Forward Base: Habitat 5 part 5 "Beyond the Rough Guide"

 

From here forward we're kind of on our own. The "Rough Guide" over at Antenocitis Workshop does not cover the interior catwalks and stairs or the external resin bits. This building is from the Forward Base Kickstarter and may have been redesigned when the range was revamped a while back.

First order of business is to identify parts and dry fit everything... and I mean everything! I can't stress this enough.

Here I've found the stringers for the stairs and set them dry into the sockets.

Here I set in the "T" shaped catwalk. My first surprise came here. The catwalk did not fall into position on  the stringers. Like by a full 1/8". I though wow... I've never had a piece, that I was certain was the right part, miss by this much. Turns out the error was entirely mine. I had assumed that the catwalk was intended to be removable and would just sit, unglued, on the frame but this is not the case.

There is a slot on the back wall that accepts the Catwalk. When in position it settles securely onto the stringers. The fit is tight enough, and the snap effect pronounced enough, that I am positive this is intended to be a one-time operation. This really exemplifies why the dry fit is such an important step.

Next up... the steps. I finally identified the yellow frames as steps... I know... I'm a bit slow... I had wondered for a while what those were... and where the steps were... and didn't put it together until now.

On the plus side these steps were loads easier to build than the usual system Antenocitis Workshop uses. they also are very broad and it looks like models with modest bases could actually stand securely on them!

 

I started by dry fitting all the steps to make sure they didn't need any adjustment and to note the way they fit was supposed to work. From there it was gluing the top step and the bottom step into position and then placing the stringers and Catwalk in position before everything had dried.

Once that step had dried I added in the remaining steps and leveled them as I went. The notches are a little shallow so its easy to get something just a bit tilted... you can see through he bay door that the center step droops a bit. This got adjusted after the picture.

A view of the adjusted steps through the regular door.

With the interior wrapped up it was time to look at the exterior details. Here you can see that a resin vent has been added. The upgrade kit also included resin replacements for the two lower square white vents but these were not perforated and I ended up liking the way they looked when painted so will save those bits for another project.

The large resin exhaust fans are in position. The slotted MDF remains as is on the inside and would have looked fine on the outside but the resin caps are very nice and help with the flatness that MDF designs tend to have.

At this point I began dry fitting the ladders and made a major discovery!

The ladders extended downward well below the level of the floor...

... which allowed me to finally identify what these bits were! These are part of the Hab X Booster packets. Apparently the boosters are for lifting the Habs off the ground and allow for cool stairs etc...

I got these Boosters for all the Habitats but now have to decide which buildings can take them. Habitat 3 for example is a small living quarters Habitat that can be stacked on top of other Habitat types via an MDF clip arrangement.  In that case the Booster doesn't get used.

Fortunately the Larger Habitats like Hab 5 will all take them so there is not decision to make... on with the Boosting!

Now that the building is boosted those pesky ladders fit perfectly. Another victory for the dry-fit!

There are three ladders. This long one, a shorter one that is affixed between the Bay Doors, and a very short one that allows access between the shorter roof and the taller section.  These ladders interact very much with the removable roof panels so care needs to be taken when fitting and gluing these into position. Pay particular attention to the fit of the shortest ladder as one of the roof panels has to be able to slot in under it and the other panel slots in from the side. Just be sure that the lower roof panel is not obstructed, or accidentally glued in... either condition would be a major fail!

The other two ladders can be seen here under clamps.

The bay door ladder has a tight fit between the bay doors and should be used to help position them. I did not do this and ended up having to shave  a bit off the back side of one of the lower tabs to get a flush fit.

For next time... non-functional exterior acrylic rod lights, possibly some functional interior (key fob style) lights, and some odds and ends like resin covers for the etched power couplings.

 Other than some weathering, all that will remain is to make some decisions about the various doors. Non of them are "working" doors and are either stood into place, held in place by compression, or Glued in place.  At the moment I'm leaving these unglued and will revisit them if that doesn't work out in practice. When the range was redesigned one of the big revisions was to replace the non-functional acrylic "Hologram" doors with working MDF/acrylic doors, many of which have a structure that implies a small airlock. 
 

Forward Base: Habitat 5 WiP Part 4 "The Ramps"

Today we move beyond the Rough Guide, add the ramps, and begin sorting the left over parts to see where to go next.

First up... I somehow missed installing this workbench which is clearly shown in the drawings of the rough guide. It went in without a hitch but, due to the nature of MDF, there was a risk that the back right corner would separate and tent up. To reduce the risk of that I used a chopstick to press the corner down.

Beyond the Rough Guide...

This is a first gen Kickstarter version of this building and the Rough Guide doesn't address any of the optional resin components.

I assembled and painted the garage door frames and then glued the resin garage doors to their MDF counterpart to get door textures on both sides of the piece in the same way that I did the vent covers in the walls. Unlike the vent resins, which are slightly larger then the MDF they replace, the Garage Door resin is slightly smaller than the MDF it replaces. This will be tricksey later...

The resin frames don't precisely conform to the opening so I used a Sharpie to blacken round the edges. These small spaces will be recessed once the resin is on and won't be visible. More importantly I intend to use this lip to let the garage door sit in the right position when the doors are "closed".

Above the door here you can see one of the resin Vents. Because the resin is larger than the cut-out it sits very nicely and self levels once the MDF vent is glued behind it. 

Time for more adventures with clamps, blue tape, and Super Phatic glue!

At this point I realized that the Garage Doors were going to be reluctant to sit in the door frames resin side out. The largest part of the door is smaller than the opening and the locker wall just inside the door prevents clean access to the inside lip.  I can magnetize the doors, and will probably have to anyway, so they don't fall over when bumped or jostled, but the doors sit very well in the reverse orientation.

 Onward to the Ramps!

The habitat 5 ramp instructions are pretty clear and easy to follow for building the hinges. The hinges were constructed and here you see the top and bottom view of the ramps.

As always I'll go back at the end and dress up the scuffs from where the MDF parts were removed from their frame. Reaper "Nut Brown" is almost a perfect match to the seared brown edges.

I stood the building on end to line up the ramps the way I wanted and glued the hinges on. The ramps work as designed although I'm gonna have to dirty up the underside... not that the building should be deployed with the ramps in the upright position but... ya never know!

 Extra resin bits...

There are a couple of power supply panels that attach to the outside of the building, three fan covers, two vid screen frames, six light fixtures (I actually need seven but one seems to have escaped during the long Winter pause so I may need to fabricate on from the MDF Frame debris pile)

...and then came the five angular pod things... these took a minute to figure out but once I got looking at the spare MDF pile and how the ladders must attach to the building it became clear that these are Feet to support the building above ground level. Its interesting because these are optional resin bits but the ladders require the building to be elevated or the ladders would have to be cut down to fit.

Not shown are a handful of small resin vent covers that I ended up putting in the spare parts bin because the interior etched areas that they cover were not perforated like the main vents. I ended up wanting to keep the interior vent details all MDF and painted similarly. These covers won't go to waste though! Its always handy to have a few extra bits like those.

Next up... finish painting these extra resins and sort out the remaining MDF installation that wasn't covered in the Rough Guide. This is mostly exterior ladders and interior catwalks. I seem to be missing the steps for the catwalk access so I'll have to take another look round to see if they wandered off during he extended time this sat on my desk. At any rate I think general construction should be finished in one more session and then any additional weathering or detailing will be tackled. There is one spot on the outside of the building that just looks unfinished so I'll have to do something to dress that up.

Back to the desk!