Angelus Rising Part III: Of Horns and Wings

The Angelus Horn.  Like in most kits, the V-fins and horns are often the most easiest to modify or customize.  These are identifiers of those MS designs that sport them, and is most variable in protagonist machines.  The Sinanju's stock horn is very basic and is similar to the "stabilizer fin" of most Zakus and seem out of place in a slew of curvy and massive armor plates.

Scratchbuilding master Julius "Juju" Lim built a whole Sinanju using an MG Saz as a base which was also featured later on in an Issue of Dengeki.  I kinda like how he remodeled the Sinanju's horn and made it look organic.

But, rather than copy his redesign, I opted to design mine own that follows the Angelic theme I had in mind, well, sort of.  I usually start with a sketch, and with trial and error prototyping, arrived at this semi-final shape.

I will bulk up the lower part following the original design to give the horn a bit more umph.

Test fit.

More Prototyping dilemmas.  Like my Impaler Wing design, I encountered a few problems with the new wing prototype.  The idea looks good on "paper," that is, I made a main wing case which encapsulates a secondary wing case with encapsulates the smallest wing.  I made these wings out of 1.0mm Plaplates (and a 2mm beam to encapsulate the mid wing).

The wing spreads out and fold in perfectly, but the combined weight of the mechanism is too heavy for the back connector to hold up the entire wing especially when it's fully spread (though the gear system and the dual swivels worked perfectly).

I managed to make the hinge tighter by cementing a small strip of 0.5mm plaplate inside the connecting hole, but, I still wouldn't risk it giving way from natural wear and tear due to friction.

So I rethought the idea, often making movies in my head right before I sleep, and the solution actually came to me in a dream.

I reconsidered the fold-out mechanism used for the original Impaler wings where I employed a "simple" concentric hole and peg differential swivel that will either open by action of gravity when the main wing was spread out, or with a spring, but later on scrapped the idea again because of the overall flimsiness of the design.

The gear system worked so far in holding up the wing even with the prototype, so I designed a new differential system using the flesh-colored Tamiya gears.  In 4WD, these gears are mounted on the wheel shafts and turn the wheels via power transfers from the gear system.  To achieve what I had in mind, I made a "gear box" and mounted the gears on the 1st and third wing blade.  These in turn are mounted onto the middle wing blade which act as face plate for the gear box.  A secondary face plate completes the mechanism.  I also made the wings more angelic than demonic, but will add detail later on.

With this design I was able to reduce the weight was to a bit les than half that of the prototype.  Right now, the wing mechanism can open up as wide to make a letter "Y" when unmounted. The spread can be limited by how much I open it when it is mounted on the main wing.  I'll give it more "volume" in terms of "feathers" later.

Test fit;  With the wings folded in...

    

...and spread out.

Strike a pose!

More later!