I am working on a sci-fi model in 28mm scale. This dude has a scary cannon which is belt-fed from an ammo bin on his back. You don’t see the belt itself - it seems to be contained within some kind of raceway. I don’t know the right words, sorry.
In this scale, the raceway looks like a bunch of rectangular metallic containers joined side-by-side.
I’d be making the raceway out of 2mm styrene. The blank would be 2 x 4 x 60mm or so. I’d want to score the blank all the way around every 2mm. It would look like thirty 2 x 4 x 2 mm rectangular parts.
How would you make this part? When it is done, I then hope to be able to bend it after heating it up.
That’s sounds crazy and tedious, but I think it might work.
Mesure how long your “flexible feed chute” will be.
Cut a long rectangle 4mm wide X your measurement with your 2mm styrene.
You might want to texture a bit at this point if required. (try to make it look lightweight)
Now cut all of your little rectangles the desired whith.
Take the smallest drill bit available (like 80) and drill two hole all the way throught at the top and bottom of every parts.
Run a fine wire in every hole to link every parts. It should look like a train track when loose. Don’t glue them.
When every part is on, take almost all the play, leaving just enough so that it will be flexible when you twist from side to side and make small knots in the wire at all 4 extremities.
Et voila! it should flexible enough to go from the bin to the gun, without having to heat it for flexibility. That’s a bit how the real ones are done.
I just tought of this technique. I never tried it. If you do try it, give me some feed back, I’m very interrested to find out if it works.
That’s an interesting idea. The best idea I’ve come up with is machining an aluminum plate with a ridge every 2mm, heating it up, and melting the gaps into the blank. Not all the way through, just .5mm or so. The blank would get ‘the treatment’ on both faces, and both edges if I can.
I am concerned that if I saw the gaps, (or even moreso score them,) I’ll create stress magnifiers that will eventually cause the styrene to crack when I finagle it into position.
Now, you do give me an alternative idea. Get a 1mm thick blank and route two wire-sized channels down the length. (Leatherworkers have a grooving tool that would work, I bet.) Put a length of wire in each channel, and glue another 1mm blank to it, entombing the wires. Clamp without distorting it. While the glue is drying, move the wires back and forth to make sure the channel remains open.
Once dry, you can cut 2mm long sections off the blank. Now the channels are “holes.” This has the advantages of 1) it’s far easier to make two grooves than to drill perhaps 60 very precise holes, 2) all the parts would line up pretty much perfectly.
I’ve had a few more ideas. One thing I had to face was that at 28mm scale, a 66mm in real-world measurements scales to 1mm. So the scale of whatever I do will be off. It’s sci-fi, I can’t say I care that much as long as the result looks good.
For the ‘enclosed belt’ type of construction, I do prefer the embedded wire method. Once the belt is positioned on the model, I’d be more than ok with glue it along it’s length so it no longer flexed. A smooth tough wire such as a banjo string would not get glued in.
I’ve also considered more of an ‘exposed belt’ approach where the belt is visible through holes cut into the raceway. The reason for the design change is to 1) allow me to work with bigger pieces, and 2) allo more detail. I’ve acquired some styrene with corrugations every mm. Painted, these will look like shell casings. They valleys in the corrugations will allow good shading and washing to make the shells pop. This seems to be a very simple and effective approach.
I’m also got some 1mm styrene rod. Time will tell if I can make a belt from 4mm pieces of rod.
The ‘new idea’ enclosing case would sport 8mmx3mm losenge-shaped holes to show the casings, and allow me to glue at both ends of the 4mm long shells.