Building plasma generator coils

I started cutting and gluing the plasma generator coils yesterday and discovered quite early on that a) my sizing was off and b) I was almost out of 0,5 mm foamboard. Well I still had plenty of 0,3 mm and I decided to just make the model about twice as broad.

I started by cutting the base of the main generator and the 'concrete' spines.















The second step was cutting the cooling ribs from 0,1 mm plasticard (yes I recycle old plates used for my airbrushing course).











I proceeded to make the required fifteen cuts in the base of the generator, intending to stick the plasticard cooling ribs in. The attempt to do this in 0,3mm foamboard ended in a mess of broken foamboard, so I used a bit of the scarce 0,5 mm foamboard....which also ended in a mess of broken foamboard (pictured right)

As this was quite obviously not the way to go, I switched tack and decided to alternate gluing 0,3mm foamboard strips with 1mm plasticard ribs in a new base for the generator. I started with half a foamboard strip to get the spacing of the first rib right with my drawing.

Now this, in my very humble opinion, actually works. By smearing some glue to the top of the housing I actually managed to keep it all more or less in order and upright (glue stained fingers and frequently shifting plates not pictured).

This went on at a reasonable pace until I wanted to start with the third row. As even my untrained eyes quickly spotted that there was no way to fit it. This is a bit strange. Every set of ribs consists of five 1mm plasticards ribs and five 3mm bits of foamboard (actually six, but the first and the last are 1,5 mm). So that would give me three ribs at 6 cm and two concrete spines at 1 cm (0,5mm each). The entire base is 8 cm big, so it should all fit. But somehow it doesn't. Personally I blame Tzeentch, but it probably has more to do with some space lost due to the thickness of glue (or a massive measurement/calculating error on my side).

Anyways I decided to close of the third compartment with some plasticard (will make this look better when the glue is truly dry.

As you can see I also started working with the decorations on the side. The power cables are made from oversized drinking straws. I also had to change the scale here a bit.

The final bit I'm working on is the platform on the back, in the new oversized state it is slightly too big for my taste. And I'm working on the boxes that will go on the right (also slightly too big, and these have been glued together badly, so I will probably redo these (or decorate them).
 

Next step, finding a clear plastic tube with a diameter of around 2 cm. Then making a wall (the easy part), more power cables, and a base (the very easy part).

Oh as to the scaling. The wall is intended to be about four centimeters high. That makes it big enough to hide a dreadnought behind it. The roof of the generator should be big enough to give a 5 man squad an elevated position for shooting and the base should not exceed sizes of around 8 cm by 16 cm so it doesn't dominate the table.