The Energon Pub

Just walked into the thread and saw that someone is making a Pre-Earth Bumblebee out of wood?!!

Talk about scratchbuilding!

TFM

yeah woods probably the best thing to use for scratch building as its cheap and sterdy, wont fall apart either

the other bumblebee from resin is pritty cool too though it transforms
http://www.jd-p.net/htm01.htm

To be honest, when I saw that post I thought #$!!!**. Now Someone has beeten me to it. But after seeing the large scale difference and design difference my mind is at ease.

I like the jd productions one mainly in robot mode. The detail in that size is really impressive. I also like the concept for the transformation. I do however think the transformation has been done a bit sloppy. It dose not seem to fit together well in alt mode. The alt mode is remenisant of a cylon ships wing. The alt wing design looks based on the shots from the opening credits where as my wing was inspired by the lines of the cybercon 2004 bumblebee made by a crazysteve (i don't know what his real name is).

I would buy it, and that is one of the only compliments that really mean anything. And given that this is a product for sale I think it is a sucsessful job (if the reproductions come out good).

Now I need to try a bit harder

thats a small bee! dunno.. altmode looks wonky, botmode looks like a midget.
nevertheless it's size is soo small that the figure is cool on its own, and its reproducable too!

pepie wrote:thats a small bee! dunno.. altmode looks wonky, botmode looks like a midget.
nevertheless it's size is soo small that the figure is cool on its own, and its reproducable too!

I might have to get one to see if it's salvagable.

TFM

shame we cantget the maker of the jd p version on the board, i like the size of it, he was a minibot. as for the transformation it might look better with a thiick coat of paint. but im not sure if it will stand up on its own 2 feet

saying that i was in the middle of making my own version, nothing as good as jd or OdeeanRDeathshead's but its mine
its intresting to see people's takes on the toy though, all the differant sizes and transfomations. i hopoe here will eb many more

I got some good work done in the last 24 hours. Its starting to get exciting now that it begins to look like the character. I have switched from the bits of broom handle to copper pipe for the circular sections in the joints because the steel was corroding. I had to alter the plan around the hinge in the cab because the origional was too thin in practice, so I just doubled the size.

















I made the windshield a removeable peice because I want to cast it seperatly. This will allow me to make it transparent. I will attempt to embed a spike figure and a LED in the block then glue it into place. The only thing that I know to give a clear enough finish is polyester (without the wax added for auto resin). This will make it hard because any air in the mold retards the curing and leaves a taky finish. If anyone has a suggestion about a clear substitute for polyester I am open to suggestions.

today I tested out the plaztex. It was a dificult thing to get the stuff in the mold but the end product did seem very durable. Not rock hard but hard wearing if that makes sence. It comes in a kind of fine powder. Using a seringe I put a few drops into the powder. Then I pick up the blob that forms around the drops, I can not show that part because it happens too quickly. it is only useable for about 10 seconds after the drops go in. I squeeze the blob into the mold and wait. The molding material comes with it, once boiled it can easily take any object pushed into it. when it cools it is very durable itself.









the part I can't show goes here, squeezing in the blob




The casting were close to the origional and if I spent more time on the molding I think they would be very neat. I am not sure if this is the way I will go for the joints when I go produce my reproductions because it is a bit hit and miss when it comes to getting the stuff into the mold. I would definately recomend it for one off jobs because of the hard wearing finish.

The teeth meshed perfectly. I would love to be able to make the discs with teeth from metal. next I will try to make a steel stamp to hammer into aluminium or brass to produce the discs. To do that i will need to find finer files.

pretty cool casting material, but only good for smaller parts I guess

Bumblebee's gonna be sweet

a lot of people here use ball and socket joints. This stuff could make new ball and socket joints of size smaller than you can normally get. It would save some more valuable transformers from the knife. The molding material can be reused and easily takes any shape when heated, its amazing to use.

Today i am catching the bus to the warehouse I get my material from so tomorrow I should get some good work done on bumblebee.

I did some work on the legs today. It took a long time because of the strait lines and I have only got about 60% done. the smoothing out and filling in will have to come next week. I picked up some 10mm, 20mm and 25mm aluminium tube along with some flat pieces. i am glad to be not using the steel tube any more because the corosion has required a paint app to stop it on the other parts. this could interfear with the molding proccess. I also may redo the hip joint I made from copper tubing. It was time consuming but I suspect the copper will interfear with the rtv silicones setting.









the lower legs will be one of the hardest parts to cast. this is because they have thin walls. There is a popout section to be inside the lower leg that fattens the leg in the transformation. These thin sections will be problematic for bubbles in the mold.

