moment.
I’ve scaled up the wheel wells by 125%, which will make the gap problem disappear completely because the wheel wells will be larger than the wheel openings, and I also modified the rest of it by adding textured glue flaps to the front, back, and sides of the body. Those will wrap over the bottom plate.
Built this little guy last night and I found it easier with this top down approach. Also it put any small miss match down where it was black and could be easily covered with a black marker. Really like all the reinformcements …. gives a nice solid feel to the model
Cabo is right. very solid little guy. I should have just built as is, which is the plan for tonight … assuming I get done with work before 8:30. Trying to cram five days of work into four always makes things a little rough on free time.
Hmm … didn’t realize I couldn’t edit.
The approach to connecting the top to the bottom is a good one. I like the ‘box’ approach to models, so I was a little afraid that things might get skewed, but it did fine.
I have mine done except for the wheels, and I agree with everyone else, this is a good procedure. I had some trouble getting the back bumper to meet up with the undercarriage. The bottom plate ended up sticking out slightly, nothing that can’t easily be trimmed off and will disappear once the model is edged. I think it was more my arthritis than the model. You’ve already taken care of the wheel well issue. I didn’t try building the light bar.
It really did come out as a very sturdy little model. I’m letting my eyes rest a while before I start on the wheels, but I like it.
I’m glad to hear that the V2 changes are working for you guys too!
I’m still working on the V3 instructions (several unfolded parts no longer look exactly like the instructional renders, so I have to update the instructions accordingly), so no updated files tonight. However, I think the issue you guys had with the back bumper join and the bottom plate sticking out should also be solved by the V3 unfolding.
The little old lady next door had a bit of a fall and ended up in the hospital a few days ago, and Mrs E volunteered to look after her Chihuahua. In practice, that means she volunteered me to look after the dog yesterday while she went to work.
I can’t stand that dog. It’s rude, demanding, incredibly needy, utterly undignified, doesn’t get along with the cats at all, needs to go outside every 3 minutes, and will only eat that expensive gourmet meat paste stuff that smells like decomposing corpses, attracts every fly within a 30 mile radius, and makes her squishy turds wilt every plant and blade of grass within a 5 foot diameter.
I can’t even pick up after her because I’m waiting for her dook to assume a solid consistency and degrade to the point where it won’t aggressively eat through protective gear, and then I’ve got my work cut out for me figuring out how to make grass grow back in those blackened craters in the backyard again.
I got absolutely nothing done yesterday. I wasn’t kidding when I said the dog was demanding–if you don’t treat her like she’s the center of the universe, she harrasses you constantly and misbehaves for attention. She refused to settle down until I sat out in the living room, and I ended up spending my whole damn day out there doing nothing except watching reruns and wishing I had the dog whisperer dude from that Animal Planet show on speed dial.
Mrs E is off from work today, and she went over to visit my stepdaughter Gloria and run errands. She has taken Poopy The Not-So-Wonder-Dog with her for a playdate with Gloria’s dogs, so I’m using the time to get caught up on the stuff I was expecting to have completed yesterday.
Did two test builds of the V3 unfolding. Almost, but not quite there–I have to make one more tweak to the wheel wells.
After the warnings and my first try, I did a second. I took a sharpie and went around the wheel opening to extend the fender slightly and it worked like a champ. Never had any of the bumper issues.
Sorry about the dog. My folks’ dog is also center-of-attention type, but at least he catches mice, squirrels and oppossums, so he deserves a little attention. Do you have any idea how long you may have the boarder staying with you?
Would it be possible to have both the front and rear wheel wells covered and then use a partial “half wheel” ?
It would be a little more SciFi and easier to build.
Something similar to this, but with a color to match the car’s color:
http://www.cleanmpg.com/photos/showphoto.php/photo/6294
Vermin King: Thanks for the feedback! No idea how long the dog is gonna be here–we’re waiting to hear more about our neighbor’s condition. There’s a possibility she’ll end up staying permanently at a nursing home because of her age and rapidly diminishing mental capacity, and there’s no knowing until we hear back later in the week.
If the home keeps her and doesn’t let residents keep pets, we’ll have to figure something out. She doesn’t really have any family, so no help in that area. If they say she can return home in a week or two, then we’re probably stuck with Poopy the Not-So-Wonder-Dog for the next week or two.
I think the dog’s issue is she’s used to getting her way and being the “alpha” member of the household, and she probably pushes around our neighbor accordingly. I mean, she’s a little old lady who spoils the shit out of that dog and treats her like she’s the whole universe, so I think the dog is unused to people who *don’t* treat her like a little four-legged queen.
Tommygun: I’m not a fan of the partially covered wheel look on conventional-looking cars because it feels too 1950s-retro to me. The only time I’d consider doing that is if I were doing Minority Report/I, Robot style cars, which isn’t “correct” for Saga of the Uppity Robots. (For the record, I also dislike Convoy-style fake wheels for the same reason I dislike painted-on tank tracks.)
As for looking a little more sci fi, the contemporary look is deliberate. Pretty much every ground vehicle in the re-imagined Galactica is modern in appearance, and I’m keeping the Saga of the Uppity Robots stuff faithful enough to that source inspiration so it can be used for “real” BSG gaming. That means slightly weird modern cars and no Jetsons zortmobiles.