Drone #1 'Dewey' from Silent Running



In 2008, I bought a set of three Silent Running drones on Ebay. For 48 US$ including shipping I got a box full of resin parts. But most of the castings were really, really bad. I guess I bought a set of illegal recasts of the Planet-X models, and I hope that the Planet-X originals were a whole lot better. In the next 16 years, every time I looked at the castings, I shook my head and decided it was not worth the time spent on repairs. But in the end, my curiosity whether I could pull it off won. Of my set of three drones, I decided to build drone #1.



The model

This is the complete set of parts that you get for Drone #1 - 15 resin parts if I count correctly. The base is 128 mm wide and 113 mm deep.

I have similar parts sets for Huey (Drone #2, orange) and Louie (Drone 3, pale green). They have different bases.
Look closely and you'll notice the horrible casting quality. The mold division leaves many details irreversibly damaged, and there are many, many air bubbles. Most knobs are absent, leaving an air bubble in the casting.
More roughness and air bubbles on the rear side. I don't see the recessed rear panel in the movie. Nor was the number engraved.
The smaller detail parts. I'm not 100% sure they belong to this drone - I noted later the detail parts have specific details for each drone.
The instructions, giving lots of painting instructions. Good work by Planet-X, but badly copied by the recaster.. I'll refer also to the dozens of screenshots I made from the DVD.



Construction

The bottom side was more air bubble than resin. Every hole on the surface revealed a much larger air bubble underneath. I cut them all open, and filled the three bottom surfaces with Apoxie Sculpt. Drone #3 is shown here too, since it had similar defects.
There's a rough mould line across the whole body, sides, top and bottom. On this side, the circular vent was repairable, but I will probably replace the two upper vents.
On the other side, the mould halves did not align properly, and I doubt whether I can restore the details. The upper detail is rather easily replaced, the lower not.
Drone #3 again, for demonstration purposes. The horizontal flange around the body sides was heavily damaged, with enormous air bubbles plus damage from demoulding. In this view you can see a large air bubble, plus great damage to the mould, that left a large fillet on the lower side of the flange.
Here's another very large air bubble in the horizontal flange around the body sides, but it is repaired with Apoxie Sculpt, and a lot of scraping and sanded to recover the flange from excess resin. I will probably slightly thicken the flange, it looks too thin to my eye.
Nearly all sharp edges had sub-surface air bubbles, and most corners had an air bubble too. I cut them open and applied Apoxie Sculpt.
All buttons had an air bubble, with the consequence that there are no buttons, just an half sphere of an air bubble.
Here's the second round of repairs with Apoxie Sculpt. I counted 30+ spots, and it's still far from done.
I removed the damaged details, by first drilling multiple 0.5 mm holes around the circumference, and then using my motor tool to carve shallow cavities. Next I applied Apoxy Sculpt in the cavities, and used a stamp-like tool to create flat surfaces of uniform depth, ready to glue the 3D prints on.
I drew all damaged details in 3D CAD, and they are show here ready for printing, with supports added. The designs are a bit of a mix between the original kit's designs and what I saw in screenshots of the movie.
Club member Wim Hoogendoorn kindly printed the parts, here are two of them. They don't require any more work before installation.
After gluing the detail parts in place, I filled all gaps with Apoxie Sculpt (white), followed by Mr Surfacer 500. But only after Tamiya Surface Primer I'll know whether everything is OK.
Slowly the model got covered completely with Tamiya Surface Primer, revealing lots more air bubbles and other surface defects. I removed a part of the raised panel seen on the front of the left shoulder (right in the photo).
I discovered that in 'reality' the legs go into large openings in the lower sides. It can be seen in the movie when Drone 2 needs repairs after the collision. A simple jig from 1 and 2 mm plastic card would hold the model during the routing.
I used an old drill stand and a router bit to make deep square openings. The openings were quite rough.
The opening seen on the left has been lined with plastic card. Gaps still need to be filled with Apoxy Sculpt.
It all looks good after a few layers of Tamiya Surface Primer. These openings will be difficult to see in the final result, but I'm happy I made the modification. The work on the lower side, including multiple layers of Tamiya primer, revealed many more air bubbles and other defects. You can a see a few if you look closely. This model must be the most laborious resin model I ever built.
The last major job on the body was to restore the flanges on the sides, with their triangular stiffeners.
The legs and feet also required a major clean-up, showing lots of air bubbles and surface defects. They are still not perfect, but I had to stop somewhere.
Here's the intermediate result, Blu-Tacked together. What a job it has been to get it to this point..



To be continued




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