[GZG] Re: Model Planets and figs

21 posts ยท Aug 19 2005 to Aug 21 2005

From: Andreas Udby <javelin98@l...>

Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2005 11:35:38 -0800

Subject: [GZG] Re: Model Planets and figs

One thing I'd like to try is making a ringed planet. I'd toyed with
using a blank CD-R -- cutting the planet in half and gluing the CD-R in
the middle, leaving a nice shiny ring around the outside. What else could we
use?

On a related note, I'm scratchbuilding a Halo/Ringworld right now, using
wooden cross-stitch hoops.  Should turn out to be interesting, at least.

Andreas

Spokane, WA, USA
http://home.comcast.net/~kudby

From: Roger Books <books@m...>

Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2005 16:27:43 -0400

Subject: Re: [GZG] Re: Model Planets and figs

Stargrunt or Dirtside scale?:)

From: Doug Evans <devans@n...>

Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2005 15:40:52 -0500

Subject: Re: [GZG] Re: Model Planets and figs

Andreas wrote on 08/19/2005 02:35:38 PM:

> One thing I'd like to try is making a ringed planet. I'd

I LOVE this! I just wish I'd kept the last bad blank we got here at work; the
CD doesn't get the shiny layer, just a clear disk. I'd have to try scratches
to indicate thin rings, even twisted ones!

> On a related note, I'm scratchbuilding a Halo/Ringworld

Don't those usually have metal clamps at the overlaps? Sounds like a road trip
to Hobby Lobby! Hmm... mounting on bases should be interesting...

Thanks!

The_Beast

From: Gregory Wong <sax@s...>

Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2005 13:48:41 -0700 (PDT)

Subject: Re: [GZG] Re: Model Planets and figs

Welcome to the planet AOL. You get 1125.4378 hours free. B:)

--Greg

> On Fri, 19 Aug 2005, Andreas Udby wrote:

> One thing I'd like to try is making a ringed planet. I'd toyed with
http://r.lycos.com/r/yp_emailfooter/http://yellowpages.lycos.com/default
.asp?SRC=lycos10
> _______________________________________________

From: Don M <dmaddox1@h...>

Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2005 15:54:54 -0500

Subject: Re: [GZG] Re: Model Planets and figs

Stargrunt or Dirtside scale?:)

In Dirtside scale... About the size of Detroit

Stargrunt scale... About the size of Asia

Hope you have a few long weekends.....;-)

From: Roger Books <books@m...>

Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2005 17:02:45 -0400

Subject: Re: [GZG] Re: Model Planets and figs

Is that the One True(TM) Stargrunt Scale or that "other" Stargrunt Scale.

Roger

> On 8/19/05, Don M <dmaddox1@hot.rr.com> wrote:

From: Doug Evans <devans@n...>

Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2005 16:07:39 -0500

Subject: Re: [GZG] Re: Model Planets and figs

Remember, the Ringworld was the diameter of an orbit, not a planet. I'm
crunching numbers, and may have missed a decimal or three, but, using Chris's
1" = 1000 km., I don't think Michigan is big enough at FT scale.
;->=

The_Beast

Don wrote on 08/19/2005 03:54:54 PM:

> Stargrunt or Dirtside scale? :)

From: Doug Evans <devans@n...>

Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2005 16:13:56 -0500

Subject: Re: [GZG] Re: Model Planets and figs

Smashing figures again, it's down to between 4-5 miles in diameter, well
within Detroit. At a common FT scale, that is.

Dirtside...? *whew*

The_Beast

Don wrote on 08/19/2005 03:54:54 PM:

> Stargrunt or Dirtside scale? :)

From: Don M <dmaddox1@h...>

Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2005 16:19:23 -0500

Subject: Re: [GZG] Re: Model Planets and figs

Is that the One True(TM) Stargrunt Scale or that "other" Stargrunt Scale.

Roger

The other......I didn't want to push it....)

From: Don M <dmaddox1@h...>

Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2005 16:20:42 -0500

Subject: Re: [GZG] Re: Model Planets and figs

Remember, the Ringworld was the diameter of an orbit, not a planet. I'm
crunching numbers, and may have missed a decimal or three, but, using Chris's
1" = 1000 km., I don't think Michigan is big enough at FT scale.
;->=

The_Beast

I was thinking a small "our moon sized" planet.......)

From: db-ft@w... (David Brewer)

Date: Sat, 20 Aug 2005 00:37:26 +0100

Subject: Re: [GZG] Re: Model Planets and figs

> Doug Evans wrote:

I have plenty of disks like this. Bulk CD-Rs often come with them
at the top and bottom of the stack. I use them as coasters.

Perhaps the foil could be removed from a blank CD-R in rings, if
it was scored around first with a compass point.

From: db-ft@w... (David Brewer)

Date: Sat, 20 Aug 2005 00:37:50 +0100

Subject: Re: [GZG] Re: Model Planets and figs

> Doug Evans wrote:

Whereas Masaq' Orbital from Iain M Banks's unfortunate pre-9/11
novel "Look to Windward" was smaller, and orbited a sun as a planet did.

