Ok so here is another update, a major step forward with the arrival of some key parts...aluminium trap doors and side plates!
There has been a hell of a lot of work going on in the background for the last 3 months or so in getting the doors made, as I have been in consultation with Chris (CPU64) and damster117 over details which at first I hadn't considered, and there has been a lot of deliberation over these details; at one point I was worried that we were going to really p*ss CPU off with all this lol...
The lengths that Chris went to in order to give us a truly accurate representation of the GB1 Hero trap doors (as seen in the Propbay photos) were phenomenal (none of which was expected) as he went to great effort to demonstrate that an offset centre line does exist when the doors are closed, due to the 'step' where the doors meet, the measurement of the pockets and the depth of the margins either side of these pockets on the undersides. He demonstrated this by creating a CAD image superimposed onto the propbay photo which shows the doors in the open position. He then simulated the position of the centre-line by rotating the doors to their closed position from the screw fixings as the centre pivot, as shown below:
True centre-line is shown in yellow; the actual position of the doors and their join when closed is shown in red.
This experiment reveals that there is indeed a slight offset in the centre-line; it's a trick on the eye that the join appears as dead-centre, especially when they have the warning stripes applied!
Here is the result of that CAD work:
The doors were fabricated from .25" thick aluminium (6mm), with the step being 1/8" (3.175mm) deep halfway through the .25" alu. The centre-line is offset by 2.5mm. Overall dimensions are shown in the picture below (provided by damster117) and are from Nick-A-Tron's resin GB1 Hero kit:
To see how they look when mounted on Nick-A-Tron's kit, check out
damster117's build thread This was the first set that CPU made based on his CAD, and when he sent me these photos I agreed hands-down that they are indeed a very close match! I fully appreciate that all the information above may not be anything new, but I have covered it in detail for the benefit of anyone who is just starting out on a project like this, such as myself, and is unaware of these details.
These doors are a work of art and I'm so grateful to Chris for making them. He drilled and tapped all the holes and also installed the pins. I'm even more grateful for the side plates because he made those for me free of charge! What a guy. Thanks a million dude [emoji4][emoji106]
Cosmetic plates - side plates, front plate and the 2 smaller plates for side knob & tear-drop knob. Dimensions are:
> 2 main side plates: 205mm x 72.5mm
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> smaller plate for the tear drop dial knob: 70mm x 55mm
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> the smaller plate for the Heathkit knob: 42.5mm x 62.5mm
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> front plate is 78mm x 68mm with the cut out for the indicator box being 27mm x 57mm
All plates are made using 2mm aluminium
These parts have been made using measurements from Nick-A-Tron's resin kit, which I will be getting in the New Year. This will probably be the last update before then, so I would like to take the opportunity to wish everyone a very Happy Christmas and a truly awesome New Year...hopefully more exciting times ahead lol! [emoji4][emoji122][emoji322][emoji319]
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