"Yes, but will it fly Jim?"

Strange title, but bear with me :)

About a year ago my son handed me one of his toy guns and asked me to fix it."Of course I will my son, what else am I here for?" I said :P

So, after stripping it down and having good look at it I soon realised that it was too far gone. All the internals were worn out from all the pretend combat that it had seen. Time for the bin I thought? But wait, hang on a minute! On closer inspection, with my miserly kitbashing goggles firmly fixed in place, I spied a "space-shippy" kinda thing hidden within the shape of the gun.

And this is where my journey began, almost a year ago. I've been plugging away at this, on and off, while completing other projects. Want to know more? Read on.......

Ooooooh, I can see a spaceship in there, I just know it.

With a bit of hamfisted photo editing magic, this is what I came up with.

So, out came the butchering modelling tools and I set to work.

These sections were going to be used as the landing gear hatches.

I wanted the body of the ship to be much wider than the engine pod.

So, I spaced all the screws holes out with plastic tube. And installed longer screws to compensate.

The top handle for the gun got transformed into a window, ala cardboard backed up with plastic for proper alignment.

Next up was the engine pod. I fixed a plastic tube along the entire length of it.

Then I added a plastic shower rail section into the body of the Spaceship. This had the exact I.D. of the engine pods pipe O.D. 

Starting to make sense now? The engine pod fucks the spaceship but good!

After that mechanical sexual encounter was over, this is what the Spaceship looks like.

Next up was the landing gear. the trickiest part of the build I must say. Trying to find something that would have the right
geometry, as well as the required strength, was quite a task.

In the end, I opted for a set of quad-copter landing legs. Cheap, strong,
cheap, having the right geometry.......and cheap. 

Here's the ugly fuckers in place.

And here's me trying to figure out the correct angles for the entry hatch.

Getting there.

It was at this point that I took another look at the silhouette of the ship. It wasn't really "doing it" for me. The engine pod was looking too long, basically not bad arse enough for my liking. So, after all that work, getting it to mate up perfectly to the ship, I decided to go back to the drawing board.

I wanted something a little more subtle. A smaller, more rudimentary engine arrangement.

So I dug out these old toy bongo drums and set to work.

And I came up with this. Nothing too flashy, just an engine way too big to be technically feasible.....my sort of RT :) 

Coat hangers, speaker wire and toy bits were sacrificed at the kitbashing alter.

A yo-yo, plastic cup and a pen lid channel the thrust of this engine.....pretend like.

This is how I joined the wire together to fill in the empty spaces in the engine compartment. Hot glue to the rescue! 

I filled in the spaces between the two halves of the ship with old public transport cards, as you do.

Then I used body filler to fill in the spaces to the correct height.

Another tough part of the build, bulking out the legs. Their not finished yet, but you get the general idea :)

Remember the hatch angles I was playing with before? Well, this is the hatch at the moment. Gunna magnetise it I think.

So, this is the "used to be a gun, but now a spaceship" project as it stands today.

Next up is the landing gear bay doors, entry hatch, front window, a couple of turrets and a few other bits and bobs.

Stay frosty :)