Anti-Radiation Ball Tank (шаротанк с противорадиационной )

[Old Wombat]

Those pads did a brilliant job! Well done Jeff & Frank!

[Wardukw]

Ya nailed it Frank mate..the pads look well used and if ya want to make them a little more worn cut some small chunks of them..makes them look like they been over those crappy Russian roads.
The red star on the sides would look just right..they put stars on everything after all.

[Old Wombat]

I still think black & yellow RadHaz symbols are the way to go.

[PR19_Kit]

REALLY good work with the pads, solved the joint problem at a stroke! 

It ought to have a HazMat symbol somewhere, maybe in the centre of a red star? And something on it should be painted in the sickly green they used for landing gears and tractors and wheels and ...........

[frank2056]

Kit - one of the liquidators (the guy holding the shower head) is going to be painted in that sickly green!

I've made some progress -  large black radiation symbols/motion tracker decals for the sides and smaller ones for the body. I also added a third liquidator, who I'll call Vadims. I replaced the shovel head he was carrying with a wide squeegee and a longer pole. The concrete base is made from a dense, solid white polystyrene foam sheet. I carved the squares, chipped them and made a drain grate:



Story, over at BTS, suggested using a UV glow powder for some glowing radiation effects. The images below show the UV glow powder (one of Stuart Semple's glow powders, from Amazon) under the grate. The first one depicts the faint Cherenkov radiation glow inside the drain after giving the powder a brief shot of UV:



Same, with the lights turned off (only indirect sunlight):



Lights off, but with the UV LED shining right at the powder (from the side):



I may add some powder "washing off" into the drain, but I have to test how it works when mixed with a clear medium like Future.

I'll also add some equipment, possibly a spot lamp and some debris, but before then I'll paint the three figures and start weathering the ball tank.

[Old Wombat]

That's coming together brilliantly, Frank!

Love the glow powder's effect!

[kerick]

That's a great effect! I'll have to remember that one!

[PR19_Kit]

This is getting better and better! 

[Gondor]

If that was real I wouldn't want to be within 100 meters of that glow.

I watch several science channels on YouTube and know that if something is glowing Blue like that it is highly raidioactive as that is Cherenkov Radiation which is not nice.

Gondor

[Rheged]

Coming along VERY nicely indeed!  The glow powder is a masterstroke!

[frank2056]

I think this one's finished. The base & battery holder are hot glued to foam blocks until I get a deep enough 5x7 picture frame.

The floodlight is one of the lights from the MPC Space: 1999 Nuclear Waste Area #2 kit that I bought just for parts (it was on clearance). The post is just a styrene rod and the base is a railway wheel from an old BA-20 kit. The pipe and wheel are from the Pegasus Chemical Plant (or Power Plant - I mixed and matched parts). I added the pipe clamp details.
With the cardboard backdrop that came with one of the figure kits:


The liquidator with the sprayer. I just noticed the dirty water drop on his raincoat. The cables/tubes are 30 AWG wirewrap wire:


The guy with the Geiger counter. I added a small panel meter and dials to the box, but they're not visible in this picture:


Top view with the room lights turned off. I didn't add the UV LED because daylight or LED room lights are enough to activate the florescent powder:


Top view with the floodlights on. The glow is still visible:


A couple of extra pictures:




The back story: Around 1997-2000, The Russians heard of American advances in the 'triggering' of a nuclear isomer of hafnium, ^178m2Hf, via gamma ray emissions. The  energy released was much, much greater in magnitude than a chemical reaction, but still less than a nuclear fission reaction. The potential for small, devastating non-nuclear explosives and powerful jet and rocket engines was hard to ignore.

The Russians also discovered that the Americans were stymied by the high cost of extracting the hafnium isomer and to a lesser extent by the gamma ray triggering. Luckily for the Russians, they had already discovered a messy but inexpensive method of extracting the hafnium isomer using old, idle cyclotrons.

In 2002, production was well underway in a secret nuclear weapons laboratory deep in Siberia.

Few people - even skilled machinist - encounter hafnium metal and even fewer know (or forget) that fine particles of the element can spontaneously combust when exposed to air. A lack of training and lax security lead to a machining accident. The resultant fire - and possible small detonation - destroyed the labs containing the hafnium, the hafnium isomer as well as decades worth of nuclear waste stored in the same building. While the radiation was contained on-site, high levels of radiation made it impossible to enter the area.

A Russian engineer remembered seeing a late WWII German ball tank at the Kubinka Tank Museum and quickly drew up plans for a similar, electrically driven manned ball tank that could go in and attempt to recover as much of the hafnium isomer as possible. The small size of the tank as well as lead shielding provided protection for the driver. The tank had manipulator arms and a camera as well. After each mission into the building, the tank was washed down and checked for radiation before the driver exited the vehicle.

Unfortunately for the Russians, none of the hafnium isomer was recovered.

This was a fun project that went along quite well, with no major construction or painting issues (other that the water drop on the green guy).

Thanks for all the suggestions and encouraging comments!

[Old Wombat]

That is brilliant, Frank!

Love the details & the water drop on the green guy is easily explained away as splash-back from the sprayer he's using to clean the ball tank. 

[frank2056]

Thanks, Guy - the water drop stain is now gone!

[Mossie]

Great work, good use of the Chernobyl figures.  I'm impressed that clean up attempt amounts to flushing it down the drain.  Reminds me of when some contractors at work dealt with an epoxy spill by trying to flush it down the toilet, someone else's problem now...!

A shame you got rid of the drip, I thought it looked like a quite convincing stain.

[NARSES2]

That's really come out well, terrific looking scene