Ghibli: Future Boy Conan (Flying Jar)

Greg Baker
So, despite the fact that I have my hands full trying to finish my Tintin train, my Tintin dhow, my Tintin Mil-M1 and my Ghibli Ohm diorama (and trying to keep myself from starting another mini Tintin train...), I want to participate in the "Flying Machines of Unconventional Means GB" at whatifmodellers.com/index.php/board,192.0.html . So this seems like a good time to get started on a little build that's been rolling around in the back of my head for a while... Dr. Lao's Flying Jar from the ancient Hayalo Miyazaki (Ghibli) directed animated TV program, Future Boy Conan (1978). This will be epic... wether as a success or a fail, will remain to be seen!

Greg Baker
I should mention this will be 100% scrachbuit... starting with the party "popper" I got with my birthday cake last fall. I knew that little plastic cone would come in handy, so I'm glad I kept it after I pulled the string and it went "bang".

Patrick Hagelstein
I like the looks of it with the continuous window. Curious what you're up to this time. Good luck and enjoy! 🙂

Greg Baker
That window is really the killer part of the build. Very difficult (at least for me) to come up with a "no seam" solution to that bulging windscreen. I think (hope) I've got the solution as early test results seem positive. It might just take a few cracks at it to get right...

I also have something quite special planned, so we'll see if that works or not. Stay tuned!

Matthew A
At school I made a model of the ISS out of cardboard and bottle type party poppers.

Alec K
Engaging as always 👍. Taking a seat.

Greg Baker
Let's hope this lives up to my vision for it...😉

Martin Oostrom
Or rather our expectations 😉

Greg Baker
Ok, so I was out with the family today, minding my own business when I ran across some plastic noisemakers at a party supply shop. The shapes looked perfect for this flying jar, so I declared a do-over! A little bit of slicing and re-arranging was necessary but the plastic works perfectly with Tamiya cement, so with just a bit of putty, I now have a much better shaped base to work from. I love it when a plan comes together..l and then you throw that plan out the window when some random other thing works much better!😉

Martin Oostrom
The nutty professor!

Nathan Dempsey
I'm watching this one. Nice project!

Greg Baker
Heh... if this one works as I hope, it should blow your socks off... I know it's pretty humble so far, but stay tuned!

Alec K
What I like about Greg is the flexibility. Something new in a party shop during a family stroll? Sure! Conjure up a cool 3D model from bits of styrene and putty? Hell yeah!! All in a day's relaxation 👍

Patrick Hagelstein
One got to love Greg's creativity and way of thinking outside the box! 🙂

Greg Baker
Hehe. Thanks guys. I'm just trying to come up with creative solutions to solving some problems. The plastic noisemaker discovery was really handy, by cutting it into various slices and reassembling them, I've been able to come up with most of the main body. I also used my sob's pen top to smash mould a bubble shape for the bottom.

Chris Greathouse
Watching!

Bart Goesaert
idd, there something with the proportions, but some more cutting/pasting/sanding will do the trick... nice to see that everything is usable with some imagination...

Wim van der Luijt
Looking at pic #1 and #15 shows a distinctly different profile, the original has no cylindrical section whereas your version does

Martin Oostrom
You did pick a complex shape to form Greg. Hard work, but don't give up. Please?

Greg Baker
Wim, you are absolutely correct. It wasn't until I did the dry fit and assembled the main bits that I discovered I'd made a mistake in my calculations - basically I used the overall height as the height of the base, which made the whole thing look out of shape. I've corrected it and it looks much better now, but I've held off on taking a new pic because I've been struggling with the circular windscreen. It's a very tough shape to manage, especially clear. I spent a lot of time last night gazing into the candle, burning my fingers, and turning a very nice bit of clear tubing into a lumpy mess... 😄

Greg Baker
You're right Martin, this is very deceiving. It seems simple enough and if it was an out-of-box kit, it would be very very easy to put together. But scratchbuilding something that is all curves is quite difficult. I also had to use a creative method to determine the size. I basically took a picture of Dr. Lao (the pilot) standing. Assigned a guesstimate height of 190cm to him and then resized the picture to overlap the visible head-n-shoulders pose he's in while flying. Then, using that, I estimated the overall size of the vehicle. It's slightly angled, so I also did a bit of guessing on the final numbers.

Chris Greathouse
It needs more cowbell

Greg Baker
Who let you in here... ?

Alec K
LMAO 😄😄 😄

Bart Goesaert
ok, reversed cowbell then 😉

Greg Baker
Three nights in a row of nothing but melted plastic tube bits and burned fingers... I've got one more trick to try... and then I need another trick... the windscreen is going to be the death of me...

Bart Goesaert
whats the diameter that you need?

