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09-22-2011, 01:00 PM | #1 |
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I've always been a big fan of the Cobra Rage/Fury, but ever since I owned the original it annoyed me that the gunner sits so high out of the top. It seems like it would be a sniper's dream come true. So I was looking at my Fury that I only paid $12 for at Ross, and I decided to try and fix the problems with it. I knew it was going to take a lot of scratch building work, and that was something I had been wanting to try anyways, so it seemed like a good first project.
I took a bunch of work in progress photos, and that's what I'm going to start with, so please hold off on posting in this thread until I'm done uploading the pictures. So I started by taking the whole thing apart and cutting pieces of cardboard to the shapes that I needed to make out of styrene. My plan was to get rid of the mine layer, and in it's place create a little cockpit for the gunner. Then I would cut out the seat of the turret so that the guy had a way to get in and out of the tank. Continued... Last edited by Xenos; 09-22-2011 at 01:07 PM.. |
09-22-2011, 01:00 PM | #2 |
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Next I startedreplacing the cardboard pieces I made with styrene that I cut using the cardboard as a pattern.
Now I needed a way to reattach the turret to the tank. When I cut out the seat of the turret, I also cut out its way of attaching to the body. What I ended up doing was taking a strip of styrene that I put into bioiling water so that it was pliable. Then I bent it into a circle, and cut the bottom of it so that it would match up with the body of the vehicle. One issue I ran into with this was that the turret didn't sit directly over the section that I wanted it to sit over, so I needed to shift it about a half inch over to the side. The problem with this though was that it was then hanging over the wheel well. So I used some styrene to extend the body over the wheel. Continued... Last edited by Xenos; 09-22-2011 at 01:06 PM.. |
09-22-2011, 01:01 PM | #3 |
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I attached a similar, but smaller, circle of styrene onto the turret, so that it would fit snugly into the larger circle on the body. That way the turret would stay on well, but it would also be able to rotate.
Next up, I had that little hole in the body where the turet lifting mechanisim used to sit, and I wanted to do something with that rather then just cover it up. I cut the lifting mechinism so that it would match up with my new turret design... And then I took the missles that came with the Fury and cut the tips off to turn them into shells for the cannon. Continued... Last edited by Xenos; 09-22-2011 at 01:06 PM.. |
09-22-2011, 01:01 PM | #4 |
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Then I started doing some work on the interrior of the turret. The seat was looking a little bit flat so I too some styrene tubes and cut them in half lengthwise and glued them to the seat so that they looked like a cushion. I also added in a console with some buttons and a video screne, all made out of styrene. I also made a little joystick to control the cannon.
The back was looking a little bare to me so I wanted to addsomething to the styrene section that I had added. So I took some styrene tubes and boiled, bent and glued them into a little equipment rack and attached it to the back of the vehicle. Continued... Last edited by Xenos; 09-22-2011 at 01:06 PM.. |
09-22-2011, 01:02 PM | #5 |
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Then I started work on the turret hatch. Not a whole lot to say about this other then it was a lot of trial and error scratch building the hatch.
I didn't like how you could see the tube that was allowing it to move, so I covered that up. Continued... |
09-22-2011, 01:02 PM | #6 |
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I never liked the cannons on the Rage since they were only molded on top, and the bottom was hollow, so I cut off the cannon parts and replaced them with two Bic pens, which just happened to be the right size.
there were a couple of small issues at the front of the vehicle too. I didn't like the "teeth" that were visable on the front mounted machine gun, so I cut them off and covered up the opening with some styrene. I also didn't like the big bulky handles on thefront hatches either, so I cut them off and made new ones. I also added a handle to the hatch in back that covered the shells. Continued... Last edited by Xenos; 09-22-2011 at 01:05 PM.. |
09-22-2011, 01:03 PM | #7 |
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Then I figured I'd already put so much effort into this thing, so I might as well light it up too. So I called up my brother (Ergozoom here on the 'Tank) since he's an electrical engineer for NASA and I asked him what I needed to buy at Radio Shack. So he drew up a circuit for me and I bought all the pieces I needed and a soldering iron, and then I had light!
So I wanted to put in a switch and I also cut a hole in the bottom to have a place to get the battery in and out. I didn't really like having a big hole in the bottom of the vehicle though, so I fabricated a little sliding door to hold everything in. Continued... |
09-22-2011, 01:03 PM | #8 |
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So then I started painting. I decided to go with a paint scheme that matched the Stinger Jeep because I had just bought a bunch of Stinger Drivers from China. So I painted the body Krylon Fusion Satin Black and and the rest of the parts Krylon Fusion Satin Gray (I think that's what it was at least).
You can't see it too well in this picture, but I then weathered the whole by drybrushing with silver and then a mud color. I also painted the interior as best I could, but I'm no painter. I also painted the cannon shells. Continued... |
09-22-2011, 01:04 PM | #9 |
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Then I used a free program called Inkscape to create some vector graphics. I went with vectors rather then just normal jpegs because they tend to print a lot cleaner. To make the graphics I just took a jpeg of the Fury's decals and drew over them in the Inkscape, so that I could have vector versions of the decals. Then I printed them out onto waterslide decal paper. The clear decal paper looks amazing, but they get lost when you put them on the parts painted black. So I bought some white waterslide decal paper, but I wasn't as happy with those results because they look too much like stickers to me. So I ended up not using all of the decals that I had created, but I think it turned out for the best, because I think it might have ended up looking too cluttered if I had.
So then I jammed all of the electronics into the thing and snapped it shut, and here's the final product: Continued... Last edited by Xenos; 09-22-2011 at 01:28 PM.. |
09-22-2011, 01:05 PM | #10 |
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And done. |
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