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Nixie sent me a set of the Radar Dish to build as a test.

The laser cut MDF is very crisp and presice. The disign work looks very good. Parts fit good. The Instruction is pretty basic at the time, but an upgrade is on the way as I read it.

Fist thirst thing was getting everything out of the sheet. The nob's holding the parts in place are tiny. Laser cutting MDF works better then I thought in would.
Then sanding the nobs away so I can get on with putting the dish together.
The frame was dry fitted, and looks the buisnes...

Looks pretty interesting .

The frame goes together as a dream. The interlocks fit perfect, but could be a ittle bigger on the threestanding frame pieces, like on the end parts. A rubber band to keep it together while gluing is all that is needed. The stairs do not even need a rubber band. Al you need there is a square angle while glueing.

The stairs were indeed a complete non iseu. This was easy.
Supergleu is all I used by the way to gleu the entire cunstruction so far.

The swivel mount for the dish is a thee piece thing that also only fit's one way. Now to see what to do with the extra bit's that are not on the instruction. But with mounting the fave of the dish I got into a problem. The fraile face broke while I was bending it into the the frame. ( the first pic was rubbish, so there's only a pic from after I fixed it.
When painted it should barely show after paint, but when you look at it from the top you might see a little deformation og the radius.

The tower is dificult to allign, a tool for this would be handy.
A simple frame wich would interlinck with the notches witch also hold the stairs or other segments in place would be easy for this.

The break does not show to much indeed.

For size there's a Killa kan in the front ot the tower. It's a quite large piece of scenery.

All in all a fast build. No real issues.
Now on to paint....

I must devise a better way of bending the radar dish...that's unacceptable for a kit. ^^U

It might be awkward to line up in the cutter, but could you do half-depth cuts on the 'other' side of the radar arms?

It would add to the cutter running time of course, but might allow a smoother curve.

You could always do the selected parts in lasercut styrene.

If you could cut it out of styrene, that would solve your problem. Is it possible to laset cut styrene???

 Sanka wrote:
If you could cut it out of styrene, that would solve your problem. Is it possible to laset cut styrene???

yes you can, but it is very easy to burn.

I only know this because I had someone cut some circles out for me a few months back. It worked great, and once you had it set right it would be fine

Yep, the setup can be a bit fiddly, but once you get the power right, it's good. You can lasercut very thick plastics too - I think one shop guy mentioned they've done up to 20mm thick acrylic sheet.

I have cut styrene and...well, let's say is not as wonderfully workable as acrylic. XD Also, I have just thought that I can do the radar bendy part with thick cardboard wich will bend easily, will be more to scale and can be a lot more detailed, to me it's a win-win XD! Once my laser is in working condition again, Sanka and I will do another radar dish trial.
In the meantime, I really want to see, whenever that is, the painted tower.

Ah, I also increased column thickness by 0,5mm, and now the beams look as good, but are stronger. (the one in the middle)

The thin ones are already realy strong. The triangular construction sees to that. Glued together the tower easely holds a kilo or more.

so the 1.5mm should be realy strong. looking forward to number two....

Pics of the paintjob wil probably follow comming weekend. I'm touching up the base coat right now. real paint wil probably start thursday.

The dish holds paint realy well.
MDF that's 16mm thick fluff's up, and this does not.
Now are my painting skills nothing special, but here it is...

This looks like a great piece of terrain/equipment. Are these available for sale?

Niiiice!

As for sale, the radar dish needs more work to be mounting friendly (his broke, as you can see). And the dish base could probably use some work on a techie stand instead of those hexagonal/circular parts...