Greg Baker
Thanks guys. The diameter of the top and bottom pieces is about 32mm, so since it's doughnut shaped, I'm thinking about 35 - 37mm at its widest point. I've looked at every plastic bottle I can find, but all of them are deceptively big. I've also thought about glass blowing of some description but given it's only about 15mm in height, I need some way to shape precisely.

Greg Baker
I still think I'm on the right track, I just need to find the right negative mould. The first one I used was too rubbery. When heat is applied the Tamiya tires go soft and a bit gooey, which makes things more difficult. I thought using a wooden plug was the answer but it's 1-2mm smaller than the inner diameter of the tube, so getting it to sit still is a challenge and then because the plastic expands with heat, the problem gets worse, not better. There were some wooden rings I saw at the local art supply store that I want to try, but I'm bringing my ruler this time to check the sizing properly. My eyeballs only get me so far...😉

Alec K
Challenging problem! I would think that using a positive shape to vacu-form the windscreen around it may be worth considering, provided the correct round piece of clear plastic suitable to vacu-forming can be found (pharmacy may be a place to look). The positive shape could be made from wood from scratch (rough-shaped from block and sanded while attached to a mandrel using a drill press or hand drill). The vacu-forming could be done by inserting the shape (attached to a rod) into the plastic round shape (small bottle?), heated, and using a vacuum cleaner attached to one end (the other end plugged), vacu-form the plastic around the wooden mold.

Greg Baker
Ok... I admit defeat... but I have another idea... time for plan... G!

Bart Goesaert
Mmmh, stupid idea maybe. Do you have a ring with the right diameter, like the curtain ring? Find a clear bottle, place the ring inside (cut out bottom, fix it at some place, closer the bottom again as good as possible), heat the bottle and suck it vacuum with a vacuum cleaner?

Greg Baker
Not a stupid idea, that was plan "C". That is precisely what those wooden rings were for. I ended up flattening the bottle out and getting a partial indentation, usually with the ring comming loose and dancing around for a bit inside the bottle first.

It's an extremely easy concept that is maddeningly difficult to achieve. Part of the problem is the folds of excess plastic. Move too fast and the plastic bunches up at the "corners", too slow and the heating and stretching of one part undoes what you just heated and stretched elsewhere.

Bart Goesaert
do you have a heat gun (as for stripping paint) maybe heating like that and stretching manually (gloves) to have a region without these folds. It can be hard to avoid these, but I've found that it can be avoided by changing the way of work ... (other pull direction...) That memory of the plastic is equally a blessing and a mayor pain in the ...

Spanjaard
How can I miss this? 🙂

Greg Baker
Ok... if at first, second, third... fifth... you don't succeed... you go to the fashion market in Seoul and buy some clear plastic rings. I'm not sure what they're supposed to be for... belt buckles or strap adjustment on a bag... I dunno. Whatever they're supposed to be used for, they're now being used as the windscreen for my flying jar. I was hoping to detail out the cockpit, but perhaps it's for the best that the clear parts are so thick, since the magnets are bigger than I thought and I may have to hide them inside...

Greg Baker
Moving right along... the secret weapon part of the build finally showed up from China, via eBay. My do-it-yourself bag of electronic bits. Hopefully I have deciphered the Chinese instructions well enough to build my own electromagnet... it took a LOT of soldering little itty bitty resistors, transistors and coils but fingers crossed I didn't screw anything up. If this works the way I hope, it's going to be epic.😉

Nathan Dempsey
Seriously epic!!!! I bow deeply in your direction.

Greg Baker
Epic success... or epic fail... it's been teetering back and forth for a while now... too early to call it though.

Matthew A
It's going to fly !?!

Greg Baker
Well... float... I hope. If it flies, it's because I pitched the whole thing across the room in a fit of rage. 🙂

Nathan Dempsey
Just the thought and the attempt are worth great praise in my opinion.

Tom ...
Weird, I thought I was following... Interesting to see if this works. Very exciting indeed!

Stephan H.
Awesome idea. Is it going to float in one place or can you code some sort of movement with the controller? My imagination just went crazy considering the possibilities that come with adjustable magnetic field 🙂 . Best of luck 👍

Greg Baker
No... if I'm lucky it'll just float in place (and maybe spin). The way this works is that the electromagnetic coils are constantly switching on and off to keep the magnets steady. The four side magnetic "towers" hold the object within the field, so there's no way to program a pathway... unless, I suppose I put the whole contraption on a slider or something.

