custom Zoid: GunGustav

 This is the story of my tenth Zoids custom.  (completed September 2005)

In March 2004 Lambda Futile shared with Zoidsfans his Fritz Battle Train (see pic at left). I loved the concept and promptly bought a spare Gustav, with the intent of making my own version someday. In September 2005, during an orgy of Zoids darthing, I had my chance. I was about to paint my TriBrachios but decided to paint this project at the same time. But first, I had to work on the internal details...

Motor Modifications

A priority for this project was that the main guns move and the rotating radar feature be retained. The first step was to determine how both of these goals could be accomplished. After much study, I decided to relocate the crown gear (that rotates the radar) from the front center of the gearbox to the left rear. I cut a hole in the side of the gearbox and fabricated a new geartrain using a leftover gear from an old toy along with some of the original Gustav parts. I fabicated new mounts for the gears from Killer Dome and glued them to the side of the gearbox. Since Gustav has a lot of free space around the gearbox under the body shell, this approach works. It would be awkward to do this for most other zoids, since most other Zoids have closely fitting body shells.

This picture shows the center guns as installed. Originally I was going to rely on the shell segment movement to elevate the guns, however test runs showed the movement to be minimal. After a few trials I came up with this paper clip link activated by the shell movement rods. This new arrangement provides lots of elevation movement for the guns

This picture shows the installation of the relocated radar. Some pre-study was done to make sure the various mechanisms (gun, shell, radar) would not interfere with each other.

Paint and Final Assembly

The usual masking of shell pivot points was done to ensure free movement. I used the same general purpose satin green spray paint as TriBrachios. I added a pair of CP-04 guns on the shell. I used Empire and various Zoids  stickers and blackened the gun bores. As GunGustav rolls, the shell undulates, the center guns, elevate, and the radar rotates.