RE: Modeling Solar Sail Ships

I've had the same thought bouncing around my head since I picked up FT 
these many years gone by.  I've never gotten around to modeling them,
but 
some ideas have come up.  First - go to the best hardware store you can 
reach.	These things are the greatest source for spare parts &
kitbashing. 
 There was a part I saw once, that was near perfect.  It was a very flat

cone, maybe 5-6 cm across, with the point cut off so that a 1cm hole was
in 
the middle.  Laid flat, it was no more than 1 cm high.	It was light
metal 
(aluminum?), so with some good mounting (heavy wire for the cables & a
good 
glue) it would make a great sail.  You realize that you'll need two of
each 
mini, for furled & unfurled sails?  I don't know what the real function
of 
the part was, or what it was called, but you should be able to find 
something good at a hardware store.

Noah

-----Original Message-----
From:	Mark A. Siefert. [SMTP:cthulhu@csd.uwm.edu]
Sent:	Monday, August 24, 1998 05:40 PM
To:	Full Thrust Mailing List
Subject:	Modeling Solar Sail Ships

Hello:
	OK, here's a tough one!
	I've been thinking of trying to create a fleet of solar sail
type
vessels. (Don't ask me why, we miniature gamers like to think of such
things.)  However, I've hit one snag:  How in the heck do I model the
actual "sail."	First I thought of using plastic wrap glued to a frame
of some sort, but I disarded that quickly because it was transpartent
and it would sag and look very sloppy.	Tin foil was my next thought.
But that's too heavy and would look horrible if wrinkled.  Mylar would
be best if I could find a way to make it fit snuggly against the model's
sail frame.  Does anyone have any thoughts?
--
Later,
Mark A. Siefert

	The foundation of collectivism is simple: There should be no
important
economic differences among people. No one should be too rich. No one
should be
too poor. We should "close the wealth gap."  This is a very powerful
idea.
This is a very common idea.  This is a very bad idea.

				     --P.J. O'Rourke
				       From his speech "Closing the
Wealth Gap"
				       Shanghai, China.  1997

cthulhu@csd.uwm.edu		 http://www.uwm.edu/~cthulhu/index.html
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