Thunderbird 2
by lego@schooner.com


My goal is to make a large scale Thunderbird 2 with exchangable pods.
I've several people for inspiration:

	Liberty has an awesome TB2 from the movie here
	(except he had no green bricks)
	http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=175500

	bccook has a nice TB2 here, although the pod is way out of scale
	http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=180547


I've been collecting green bricks and plates for a while.  I've already made
a Thunderbird 2 pod to scale of my Thunderbird 4:

	1st version:	Only the front face exists
	http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=184090

	2nd version:	Partial right side, inside roof and partial rear wall
	http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=195016

	3rd version:	Full right side
	http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=195015

The scale on that pod compared to my TB4 is slightly off; the pod should be
 bigger...  or the TB4 smaller.  You can see that very clearly here:

	http://freespace.virgin.net/derek.eaton/tb2tb41.jpg
	http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v428/Virgil_Tracy/Thunderbird%204/
	http://smg.photobucket.com/albums/v428/Virgil_Tracy/Thunderbird%204/?action=view&current=tb4rescue.jpg&refPage=&imgAnch=imgAnch17


And, the 3rd version of the pod had the shape all wrong -- it was just a long
version of the pod face.  You can see that clearly in these pictures:

	http://www.martinbowersmodelworld.com/html/thunderbird_2.html
	http://www.martinbowersmodelworld.com/tb2photo3.JPG
	http://homepages.tesco.net/d.sisson/tb2.htm
	

Even though the scale is off compared to my TB4, the front face of my pod has
a perfect profile.  My plan is to try to build a TB2 to match the pod.  I'm not sure I have enough green!


First thing I did was to disassemble all of the pod body, and then map out
the correct shape and size.  I got great help doing that from David Sisson's
scratchbuilding page (http://homepages.tesco.net/d.sisson/tb2.htm) and the
computer models greated by GAMMA (http://www.aiai.ed.ac.uk/~bat/GA/GAMMA/).
GAMMA member Andrew Stampalia created a creat set of blueprints in Autodesk,
which he made available here:
	http://www.users.bigpond.com/bugcatcher/temp/test_renders.htm

It was from his tb2-plan.dwf that I created the tb2-plan.pdf; I've used
that for all my dimensions (see tb2-scale.xls).


protopod1.jpg, protopod2.jpg, and protopod3.jpg show the old pod face
with the pod body framed out.  I'm really not going to have enough green!

framework.jpg, prototype2.jpg, prototype3.jpg, and prototype4.jpg
show a prototype I made of the front fuselage.  I started with the mid-
footprint (just around where the air rams should be) and built up.  The
base is in the right shape, but I goofed up on the slope.  I'll likely be
taking this apart.


Did I mention I don't think I will have enough green?