Toymaker versus DC23 face-off WIP - basic butt shape

I wanted to start on this project a bit for a couple of days now but I eventually gave in to the urge after seeing this thread at ZeroGunz! Initially Kenny Lim aka Toymaker and I agreed to build a conversion of the O II Hauer. Kenny eventually thought of creating and designing his own version as he mentioned in his post. Our initial take off date is June 2011, but I just had to ride the mood to at least build the basic shape of the butt.

I had a chat with Kenny earlier today and I asked if I could start building mine which is 3 months earlier than the original date. He told me it is ok but he can't start on his own yet, I just feel I had to ask his permission as I think working on it earlier than the agreed date would be cheating.

I won't be working much on this kit though as I still have a lot of other Gunpla projects. As I've said, I just have to ride the mood and at least build the basic shape of the butt of the O II Hauer. Anyways, this is made of a 1mm pla plate that was forcefully bended to form the shape.

The butt of my The O II will be 8 inches long, 5 inches wide on the widest part and 3 1/2 inches on the tallest part. I have reinforced the basic shape with strips of .5mm pla plates to help retain the shape of the butt. I will have to pile up or build up on the pla plate strips to make sure the shape is intact once I remove the tapes and clamps.

I hope to build up enough .5mm pla plate strips and form a really hard shell once the cement has cured. Once I have the shell, I could do anything with it as I won't worry with the butt loosing it's shape anymore. Now here are a handful of photos showing the basic shape of the butt...

Thanks for dropping by! Til' next post! :)

EDIT: I laid down and piled up more .5mm pla plate strips after dinner, and I have used 2 a4 sized sheets of Tamiya plates. I think this will be really strong by tomorrow morning when the cement has cured on the layers of pla plates.

However I did some experiment and added a thick layer of Epoxy on the corners. I am pretty confident that unlike Tamiya putty, the epoxy won't melt the pla plates and it will give me a stronger material once it has cured in 2 - 3 days.

I am now thinking of putting a thin layer of epoxy all through out the inner side of the butt. I am basically just making sure that I would come up with a really hard shell so that I can do anything with it in terms of modifications and detailing. A hard shell would allow me to bore large holes, cut some parts and scribe panel lines without worrying that the butt would lose it's shape.

P.S. I got the idea of using epoxy from my post of the StarCraft Marine construction by Flanela

As always, thanks for dropping by! Til' next update! :)