Fun with Kshatriya

I'm really kicking myself for not having bought Elyn Hobby's Kshatriya when I had the chance. If there ever was a grail kit for me that is it. 
But such is life and in the mean time I can work the HGUC Kshatriya instead.
I bought the MC Model cover kit so I have the stock kit's wing binders to mess around with while I wait for shipping. From China.
Should be good practice considering I have very little experience with scratch building and working with styrene. For that reason I won't label this as a tutorial but you can get the same effects if you play around with the methods described here.






The Implements of Destruction.

Start off by creating some grooves with a line chisel. Pull lightly at first just like scribing a panel line.

Use a heavy duty hobby knife to separate the plastic when it's thin enough. You use the blade as a wedge more than a cutting implement.


You'll know you're ready to cut when you see white stress lines on the reverse side.


And there you go, separate parts. The piece which hold the funnels is too wide to lift through the armor so i'll have to sand it down quite a bit.


Sanding and puttying will be necessary to fix the frayed plastic edges.


Rear view.


What i'm going for. I'm imagining a dual styrene tube which will hold the binder in place but still allow it to rotate on a y-axis with a piston system for stability.




Things never go the way you plan. I rigged up a double ball joint attached to a poly cap.


Range of motion is pretty good although unfortunately it can't fully close.


The epitome of function over form. This would require some major facade work to make it presentable.





As you can see the entire assembly is just too large. Back to the drawing board.


The ball joints in question. These are made by hobby base for jointing resin figures and such.


Next attempt.


Straight cut with a poly cap.


If I can create enough clearance this would be a simple 1 way hinge.


For reference.





 
 Scratch built jointing. Poly cap is held in place with styrene sheets. The entire assembly is fortified by L shaped anchors.


 
 Obverse.


 
Overall much cleaner than previous attempts.


 
Range of motion leaves a bit to be desired.



Final:

Closes almost all the way.





Opens enough to show funnels.


The mechanism is what I originally imagined. Two brass rods through a pen tube.





Close up.


I learned a lot from this. Mostly why bandai didn't make these things open by default, It's harder than you'd think!

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