Hovercraft M.A.R.C. Z-360 - FINISHED

[CANSO]

THE NAME
The acronym M.A.R.C. stands for Medium Army Reconnaissance Complex. Z-360 stands for "Zero gravity" and "360 degrees" - this is of course the radar coverage the complex can provide. Hovering over the dunes, sands, hills etc. of the Great Desert M.A.R.C. can scan everything (living or dead) on the surface, in the air (up to 3000m in the sky) and underground (up to 15m depth). Integrated computers (what else?) can instantly identify the objects and determine are these weapons, old tires or kangaroo bones (just an example). The collected data can be send via satellite(s) to any possible point on earth. A more detailed story about the device and its use during the 4-th Desert War to come later.
THE PLAN
Just hours before the start of this GB I played with the idea what shall I bash together and "The Plan" was born:

Here is what I have for now:

A donor kit for the booms of my craft. I have another F4U in 1:72 (Revell) to be used for the same purpose.
I need these parts only (for now):

This is a recent "lucky buy" from Toys'R'Us for 98 cents - to be used for the fuselage.

This is a part for my kitchen faucet. I bought it 2 days ago to exchange a broken one.

The parts from the old one are for my jet engine:

Those are caps from some small plastic bottles (the cones are from paints for Easter eggs). I'll use the caps for the two booms as specified in "The Plan":

To be continued...

[PR19_Kit]

VEeeeeeeeery ingenious. 

[Dizzyfugu]

That water filter thing gave a good idea for the upcoming SF GB. Still looking for a round "object" as donor part, and this one looks very good. 

[CANSO]

Work in progress - the booms being "manufactured" (or with other words "being hand made" ) :


For some reason (maybe to be sure I get the exact same parts at the end) I decided to make each boom of 2 different parts: a white one(Revell) and a blue one(Airfix). The 2 kits don't match exactly and after some surgery, sanding, filling and final sanding I got these:


Before and after shot:

Next to come:
Intakes to be made from DC-9 (I guess) engines. Bottom parts for the booms - long range auxiliary tanks for F9F in 1:48 (the Monogram kit in original Navy blue):

To be continued...

[Rheged]

Curiouser and curiouser!!   A remarkably sensible use of "found objects".

[PR19_Kit]

Intakes to be made from DC-9 (I guess) engines.

More like early DC8-50 engines, the pylon wraps right round over the wing, whereas the DC9's pylons are just very short stubs spacing them away from the fuselage.

[zenrat]

I have absolutely no idea what you are up to.

Excellent, carry on.

[kerick]

I have absolutely no idea what you are up to.

Excellent, carry on.

Ditto!
That's what makes this fun to watch!

[Captain Canada]

Great use of parts there ! Interesting concept as well.

[CANSO]

More like early DC8-50 engines, the pylon wraps right round over the wing, whereas the DC9's pylons are just very short stubs spacing them away from the fuselage.

Kit, I don't really know the source for this parts, but I do believe they are from a DC-8 Plasticart (DDR) model so you're absolutely right

I have absolutely no idea what you are up to.

Excellent, carry on.

Ditto!
That's what makes this fun to watch!

Guys, the point is that I also don't know how it will end. I'll be surprised too.

[loupgarou]

As others here, I have no idea of what you'll be building!  Curious to see the developments.
And thanks for the tip about the sink faucet. 

[CANSO]

As others here, I have no idea of what you'll be building!  Curious to see the developments.
And thanks for the tip about the sink faucet. 

To better visualize my idea, below is a mock-up of the hovercraft. Black primed is the engine, in the middle is the primed hull/fuselage/body and the booms are still in sanding/priming/sanding stage:

I still have no clue  how I'll attach the booms to the body, but until tomorrow night (time management says it) I must find a solution .
The model was meant to be in 1:48 so with the cowlings and cones for the booms (not shown above) the whole hovercraft is ca. 13 m long and 5 m wide.
T.B.C.

[CANSO]

Around 1:00 A.M. this morning I was going through my greebles-collection and started selecting some for the build. I will be showing some of the small parts during the process of completion and here are the first 2:

Caps from earphones. I like perforated elements and always try to include them wherever possible.
Below is the bottom of the hull/fuselage with the "zero-gravity inductors":

T.B.C.

[CANSO]

As I mentioned before my plan was to find a way to attach the booms to the fuselage of the hovercraft. Yesterday evening and in the early morning hours I've been refining the idea and I must say I came to a very satisfactory decision. I found the parts I need (1$ store "treasures")and started with the manufacturing process. Below is the finished fuselage connection point.

I created an "axle" (not movable) and the plan is to attach 2 bulbous "shoulders" to the ends of the "axle" to carry the booms. They don't move - the "shoulders" are static and cover very sensitive "zero-gravity accelerators" (what else? ).
The axle is just a piece of sprue, but the harder part was to stabilize it in such manner that it doesn't move later at all. The supporting structure of styrene strips was glued with excessive amounts of modeling glue (Testors) to help them melt and build almost a solid plastic block after drying.

The small round metal part is to help the model to be mounted on a "pole" after finishing.

It has internal thread to better secure the model. It's made from a bicycle spoke nipple and the "pole" will be a bicycle spoke.

[Captain Canada]

Bicycle spoke.....what a great idea !