From: Doug Evans <devans@n...>

Date: Fri, 19 Aug 2005 18:52:01 -0500

Subject: Re: [GZG] Re: Model Planets and figs

Not familiar with that; in a sense, the Ringworld orbited 'as a planet did',
but I'm not sure how you mean it in Masaq. Is it a flat piece facing the sun,
in orbit? If so, how does it simulate gravity?

Oh, and I'm curious as to how it was unfortunate.

The_Beast

David Brewer wrote on 08/19/2005 06:37:50 PM:

> Doug Evans wrote:

From: Steve Pugh <steve@p...>

Date: Sat, 20 Aug 2005 01:21:07 +0100

Subject: Re: [GZG] Re: Model Planets and figs

> On 19 Aug 2005 at 18:52, Doug Evans wrote:

Orbitals are mini-rings that orbit stars as a unit. They're angled so
that the ring itself produces a night/day cycle. See Banks' essay "A
Few Notes on the Culture"
<url:http://www.vavatch.co.uk/books/banks/cultnote.htm> for details.
They provide a much better mass:area ratio than planets without being as mind
boggling huge as rings.

The physics as presented is okay, although the engineering is left as an
exercise for future generations (much like with rings).

One neat feature for DS2/SG2 players is that the "gravity" is
centrifiugal and hance anti-grav devices don't work (see 'Consider
Phlebas' for a messy example). So you have very high tech armies with no grav
vehicles.

From: db-ft@w... (David Brewer)

Date: Sat, 20 Aug 2005 04:04:11 +0100

Subject: Re: [GZG] Re: Model Planets and figs

> Doug Evans wrote:

It's a "small" ring (small relative to the Ringworld, so about
planet-size-ish) in a planet-like orbit around the sun, that
rotates for "gravity". Cheaper than an artificial planet.

> Oh, and I'm curious as to how it was unfortunate.

The Culture (eg the West) has interfered disastrously and unnecessarily with a
less liberal, more religious space culture plunging it into bloody civil war.
Divinely appointed vengeance arrives on Masaq' Orbital in the form of a
suicidal terrorist intending to destroy it. The novel is not unsympathetic to
the terrorist.

From: Richard Kirke <richardkirke@h...>

Date: Sat, 20 Aug 2005 07:05:06 +0000

Subject: RE: [GZG] Re: Model Planets and figs

You might do better to colour (paint maybe, not sure) the clear plastic
non-cd that tends to come at the top of a pack of CDrs. This would allow
you to have a gap between planet and ring. Though a CD would give a nice
shiney ring.

Richard

> From: "Andreas Udby" <javelin98@lycos.com>

From: David Billinghurst <davebill@c...>

Date: Sat, 20 Aug 2005 19:33:00 +1200

Subject: [GZG] Re: Model Planets and figs

Hi Andreas,

A ringed planet from CD-Rs - good thought!

I toyed with the idea of doing a ring for one of my 'hemisphere' gas giants. I
wanted to do it tilted off the 'plane of the elliptic' and had been
thinking of clear plastic sheat cut in a 'U'-shape.  Ideally, the
planetary hemisphere would sit on a base and the ring would also be attached
to the base, with a gap between it and the surface of the planet. Dust the
ring with sand on PVA and then dry brush in shades of grey and white.

Well, that was the plan. Maybe next planet:)

Oh, re my comment about messy polystyrene. Lacking a hot wire cutter, in the
past I have tended to use a steak knife and sandpaper when modeling in
polystyrene (islands and reefs, etc, for Nap Naval). Effective, but you do end
up with your personal snow storm that tends to adhere to things at random due
to the static charge.:)

Regards

David

> From: "Andreas Udby" <javelin98@lycos.com>

From: Roger Books <books@m...>

Date: Sat, 20 Aug 2005 10:58:52 -0400

Subject: Re: [GZG] Re: Model Planets and figs

I picked up my hot wire cutter from Wal-Mart for under $5 US.  I can
only
hope the all-consuming Wally-World has not made it there yet but you
should be able to get one inexpensively. If not there are plans on the net for
making one. The main ingredients are nichrome(sp?) wire and a power supply.

From: Michael Brown <mwbrown@s...>

Date: Sat, 20 Aug 2005 17:21:01 -0700

Subject: RE: [GZG] Re: Model Planets and figs

I picked mine up at Michael's. In essence it is 2 D cells and a
ni-chrome
wire.

Michael Brown mwsaber@comcast.net
(707) 763-1708
(707) 344-1075

[quoted original message omitted]

From: Doug Evans <devans@n...>

Date: Sat, 20 Aug 2005 21:04:45 -0500

Subject: RE: [GZG] Re: Model Planets and figs

I assumed you were talking Wonder Cutter. That's a VERY thin wire. The more
expensive sets tend to have thicker, stronger wire.

You can do fine things with a Wonder Cutter, just have to have more
patience than I, or you'll snap the wire, at a buck or two a crack. ;->=

On the other hand, my OOP Gobi's won't break, but if I rush 'em, they just
make that many more strings and build up glops of melted PS.

The_Beast

> I picked mine up at Michael's. In essence it is 2 D cells and a

From: Evyn MacDude <infojunky@c...>

Date: Sun, 21 Aug 2005 07:59:26 +0100

Subject: Re: [GZG] Re: Model Planets and figs

> Roger Books wrote:

Hell Nichrome is nice but stainless steel e strings work as well.