Daniel Klink
Is this the real life? - Is this just fantasy?
Anyway the wind blows doesn't really matter to Greg. toho Greg!
Fantastic Mate just fantastic 👍👍

Greg Baker
Man... you must be reading my mind... I was just reading an article about Queen coming to Korea... and then you quote Bohemian Rhapsody... 😛

Spanjaard
well, i was wondering how you were going to display this one, but i certainly did not expect if floating in mid air! cool idea.
I remember a kit of a F-18 Flying on a magnet (1/144 i think)... but i believe it was hold by several strings coming from different directions to avoid it flying away i guess.... yours seems a lot more powerful probabaly 🙂

Bart Goesaert
these I remember to. From revell I suppose. very interested into where this is going. Do need to specify the weight when buying such a kit?

Spanjaard
are you going to leave transparent the ring as it is, or will you be sanding it down to have a short of cockpit. a lathe (i wish i could have one), could help hollowing that ring.....

Matthew A
Careful with those electro magnets, you may accidentally make some kind of super weapon that could destroy the surface of the Earth.

Greg Baker
Ahhh... so you HAVE watched Future Boy Conan...😉

The electromagnet is now assembled, but as expected, things are not running smoothly. While it seems to be working (based on the hum it makes), I can't seem to get the magnets stable and sit properly. There are two dials (30-turn potentiometers) that are supposed to centre the magnets front to back and side to side (x/y axis). I started at 15 for each, but no amount of fiddling seems to work. I also tried to re-solder the sensors in the middle and move them down a bit as the instructions warn if they're too high it will be unstable, but no luck so far.

The fiddling continues...

Tom ...
There's nothing like debugging electronics! Good luck.

Greg Baker
The debugging continues. Maybe there's a loose connection somewhere, I dunno.

Anyway, in the meantime, I had to finish off some details for the top part - basically the four little bulbs on top. I just happened to find some tiny little spoons at the local arts/crafts market - basically plastic cutlery that's intended for the "scale modelling of cute deserts". I'm pretty sure the lady that sold them to me has no idea I intended to cut the the stems off and use them as a detail pack for my flying jar project.😉

Matthew A
Perfect I had wondered how you would that bit.

Matthew A
Dare I ask how this one is going - have you chopped it and made it into bread?

Greg Baker
We're "taking a break"... I needed one after fiddling with the magnets for so long with no success. I'm not even quite sure how to debug it. I thought the problem might be the sensors were sitting too high (which can make the magnetic field unstable), so I lowered them, but it didn't seem to do much.

Perhaps I should try again... use the old "stare at it long enough and it fixes itself" technique.

Tom ...
Remember to "jiggle" the wires....

Greg Baker
If you do that too long, you'll go blind... 🙂

Greg Baker
So, THIS is where I left this project... man, it took a while to find.

Nathan Dempsey
Do it! Do it!

Matthew A
It's been floating around for some time

Tom ...
Yeah, I was hoping it'd get off the ground by now.

Chris Greathouse
I have a wrist rocket with newly broken in rubber straps... How high do you want it to fly 😛 jk

Chaz Gordon
I have this vision of you sitting working on the magnets, frustrated that nothing is working, meanwhile, your neighbours are sheltering under their coffee table as the contents of their knife drawer inexplicably circle overhead.

Spanjaard
LOL 😄 😄

Greg Baker
Chaz wins! That made me laugh. I did get the replacement part for the magnet - but since it wasn't really working before I snapped off the sensor, I doubt just putting a new one in the same spot will solve the issue. So, I think I might just "finish" it up as is for now. I also had a devil of a time getting the clear circular window set up, so I might just improvise that temporarily as well.

JD
Dammit Greg, I can't resist your animal magnetism any longer... 😛

Greg Baker
oooo... and JD snatches away Chaz's victory at the last second... looks like we're still in the race~

Chaz Gordon
Are you completely attached to clear glass on this, or would a paint window solve the problems.

Chaz Gordon
Also, Greg, you need to step back from JD, what with your electromagnetic anomalies and his Time circuits, you could do some serious damage to history.

Greg Baker
I always take the harder road... the clear glass ring is more or less the signature bit of this contraption in my opinion... but getting it seamless... that's a real challenge.

Chaz Gordon
Or maybe you already have and we don't know it.
Frog has still always been the number one name for high quality kits right?

Chaz Gordon
You could cast a solid piece in epoxy clear from the wood ring as a pattern

Greg Baker
I've been thinking about that actually.

Chaz Gordon
Now would be a great time to learn glass blowing if that was on your bucket list

Greg Baker
Bwahahahanaha! I actually thought about using compressed air in that way... is plastic blowing a thing?

Spanjaard
maybe nobody tried before and you will be famous now 🙂

Uwe Kaeding
Greg - its called blow moulding, basically the opposite of vacuum moulding - you need a female mould, heated plastic sheet and compressed air. We did in high school plastics shop, with acrylic sheet, but just making simple bowls. You would probably need a 2 part mould to remove the finished piece though...

Chaz Gordon
It's how Airfix Diorama bases used to be made

Bart Goesaert
nice to see this one revive...