Leaving on a Jet Plane, or a cube van......

The weekend was a flurry of painting! 4 cockpits is a lot of painting, that's for sure!

Awesome Jody came dressed for the event. Not quite red carpet material, but kinda cute anyways!

As you can imagine, there was cockpit parts everywhere. Surprisingly, it was easy to keep track of what went with what.

The f-16 dash came out pretty sweet. John drew all the parts for the HUD, and assembled it all before he left on Friday, so it was easy for me to figure out when the time came. This was machined from white EPS foam then got 2 coats of latex as a primer. Then I skim coated the whole thing with lightweight filler. A quick sanding, followed by our rubber bumpers stuck on as rivets, then 2 coats of latex eggshell black. I did a very light dry brush with silver Rustoleum metallic paint, and this part was done. All the other dashes got the same treatment.

The cockpits themselves were pretty straight forward in the painting stage. A base coat color, followed by a darker glaze, then dry brushed with some silver around the edges for paint wear, and they were done. It still took all weekend though!

I finished the parachute canister on the F4 with some green nylon material I picked up at the fabric store, and added a cut off from an old ratchet strap as the tie down for it. This, of course was painted grey to hide the awful red color that it came in. The HDU gauge backs and hoses were put in last.

 The cube showed up at 9 am Monday. I helped load it up, then John and I headed to the studio to show them how they all assembled.

 It's hard to see in the picture, but Jody did a faux leather finish on 2 of the plane headrests. It looked quite convincing in real life!

The set up went really quick, so we were only on set for about 40 minutes! My kind of set day!!

Our next tv commercial gig is going to be kinda cool, so I can't wait to start that build. Miniatures are my favourite! That should start soon, but in the mean time, I've got lots of 3d files to come up with for it. That should be almost as much fun!
8)
JWO

a Sad Farewell To A Best Friend.........

First off, I have to say goodbye to a best friend :(
My best friend being my design computer. A fully loaded Toshiba Qosmio laptop. Over the last 18 months we had become very close. We laughed together, shared moments, even shed a tear or two.
This all ended Wednesday night as I was leaving the shop for the day. My carefully packed up powerhouse was in it's bag, waiting to head home for a night of design work on the cockpits.
Somehow, it slid off the chair and hit the floor with a thud! It wasn't until I got home that I found out it was dead. Wouldn't turn on, nothing. Dead, dead, dead. There was crying, rocking, holding, and I even begged to take me instead. No luck. I ripped it apart, and checked everything. Dead.
So it was off to the store to get a replacement, sadly with windows 8 instead of 7. So after a few days re-installing major software, and tweaking, it now behaves like 7, and that suits me just fine. Stupid app screen...............

John and I worked pretty solidly on the remaining 3 cockpits. It was great, John had all his files ready for the router, and buzzed away doing his planes, while I worked on mine.

We ended up doing the final fit of each cockpit on top of our Techno. It was the only 5 X 12' surface in the shop that was flat!

First thing this morning, Jody and I started with the painting, while John finished up the detail pieces for his planes.

I ordered a pile of self-adhesive rubber bumpers that became the many rivet details that will be everywhere on these 4 builds.
Tomorrow I'll finish up my last few bits while jody keeps pushing forward on the painting. Madison will be coming in to paint as well tomorrow, so it truly will be a family business!!
8)
JWO

Workin' in the Hanger!

First thing Saturday, I got to work on the HUD display for the F4. I just pulled the shapes from the CG files of the cockpit we were sent. I had to re-draw them to lose the faceting of the OBJ model, but it was pretty much a tracing job with clean vectors. Most of the little details will be made from 1/4" black PVC. We have a lot of little bits of black PVC left over from the crazy monkey chain we did last week!

I laser cut the acrylic for the glass, so I could have polished edges, and remove any chance of edge chipping on the cnc. Plus, I don't have to tape the material down on the laser, so it's quite a bit faster and cleaner.

I also got the parachute canister machined, and skim coated with a sealer. No urethane hard-coat for this bad-boy, it won't require that kind of longevity!

The gauge backs for the second pilot also got made. These will mount to the firewall behind the front pilot. Simple HDU blocks, cut on an angle, with holes in the back for fake wiring, with windshield washer tubing as the fake wire.

The dashboard console (or whatever it's called) was roller coated with a thick, water-based primer. This effectively removed the "styrofoam" look to it. It'll rock with it's final paint color.