It was tempting to do the feet today so I would have an almost complete alt mode to show but I decided that it was more important to get a good fit for the transformation than a premature moment of satisfaction.

I have to say that this is really turnning out very well for you man and it looks pretty sweet. This ig going to have mad articulation and I love it!!

If your making molds of the parts is there anyway of me getting one reproduced?

I'd love to have one.

TFmaster

If I am satisfied with the end result I can send you one (you pay postage). It always helps ones reputation to have other scrutinize the work.

Thats getting a bit ahead of myself. There is still a lot of work left in this. Even if I can mold it good I still have to rework a lot of the cast peices to take the locking mechanisms. This first prototype has too many different materials to acurately cut the notches and holes the the joints need. After that a second set of molds will produce the end product. The materials I need for this are expensive so there will be a long pause after this first stage while I get my cash together.

The current expenditure so far is about $250 Aud. I guess that will go to about $1000 for the first batch of finished units.

Oh man that looks pretty awesome, there's a lot of love and knowledge there!

these legs have been very time consuming. They have taken about 40 hours so far (feet not finished). I am pleased with the results. the individual components are strait and the two sides are identicle. It all fits together perfectly. Its hard to display at this point because there are no screw holes in this stage and the pins have not been made yet. The legs still need the pop out rocket launcher section (shown in the renderings), there will be springs to push them out. Its a bit of a pain to do them but without it the legs look too thin.







I have also started to redo the elbows using the aluminium to replace the steel as I was not happy with the potential for rust. I will do both side this time as the time it takes to do the extra bits is worth it for the sake of seeing how it will look.

Once its all ready to go together I will rap the whole thing in masking tape tightly then use the belt sander to even out any remaining differences where the parts join.

darn that looks fantastic! There is sooo much going on in there.
Cant wait to see it casted ORD!

I have been looking for some locally available molding products. I think I will go with ultrasil rtv silicone rubber. If anyone has experience with ultrasil I would love to know how stiff it sets and to what degree it is able to strech. the cheapest I can find it locally is $44Aud for 550ml but that includes other stuff I need like the clay and some release agent as well a some resin (that I may not end up using). At that price it will cost me about $400 to $500 for the first mold set, given that I will need to do some experimentation.

Thats a pretty hefty pricepoint. What will a casted BB cost ?

are you casting it all? i thort casting resin when set if not so strong and joints are hard to make, or will you leave the joints as they are..

as for price, if I sold them I doubt I could ever make enough profit to cover the total expence. I just want the personal satisfaction of being able to show off a row of the same thing (in boxes) to my friends. I will probably put one on ebay starting at $50 USd. there is not much choice in Australia for this kind of stuff. I don't want to buy online from overseas because I can't risk getting a bad batch at that price.

Yes the entire thing will be reproduced. The company I am buying the rtv from tells me they have resins that cure with compraple properties to injection molded plastics. I find this hard to belive but I am going to go to their showroom to have a look. I will buy what they suggest in a sample size and give it a go. If they turn out to be a good supplyer for me I will post their details but I can't recomend anything at this time.

OdeeanRDeathshead wrote:as for price, if I sold them I doubt I could ever make enough profit to cover the total expence. I just want the personal satisfaction of being able to show off a row of the same thing (in boxes) to my friends. I will probably put one on ebay starting at $50 USd. there is not much choice in Australia for this kind of stuff. I don't want to buy online from overseas because I can't risk getting a bad batch at that price.

Yes the entire thing will be reproduced. The company I am buying the rtv from tells me they have resins that cure with compraple properties to injection molded plastics. I find this hard to belive but I am going to go to their showroom to have a look. I will buy what they suggest in a sample size and give it a go. If they turn out to be a good supplyer for me I will post their details but I can't recomend anything at this time.

http://www.bare-metal.com

TFM

Its looking like I will use a polyurethane, that company [bare metal] has a lot of good stuff. When I do buy I will try to get the rtv and polyurethane from the same manufacturer. It seem more likely to me that they will work well together. Its going to be about 3-4 weeks before I can make the trip to where I am buying it. Smooth-on's site had some product that sounded interesting as well. I will just have to be patient

Here are some pics. visually this is a small update, but internally I took care of a lot of holes that needed to be placed at just the right spot. i also finished the new elbows that can't be seen here. I am not putting in many "as I go"shots because the techniqe has been covered. I am going to put some key/keyhole locations to hold the components in alignment so in future screws can more easily be put in.

Wow that's really starting to take shape and looks fantastic! I love that design...