 By late afternoon, everything was test fit, and there were no hiccups!

Here's the view from the camera POV. They may shoot higher, but they won't be any lower than this.

Just need to finish the parachute canister, and add the rivets after paint. The last tough part is going to be the belt restraints. I've picked up a safety harness, and we'll have to modify it to work, as well as change the color. But,
it should be just fine!
8)
JWO

First Plane Almost Done!

The first thing up today was routing the seat files I drew up late last night. These were extracted from the CG model supplied by the FX guys. I think I have to adjust it a little, but I'll deal with that in the morning tomorrow.

The dash cowl got machined while i worked away on the other odds and end. Jody contact cemented the final pieces, and we got them all assembled.

It certainly fit well! Although, I kept checking the files as it looks like it sits really high. But all the models and files seem to point to this exact thing as being spot on. One more crossed off the list!

The other part of the seat that will be clearly visible in camera is the 2 handle type things at the top of the seat. I assume they're "Holy Sh!t" handles for when the pilot has to eject!
Ours won't be nearly as durable as the real thing. These planes completely reinforce the 'film prop motto' : "if it lasts more than a day, it'll just be in the way" :)
The main body of the handles was quickly drawn up with some spacer rings, and a section of PVC pipe.

This fuel line hose will fit the bill perfectly for the handle portion.

I wrapped the hose in yellow vinyl, and fit it into the rings I cut. A little paint and aging, and this part will be great!

At least it's starting to look like a cockpit!

I couldn't help myself, so I had to jump in! You'll notice I'm wearing my sunglasses. This is for 2 reasons.
1) I'm super awesome, and 2) it keeps the bugs out of my eyes. At these supersonic speeds, a bug could be blinding! It does confirm that I will need to adjust the height on the seat though.

Just before we headed out for the night, I set up my cockpit rail bending jig for the sides of canopy glass that would meet the airframe. It took a lot of begging, but I finally got Lockheed Martin to send me their high tech jig for this. They swear this is how they do it! :)

8)
JWO

Always an interuption somewhere!

We had a super last minute job arrise. A next day turnaround that I wasn't expecting. The client is amazing, super nice, and we've worked together lots in the past, so we took the job on.

Sadly, it's all hush, hush, so I cant really talk about it. But what I can say, is that it was as much fun as an oversized, 30 foot, PVC chain, barrel full of monkeys!
That's it, that's all folks!

This meant we didn't get to work to much on the plane cockpits the last couple of days. I still had John drawing up stuff for the other cockpits though!

One of the parts I started with today was the curved section at the back of the canopy. Pretty simple, just 2 offset frames from MDF. Hard to tell in the picture, but both the pieces actually lean backwards at 2 different angles. The plan was to wrap the inside in .060" styrene.

I had to make a template first, as I don't have any real 3d geometry to unwrap. This got stapled with upholstery staples, then a clean piece of styrene went over that to hide the unsightly staple work!
A little bondo on the seams, and it was ready to sand.

Once it was in it's final position, it looked great.

This is basically the set-up. A few minor pieces left on the shell, and it'll pretty much be ready for a little detail work. These won't be SUPER high detail, as the time and budget are pretty tight, but we'll make them look pretty sweet!
8)
JWO

TOP GUN!

Our current build actually started last Thursday! This is my reference material for the build.
Production needs 4 different jet fighter cockpits for an upcoming shoot. This build is going to work hand in hand with the CG fx team. We're building the immediate area around the pilot, so they can get shadows etc.

This has pretty much been my work all weekend! You wouldn't believe how exhausting it can be pulling geometry from a 3d model, cross referencing it with the scale model for accurate sizing. Then flattening out the pieces for cutting on our Techno.

 Today I started routering some of the geometry. I'm finding it hard to draw the entire thing without seeing exactly how some of the components will come together in real life. Because we're building these in movable sections, it can be a bit mind numbing figuring it all out at once.

On the bright side,  I got a nice break from the computer at the shop. This was due entirely to little Finley rolling in something amazing in the field out back! Thanks little guy :)

This is the side wall rib assembly for the F4 Phantom. Oh....it's simple now, but that wasn't the case early in the job!

I also got the front canopy framework built as well. There's no actual canopy glass going in this build. That'll be left up to the awesome work of Digital Effects!

I fear a very long week awaits.............................................................

8)
JWO